MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. Moscow is issuing a targeted response to the Polish government’s decision to shut down the Russian Consulate General in Krakow, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Solovyov Live TV channel.
"We are now responding in a targeted manner to their inadequate actions. Our response is appropriate and guided by our national interests," Zakharova stated.
The diplomat also emphasized that by closing the Consulate General, the Polish government is mainly hurting its own citizens.
"In this case, as they shut down and announced the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Krakow, they are certainly acting against themselves. Whereas the consulate closures in 2022 were aimed at preventing those Ukrainian citizens who were fleeing, leaving, moving from Ukraine through Poland to get to Russia — and they had to do everything to prove that there are no Ukrainian citizens who want to come to Russia, who want to reunite with Russia — now, of course, they are harming their own citizens," the diplomat stated.
On May 12, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced his decision to close Russia’s consulate general in Krakow, citing the results of a domestic investigation indicating Russia’s alleged involvement in a major fire at a shopping mall on Marywilska Street in northern Warsaw in May 2024.
The closure of the Russian consulate in Krakow represents the second time Polish authorities have made unverified sabotage accusations against Moscow. In October 2024, Sikorski announced that the Russian Consulate General in Poznan would be closed amid claims of Moscow’s role in another arson incident in Wroclaw. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry closed the Polish consulate in St. Petersburg.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told TASS that Russia is considering shutting down the Polish Consulate General’s offices in the country’s westernmost city of Kaliningrad and in the Eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk in retaliation for Warsaw’s recent anti-Russian moves.