WARSAW (AP) – The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to Russia to protest after a former Russian official suggested the assassination of the Polish ambassador to Russia was acceptable.
Pavel Astakhov, who was the ombudsman for Russian children from 2009 to 2016, said on a TV program hosted by Russian propaganda Vladimir Solovyov, “The children of Warsaw, where Russian diplomats and military children attend. He was interviewed after the school was taken over by Polish authorities.
Astakhov argued that “killing an ambassador in retaliation for an act of unkindness … falls within international law,” adding:
“I was very well taught in the KGB’s counterintelligence department.”
The school takeover was the latest in a series of incidents that have heightened tensions between Poland and Russia, Kiev’s allies who supply arms to the Ukrainian army. In an interview with Solovyov, Astakhov referred to the confiscation of other property by Poland, the freezing of Russian bank accounts, and the incident last year in which activists in Warsaw doused Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergei Andreev, with red liquid.
Mr Astakhov said that when Mr Andreev was doused with the liquid, he was waiting, “Will they find the Polish ambassador floating in the Moskva River?”
In a statement, the Polish Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Andreev and handed him a protest note against Astakhov’s remarks to “call for the assassination of the Polish ambassador in Moscow.”
“The Polish side strongly protested the situation and urged them to immediately start criminal proceedings and punish the perpetrators without delay,” spokesman Lukasz Jasina said.
