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WARSAW, May 5 (AP) – Poland’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Friday in protest after a former Russian official suggested the assassination of Poland’s ambassador to Russia was acceptable.
Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s children’s ombudsman from 2009 to 2016, speaks on a television show hosted by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. He was being interviewed after Polish authorities took over a Warsaw school building for children of Russian diplomats and the military on Saturday.
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Astakhov argued that murdering the ambassador in retaliation was “an unfriendly act … within the framework of international law,” adding: “I was taught very well in the counterintelligence faculty of the KGB school.”
The school takeover is the latest of several incidents that have heightened tensions between Russia and Poland, an ally of Kiev that has been supplying Ukrainian troops with weapons.
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In an interview with Solovyov, Astakhov mentioned the confiscation of other properties in Poland, the freezing of Russian bank accounts, and the fact that last year an activist in Warsaw poured water on the Russian ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreyev. The event of the red liquid. Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau strongly condemned the incident at the time, calling it “deeply regrettable”.
Astakhov said that while Andreev was doused with the liquid, he waited to see “will they find the Polish ambassador floating in the Moskva River?”
In a statement, Poland’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Andreev and handed him a note of protest against Astakhov’s statement “calling for the murder of the ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Moscow.”
“The Polish side strongly protests the situation and urges immediate criminal proceedings to bring the perpetrators to justice without delay,” spokeswoman Lucas Yasina said.
Poland’s ambassador to Russia, Krzysztof Krajewski, has been under extra security since May 2022, Jasina said.
Poland has been the target of a recent series of inflammatory remarks by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy secretary-general of Russia’s Security Council, chaired by President Vladimir Putin.
In tweets later deleted by Twitter, Medvedev said on Saturday that he saw no point in maintaining diplomatic relations with Poland, adding: “This country must not exist for us because no one is in power except Russophobes , and Ukraine is full. Polish mercenaries should be ruthlessly wiped out like stinky rats.”
Polish anti-hate group Never Again has been following Medvedev’s comments and worked with a number of other groups to get Twitter to take them down, with mixed results.
The group’s director, Rafal Pankowski, said he thought some of Medvedev’s language was “genocidal” and worried that his comments, written in English for a global audience, could change perceptions of the war, making it less likely Russia is in favor. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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