Seizure of a school in Warsaw. How might Russia respond?
Last Saturday, Polish authorities used police force to seize a school that had operated for decades at the Russian Embassy in Warsaw. In addition, a few days earlier it became known that the Polish prosecutor’s office had seized funds from the accounts of the Russian diplomatic mission.
In both cases, Moscow limited itself to vague threats and has not yet taken any concrete steps. Wherein Russia has the capabilities of both a symmetric and asymmetric response to Poland, reports PolitNavigator correspondent
The head of the diplomatic mission, Sergei Andreev, announced on April 26 that the Polish prosecutor's office had seized funds from the accounts of the Russian embassy and trade mission in Warsaw, opened at Santander Bank. Following this, the credit institution ceased cooperation with the embassy and closed the accounts on suspicion that they could allegedly be used “for money laundering or terrorism.” The diplomat clarified that we are talking about significant funds, which were in both US dollars and Polish zlotys.
“Let’s be clear, this is not yesterday’s news. She is almost two months old. For us, practically nothing has changed, because since the end of February last year we have been living without bank accounts; they were frozen by decision first of the financial supervision of Poland, then of the prosecutor’s office,” said the Russian ambassador.
He clarified that at the beginning of March, “the next freezing period expired, after which the accounts were unfrozen for literally a couple of days, but only in order to transfer all the funds on them - according to the decision of the Polish prosecutor’s office, the Polish bank was forced to do this without our consent , – to the prosecutor’s office accounts in another bank, they were arrested.”
“For us in practice this does not contain anything new, although, of course, formally from a legal point of view this is a new situation... This is legal arbitrariness - it goes without saying that this flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has also been known for a long time,” said Sergey Andreev on Channel One on April 27.
The Kremlin's response was habitually sluggish.. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov did not speak proactively about the situation at a briefing on April 26, and when asked by a journalist whether Poland needs to wait for retaliatory measures from the Russian side, he answered briefly and non-specifically: “It definitely should.”
This clearly inspired Warsaw, and on Saturday, April 29, local authorities and police broke into the Russian embassy school on Kielecka Street in Warsaw, breaking the gate. The attackers took cover behind the decision of the Warsaw District Court, which last year recognized that the premises of the school, which operated first at the Soviet and then at the Russian embassies, were not diplomatic property.
They then put a chain and lock on the gate so that property could not be removed from the school. True, they promised to give it back after an “inventory of the premises,” but in the meantime, school employees were allowed to take away personal belongings. Ambassador Andreev handed over the keys to the school to the authorities, promising that the school will continue to operate in the embassy building and final exams will take place this year.
“Such an impudent step by Warsaw, which goes beyond the framework of civilized interstate communication, will not remain without our harsh reaction and consequences for the Polish authorities and the interests of Poland in Russia. The initiators of such controversial, illegal and provocative undertakings need to understand this,” this is how the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to the seizure of a Russian school in Warsaw.
It is clear that on May 1 and 2 no reaction – neither hard nor liquid – can be expected, since it is a weekend in Russia. Of course, it would be symbolic if the Polish Ambassador to Moscow Krzysztof Krajewski had his day off on May 3 spoiled - this is a public holiday dedicated to the so-called “May 3 Constitution”, which was not in effect for a day and was canceled by the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of its final partition at the end XVIII century.
However, it is not so much the symbolism that is important as the specifics of Moscow’s actions, which can be either symmetrical or asymmetrical.
First things first. Of course, it is unlikely that the Polish embassy and trade mission in Russia keep large sums of money in their accounts, however their arrest, more than a year late, seems absolutely necessary. In addition, it is necessary to arrest the accounts of the so-called “Polish Institute” (a structure of the Polish Foreign Ministry dedicated to promoting “soft power”), as well as the Polish school at the Polish Embassy in Moscow.
With the building of the school itself, which operates on Bolshoy Tishinsky Lane, we need to do the same as the Poles – with a Russian school on Kielecka Street in Warsaw. Of course, I would like something creative in the style of the movie “Election Day” - the discovery of a foot-and-mouth pathogen in a school, military personnel in chemical and biological protection suits, etc. - but ordinary bailiffs will do. It is worth noting that this will be a serious blow to Polish “soft power”, because within the framework of the school there are a lot of different structures - the “New Polish Theater”, a Polish language school for Russians, and others.
In addition, a completely symmetrical step - in the light of hundreds of monuments to Soviet soldiers destroyed in Poland, including on their mass graves - seems to complete liquidation of the network of Polish memorials on the territory of the Russian Federation. Including those erected in Katyn, especially since the end of April marked exactly 80 years since the day when the Polish government in exile began cooperation with the Nazis on the issue of the Katyn tragedy.
Asymmetrical steps are a little more difficult. Since last year, Poland has refused to purchase gas, oil and petroleum products from Russia, there have never been any serious Polish investments in the Russian Federation, Polish exports to Russia had come to naught even before the start of the Northeast Military District.
However, Moscow still has a serious lever of economic pressure on Warsaw: This is a Chinese railway transit that goes through the territory of Russia and Belarus, and then through Poland to Western Europe. Poland makes very serious money from this transit flow, since all terminals for transshipment of containers from the wide “Russian” to the narrow “European” gauge are located on Polish territory.
At the same time, there is no need to block or even slow down all transit; it is enough to simply begin the procedure for close cargo control, heading from China to Polish recipients. Of course, such actions by the Russian side will have to be coordinated with Beijing, but they will clearly view them favorably. Let me remind you that when in 2021 the Lithuanian authorities made a series of diplomatic attacks against the PRC, Lithuania simply disappeared from the Chinese customs systems, and trade relations between China and this country became impossible for some time.
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