May 12 (UPI) -- Poland said Monday it would close the Russian consulate in Krakow over a fire that razed the largest shopping mall in the capital, Warsaw, in May 2024, saying the evidence showed Moscow was behind it.
The announcement by Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski came hours after Prime Minister Donald Tusk said authorities "know for the sure the blaze at the Marywilska mall was the result of arson ordered by the Russian security services."
"Due to evidence that the Russian special services committed a reprehensible act of sabotage against the shopping center on Marywilska Street, I have decided to withdraw my consent to the operation of the Consulate of the Russian Federation in Krakow," Sikorski said in a post on X.
"This was a huge fire of a shopping mall in Warsaw in which, just by sheer luck, nobody was hurt. This is completely unacceptable, so the Russian consulate will have to leave. They will have one more, and if these attacks continue, we'll take further action."
Foreign Ministry Undersecretary of State Henryka Moscicka-Dendys said that three diplomats were being expelled and that the consulate would be given at least 30 days' notice to wind up its operations.
Russia's Foreign Ministry vowed to retaliate.
"Warsaw deliberately seeks to ruin the relations, by acting against its citizens. An appropriate response to these inadequate steps will follow soon," spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the state-run TASS news agency.
The action was the latest in a long-running series of tit-for-tat closures and expulsions that started when Poland shuttered Russia's consulate in Poznan in eastern Poland in October after accusing Moscow of being behind an abortive bid to burn down a factory 100 miles away in the city of Wroclaw.
Moscow reponded by closing the Polish consulate in St. Petersburg.
