After Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreev could not lay a wreath at the Soviet Military Cemetery in Warsaw to commemorate Victory Day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced it would complain about the unfriendly approach from Poland.
Despite Polish authorities’ recommendation, the ambassador did not give up his plans to pay homage to the Soviet soldiers on Victory Day. But his plans were hampered by protestors who blocked the entrance to the cemetery.
“When we got out of the cars with wreaths and flowers, a crowd of protesters blocked the road,” Andreev said, as quoted by TASS.
“The police provided security, and there were no attempts to offend us through actions. Everything is fine, no one was hurt,” he added, calling the protest an “infringement of public order.”
For Moscow, the incident “does not change anything,” Andreev said, quoted by Gazeta.ru news outlet. Victory Day is “our holiday, which we celebrate with optimism, and no small or big dirty tricks can throw us off-balance,” he insisted.
The Russian Foreign Ministry announced it was going to issue a formal complaint to Poland over the incident, which it said was a provocation, an act of unfriendliness, and an insult to the memory of 600 thousand Soviet soldiers that lost their lives liberating Poland from the German occupation, the Ministry said in an official statement.
A year ago, when the ambassador made a similar attempt to lay a wreath in the same place on Victory Day, he was attacked by a few protesters, one of whom poured red paint over him as a symbol of the blood of Ukrainian war victims.
The incident from 2022 resonated in Russian state-dependent media, which presented it as evidence of alleged Russophobia in Poland. It was also a matter of discussion whether the police did enough to protect the ambassador, to which Poland is obliged under the 1961 Vienna Convention.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
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