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Polish Diplomat Surrounded and Assaulted in St. Petersburg by Anti-Polish, Anti-Ukrainian Protesters
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Poland’s ambassador to Russia, Krzysztof Krajewski, was assaulted by a group of demonstrators in St. Petersburg last weekend, according to the Polish Foreign Ministry and reporting from Gazeta Wyborcza on November 20.
On November 16, Krajewski traveled to the city to meet with members of the local Polish community for Poland’s Independence Day.
Russians harassing Poland’s Ambassador to Russia Krzysztof Krajewski as he arrives at the Katyn Memorial in Smolensk to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre in which the Russians murdered 22 000 Polish POWs.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 12, 2025
🇵🇱🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/5dlirxBLoC
As he walked to St. Catherine’s Basilica with Consul Jarosław Strycharski, an “aggressive group of protesters” surrounded the delegation, carrying banners with anti-Polish and anti-Ukrainian slogans.
Witnesses told Polish media that several individuals attempted to hit the ambassador, forcing his security detail to intervene. Since relations between Warsaw and Moscow deteriorated after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland’s State Protection Service (SOP) has accompanied Krajewski at all times, though officials say this was “the most serious incident in many years.”
A Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maciej Wewiór, confirmed the attack.
“We expressed our outrage during a meeting with Russia’s chargé d’affaires,” Wewiór told Wyborcza. “We were told such situations ‘should not happen.’”
He added that roughly ten individuals attempted to escalate from verbal harassment to physical aggression before being stopped by Polish security officers.
Russian state and local media carried a different narrative, accusing Polish security staff of acting aggressively toward what they described as “peaceful activists” and “concerned citizens.”
Video broadcast by Channel 78, however, shows security personnel blocking several people as they push toward the ambassador, shouting slogans such as “Your money kills children.”
Earlier, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stated that the attack on Poland’s railway network compels the country to assess who its allies are and who its adversaries are.
During the press conference, Sikorski confirmed that he had previously warned Russia that if it continued its hostile actions against Poland, the diplomatic and consular presence of Russia in Poland would be further reduced.
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