FILE PHOTO: Drone view of the Marywilska 44 shopping centre burning during a massive fire in Warsaw, Poland, May 12, 2024. Dariusz Borowicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS/File Photo
WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland summoned the Russian ambassador and said it would close the Russian consulate in Krakow after evidence showed Moscow was responsible for a huge fire that almost completely destroyed a Warsaw shopping centre in 2024.
Russia denied any involvement in the arson attack and accused Poland of Russophobia.
Already tense relations between Warsaw and Moscow have hit new lows since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. NATO member Poland says its own role as a hub for aid for Kyiv has made it a target of Russian sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation.
"The ambassador was invited to the ministry at 1500 (CET)," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski said on Monday.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland knew "for sure" that Russian secret services were behind last year's fire.
"Due to evidence that the Russian special services committed a reprehensible act of sabotage against the shopping centre on Marywilska Street, I have decided to withdraw my consent to the operation of the Consulate of the Russian Federation in Krakow," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X.
Sikorski told reporters at a meeting of foreign ministers in London that Poland would take further action if attacks such as the one on the shopping centre continued.
Foreign ministry representatives said Russia would have around 30 days to close the Krakow consulate, which employs three diplomats and four other employees.
Reacting to Poland's move, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "Many different accusations against Russia are voiced in Poland, this is part of an absolutely Russophobic and unfriendly position towards our country.
"Moreover, all these accusations are always absolutely groundless," Peskov added.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova later told the state TASS news agency that Russia would respond "appropriately" after certain procedures had been completed.
Warsaw's actions, Zakharova said, were "imbued with Russophobia and some sort of hatred. And not just towards Russia, but to their own citizens because they will be the ones to suffer in the first instance."
Last October Poland said it would shut the Russian consulate in the western Polish city of Poznan due to suspected Russian attempts at sabotage. Russia retaliated by closing the Polish consulate in St. Petersburg.
After the latest moves, Russia retains a consulate in Gdansk as well as its embassy in Warsaw.
In March, Lithuanian prosecutors accused Russia's military intelligence of orchestrating an arson attack on an IKEA store in Vilnius, which broke out three days before the shopping centre fire in neighbouring Poland.
(Reporting by Barbara Erling, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Mark TrevelyanEditing by Hugh Lawson, Gareth Jones, Ron Popeski and Nick Zieminski)
