MOSCOW, May 10. /TASS/. The renaming of Russia’s westernmost city of Kaliningrad as "Krolewiec" by the Polish authorities verges on madness, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.
"This is not even Russophobia any longer; these are processes that verge on madness that are taking place in Poland," Peskov said in commenting on the controversial decision by the Polish geographical standards body, as well as on an incident wherein the Russian ambassador to Poland was prevented from honoring the memory of fallen Soviet soldiers on Victory Day, May 9.
Peskov reiterated that throughout its history, "Poland has slipped from time to time into a form of madness driven by its hatred of the Russians." "This [phenomenon] has repeatedly recurred over many centuries, since the 16th-17th centuries and even earlier. It produces nothing good for Poland or the Poles," the spokesman summed up.
Earlier, the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that the official Polish commission on streamlining geographical names outside of Poland, under the country’s chief geodesist, decided that the Polish name "Krolewiec" would henceforth be used for Russia’s Kaliningrad.
On May 9, an aggressive crowd physically prevented Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev and other Russian diplomats from walking through the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw, where 22,000 Soviet soldiers and officers are buried, to lay wreaths at the monument.