The mayor of Warsaw on Monday seized a former Russian diplomatic site, the subject of a legal dispute between the two countries and nicknamed “nest of spies”, to offer it to Ukraine.
Nicknamed “Szpiegowo” (spy’s nest) by Warsaw residents, ten-storey buildings built in the 1970s in the south of the capital were used in the past by Soviet diplomats, then by the Russian embassy.
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Virtually empty since the 1990s, the site is largely dilapidated today and is the subject of a long legal dispute between Poland and Russia, with the latter still claiming ownership.
The site was built under a land exchange agreement between Poland and the Soviet Union in 1974. As a result of this agreement, Moscow received nine rental properties in Warsaw. The Soviet side was supposed to offer Poland analogous land located in Moscow, but never did.
AFP
In 2008, Warsaw denounced these agreements and demanded the return of the property.
In 2016, a Polish court ordered Russia to hand over the buildings and pay 7.8 million zlotys in compensation for illegal occupation, which Moscow refuses to do.
AFP
“We have taken over the so-called ‘nest of spies’, we want to pass it on to our Ukrainian friends”, declared to the press the mayor of Warsaw who entered the buildings accompanied in particular by a judicial officer and the Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, despite the protests of a Russian diplomat present there.
“I am happy that in this symbolic way we can show that Warsaw is helping our Ukrainian friends,” said Rafal Trzaskowski.
AFP
“I wanted to put the Ukrainian flag here today. But we don’t want to do it with big hooves, like the Russians. We will wait for the end of the procedures”, declared to the press the ambassador of Ukraine Andrï Destchitsia.
The site “will certainly serve Ukraine and Ukrainians. Maybe there will be a school, maybe a kindergarten, maybe apartments. We want to do it legally, not like the Russians,” he added.
AFP