Poland-Russia Relations 'Have Deteriorated Completely'

Poland's foreign minister said Wednesday that he will order the closure of the last Russian consulate still operating in the country after authorities said two Ukrainian citizens working for Moscow are suspected of blowing up a railway line in Poland. Radek Sikorski said he had repeatedly warned Russia that its diplomatic and consular presence would be reduced further if it didn't cease hostile actions against Poland, Polish news agency PAP reported. "This time it was an act of not only subversion, as happened before, but an act of state terror as its clear intention was to cause human casualties," Sikorski said. He added that Russia would be formally notified within hours, per the AP. The closure will leave Russia with only its embassy in Warsaw.

In response, Moscow will "reduce Poland's diplomatic and consular presence in Russia," the state news agency RIA Novosti cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has described the weekend explosion on a line linking Poland's capital, Warsaw, to the border with Ukraine as an "unprecedented act of sabotage." The blast damaged tracks near Mika, about 60 miles southeast of Warsaw. In a separate weekend incident, power lines were destroyed in the area of Pulawy, about 30 miles from Lublin in eastern Poland.

Asked about Sikorski's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia's "relations with Poland have deteriorated completely. This is probably a manifestation of this degradation, of the desire of the Polish authorities to reduce to zero any possibility of consular or diplomatic ties. In this case, one can only express regret," Peskov told reporters.

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On Tuesday, Tusk told the Polish parliament that the two suspects had been collaborating with the Russian secret services for a long time. He said their identities were known but could not be revealed because of the ongoing investigation, and that the pair had already left Poland, crossing into Belarus. Poland ordered the closure of two other Russian consulates in recent years. The consulate in Krakow was closed earlier this year after Poland determined that a fire that destroyed a shopping center in Warsaw in 2024 was the result of arson ordered by the Russian intelligence service.