Polish ambassador attacked in Russia

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s ambassador to Russia, Krzysztof Krajewski, has been attacked in Saint Petersburg by a group protesting Polish support for Ukraine.

The incident took place on Sunday, the same day that sabotage of a train line was discovered in Poland but before the Polish government had declared Russia to be responsible for it.

Krajewski, who has been ambassador since 2021, had been visiting the Catholic Church of St Catherine in Saint Petersburg for a service in Polish to celebrate Poland’s Independence Day, which had fallen a few days earlier, on 11 November.

On his way to the church, the ambassador “was surrounded by an aggressive group of protesters carrying banners with anti-Polish and anti-Ukrainian slogans”, writes the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, which was the first to report the incident on Thursday.

The group verbally criticised Krajewski for Poland’s support for Ukraine before, “at one point, several of them attempted to strike the ambassador”, says the newspaper.

That prompted a response from the Polish State Protection Service (SOP) officers who have constantly accompanied the ambassador since the worsening of relations with Moscow in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“It was the most serious incident of its kind in many years,” an unnamed foreign ministry source told Gazeta Wyborcza. “Only the intervention of security guards prevented the ambassador from being beaten.”

The ministry’s spokesman, Maciej Wewiór, confirmed to the newspaper that the incident had taken place. “An aggressive group with banners…wanted to move from verbal assault to physical assault, but were stopped by the State Protection Service,” he said.

“On Wednesday, during a meeting with the Russian chargé d’affaire, the Polish side expressed its outrage,” added Wewiór. “In response, we were told that such situations ‘should not occur’.”

Wednesday’s meeting took place because the Polish foreign ministry was handing a formal notice to the Russians ordering them to close their consulate in Gdańsk in response to Moscow’s latest act of sabotage in Poland.

Previously, Russia’s consulates in Poznań and Kraków were closed for similar reasons. The one in Gdańsk had been the last one operating in Poland. Now, only the Russian embassy in Warsaw will remain.

In response to accusations that it is behind the rail sabotage, the Russian government has accused Poland of “Russophobia”. It has also pledged to take “reciprocal measures” in response to the closure of the Gdańsk consulate.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: MSZ (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.