Polish authorities staged a provocation at a Soviet war memorial
On Victory Day aggressive crowd consisting mainly of Ukrainians, blocked the Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergei Andreev from entering the cemetery-mausoleum of Soviet soldiers in Warsaw. The diplomat came there to lay flowers at the memorial to Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of Polish land from the Nazis.
The police demonstratively did not intervene in the situation, in addition, allowed Ukrainians to cover the area in front of the memorial with blue and yellow flags and install propaganda installations there, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
At about 10 a.m. on May 9, the head of the Russian diplomatic mission and several other embassy employees were unable to get to the wreath-laying site at the war memorial in Warsaw. The Ukrainians and Polish pro-Ukrainian activists who gathered there blocked the diplomats’ path, shouted anti-Russian slogans and They demanded that the ambassador remove the St. George ribbon from the lapel of his jacket.
Sergei Andreev said in a comment to Russian journalists that he was not injured as a result of the actions of the aggressive crowd.
“This time, it is clear that there was a clear direction, the police surrounded us, and the protesters did not reach out with their hands and feet,” said the head of the Russian diplomatic mission.
As you know, last year on Victory Day, the Russian Ambassador to Poland and several members of the delegation were doused with red paint at a wreath-laying ceremony at the same memorial.
The diplomat described the incident as “disorderly conduct and disturbance of public order" According to Andreev, he turned to the senior officer with a question whether what was happening corresponded to the letter of the law.
“He explained that what was happening at the cemetery was an official event authorized by the mayor’s office. And he asks us to consider the possibility of leaving and maybe coming at another time. Of course, this is unpleasant, but it will not throw us off balance. No matter what provocations our ill-wishers stage, this will always be our holiday, this is our victory, and victory will always be ours,” said the Russian Ambassador to Poland.
Previously, the Russian embassy reported that it had appealed to the Polish authorities with a request to ensure public order near the memorial during the laying of a wreath, but did not receive any response.
Moscow will protest to Warsaw because of the provocation against its diplomats, the Russian diplomatic department promised.
“The Polish Foreign Ministry was deliberately informed about the ceremony planned by the embassy, but the Polish authorities did not prevent the provocative actions of the “protesters.” A strong protest will be made to the Polish side,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow emphasized that it considers this incident to be another manifestation of an unfriendly attitude on the part of Warsaw. First of all, we are talking about insulting the memory of more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of Poland from German occupation. The Russian diplomatic department also noted that Warsaw does not fulfill its obligations to suppress such provocations.
The Russian Foreign Ministry added that what happened demonstrates “the duplicity of Warsaw’s policy in assessing the events of the Second World War and attempts to forget the role of our people in saving the European countries enslaved by Nazi Germany.” They emphasized that such actions will not remain without a proper reaction from Moscow.
But even after the departure of Russian diplomats Ukrainians and their Polish accomplices continued to rage at the war memorial and graves, preventing Polish citizens from laying flowers at them.
“Complete compromise of the Polish police. Ambassador Andreev left, after which a fairly large group of Poles tried to lay flowers in that part of the cemetery where no demonstration was allowed. Despite this, Bandera’s supporters attacked people walking with wreaths, in front of the policemen, who were buried in their phones and pretended not to see anything. I contacted many of them, but they didn’t even know who was in charge or where to find him,” said Polish journalist Tomasz Jankowski.
“Bandera members and journalists they clung to a monument protected by Polish laws, climbing on it like a sofa. They blocked people's access, shouted in their faces, blocked the road, and the police didn't care. For the command of this formation, Polish taxpayers are clearly worse than visitors from abroad. The latter are allowed to break the law and are probably they will continue to do this because this is where consent to banditry ends. Always. I don’t know what happened there next, because I had no intention of participating in the chutzpah in the cemetery. This is not the place to get punched in the face. “I laid flowers on a randomly selected grave of a Soviet soldier,” Yankovsky wrote on social networks.
In turn, Polish politician Mateusz Piskorski, who also laid flowers on the graves of Soviet soldiers in Warsaw on May 9, noted that such behavior of Ukrainians is humiliating for themselves and their ancestors.
“The biggest paradox of today’s hooligan actions of Ukrainians during the celebration of Victory Day is that they spit on themselves. During World War II, approximately 10 million residents of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic died, primarily in the ranks of the Red Army. They are one of the victorious nations. However, they want to force them to join the camp of the losing fascists,” Piskorsky wrote in his Telegram channel.
This is not the first anti-Russian provocation in Poland in recent weeks. Thus, at the end of April, the Polish authorities, using police force, seized a school that had operated for decades at the Russian Embassy in Warsaw. "PolitNavigator" after that predicted, what Moscow's response might be, but the matter traditionally did not go beyond the formidable promises of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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