Poland confiscated the building of a Russian high school in Warsaw on Saturday. The school building now belongs to the Warsaw City Council, a spokesman for the Polish Foreign Ministry told the AFP news agency. The city administration had therefore commissioned a bailiff to confiscate the building.
The city of Warsaw has “taken possession” of the building, Deputy Mayor Tomasz Bratek announced in the afternoon. The Russian side initially “refused” to open the school gate and the doors, Bratek told the Polish news agency PAP. “We had to call a locksmith who gave us access to the site with his tools.” The deputy of the Russian ambassador then handed over the keys to the school.
Police officers and Polish officials eventually entered the school, an AFP photographer observed. Shortly thereafter, items were taken from the building and loaded into vehicles with diplomatic plates.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it classified the confiscation of the school building as “another hostile act by the Polish authorities and a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention”. It announced a “tough reaction and consequences for the Polish authorities and Poland’s interests in Russia”.
The Russian ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreyev, spoke of an “illegal act”. The confiscation was “an intrusion into a diplomatic facility,” he told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
The ambassador also pointed out that teachers and staff lived on the school premises. The school will continue in other premises of the embassy to enable the students “a good end to the school year” and exams.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski stressed in the evening on Twitter that the school building “has no diplomatic status and is not protected by any immunity”. According to him, the seizure implemented a January 2016 judgment by a Warsaw court that obliged Russia to return the building.
The building was nationalized in 1945 and handed over to the Soviet Union by the communists in 1953. According to the Polish authorities, there was no legal basis for this.
