2022-03-23 12:05 update: 2022-03-24, 17:39
Siergiej Andriejew PHOTO PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Russia's ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreyev, has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 45 Russian diplomats are to be expelled from the country, the interior minister has confirmed.
The Onet.pl website reported on Wednesday morning that Polish authorities had taken a decision to expel around 40 Russian diplomats for activities inconsistent with their diplomatic status, or spying in the language of diplomacy.
Onet wrote that the list of diplomats who - according to Polish authorities - have conducted activities in Poland in contravention of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, contains about 40 names, among them staff of Russia's embassy in Warsaw.
The director of Poland's National Security Department, Stanislaw Zaryn, said later that the Internal Security Agency (ABW) had compiled a list of 45 people conducting intelligence activities in Poland under diplomatic cover and that the head of the ABW had moved for their urgent expulsion from the country.
"These are people who function within the framework of diplomatic status, but de facto conduct intelligence activities against Poland. On this list, which was sent in recent days to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are officers of the Russian Federation's special services, but also people collaborating with them," Zaryn told a press briefing.
He added that ABW investigations had revealed that Russian intelligence services were acting against Poland "ever more offensively and aggressively."
Zaryn also said the ABW had detained a Polish citizen for spying for Russia's SVR intelligence service. The man, who has been put under three months' temporary arrest by a court, worked at Warsaw's Civil Records Archive and is believed to have passed valuable operational information to the Russian Federation.
"This case is one element of broad activities of the Internal Security Agency that neutralises intelligence activities of the Russian Federation," Zaryn added.
Commenting on the news, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski took to Twitter to write: "Poland is expelling 45 Russian spies who were pretending to be diplomats. With full consistency and determination we are breaking up the Russian secret service agents in our country."
Sergey Andreyev, Russia's ambassador to Poland, also announced that he had "received notification from the MFA of the expulsion of 45 members of our staff from the embassy and trade mission," adding that he would remain in Poland and that the embassy would continue to function.
Speaking to journalists after leaving the foreign ministry, he said the MFA had justified the move with "activity inconsistent with the Vienna Convention, as it usually is... Supposedly they worked in contravention of the Vienna Convention, inconsistently with their status. Secondly, the general situation, the situation in Ukraine," he continued, arguing that the grounds were baseless.
"Our co-workers were involved in normal, diplomatic, commercial activities in line with their duties," Andreyev said, adding that the diplomats had five days to leave Poland. He also indicated that Russia would take tit-for-tat measures. (PAP)
