Polish consulates in Ukraine temporarily closed: foreign ministry
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
29.03.2017 14:52
The Polish foreign ministry has said that the country’s consulates in Ukraine will be closed until proper security is provided, following an attack early on Wednesday.
A general view of the roof of Polish Consulate General, which was damaged overnight Wednesday, by an unidentified large calibre weapon in the city of Lutsk, Ukraine. Photo: EPA/OLENA LIVITSKA
Polish deputy Foreign Minister Jan Dziedziczak met Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland, Andrii Deshchytsia, on Wednesday.
During the meeting, it was agreed that all Polish consulates in Ukraine would be closed until “the expectations of Poland regarding the protection of diplomatic and consular missions [in Ukraine] have been fulfilled”.
A grenade was fired at the consulate in Lutsk, north-western Ukraine, half an hour after midnight local time (23.30 pm CET on Tuesday).
No one was injured.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has strongly condemned the attack on the Polish consulate in Lutsk, his spokesman said on Wednesday.
“The president has strongly condemned [the attack on] the Polish General Consulate in Lutsk and has ordered the authorities to immediately use all means necessary to clarify this incident and to find those guilty," Svyatoslav Tsegolko, a spokesman for Poroshenko, said on Facebook.
Tuesday's incident follows a series of attacks against Polish monuments in western Ukraine.
In January a monument to the Poles murdered in 1944 in the village of Huta Pieniacka was destroyed.
In a separate incident days later, another site at the Bykivnia cemetery in western Ukraine was painted over by vandals. Both sites were dedicated to the memory of Poles who were killed in WWII. (rg/pk)