Poland made an official complaint to the Russian foreign ministry yesterday about attacks on two diplomats who were beaten up outside the country's embassy in Moscow. Yesterday a Polish journalist for the leading Rzeczpospolita daily paper was also beaten, by four men near his Moscow home, the Polish Press Agency reported. The newspaper reported the attack to the Polish embassy in Moscow and the foreign ministry in Warsaw. The incidents have added to the tension that has been growing between Moscow and Warsaw in recent months over a series of issues, including Poland's support last year for the opposition in Ukraine. | I'd guess this is a Russian version of "Cause/Effect" |
On Sunday a technical employee of Poland's Moscow mission was attacked by a gang of young men 60 metres from the embassy, and suffered concussion. Three days later, in another attack metres from the same building, an embassy secretary received injuries to the head and chest, as well as a torn ear and bruising. The Polish protest letter was delivered to the Russian foreign ministry by the Polish ambassador, Stefan Meller, who told Interfax that the beatings were "tragic incidents staged by criminal elements" which were evolving into a "form of politics". He demanded greater security for embassy staff.
The two beatings came a week after the children of three Russian diplomats were attacked in the Polish capital, Warsaw. The three boys and a friend from Kazakhstan, who were aged 13 to 14, were reportedly concussed after being accosted in a park in the city centre and robbed of their mobile phones. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, called the July 31 incident a "crime" and demanded an "adequate" response from the Polish authorities. The Polish ambassador was also summoned to the Russian foreign ministry, yet Warsaw insisted there was no reason its government should apologise for the attack. | So Putin has his own "response". |
Warsaw police said yesterday that they had arrested two people suspected of receiving goods stolen in the attack.
Lilya Shevtsova, senior associate from the Carnegie Endowment, in Moscow, said it was unclear if the beatings were directly related to government tensions, but said a recent "chilling in relations between Russia and Poland had got to lower levels of society". She said Polish and Russian media had become "more hostile to each other, with or without reason". Ms Shevtsova added that the hostility had begun after Poland's active role in November's electoral leadership crisis in Ukraine. Poland backed protesters demanding the overturning of the fraudulent victory of the candidate Viktor Yanukovich.
Aleksander Kwasniewski, Poland's president, has also made explicit calls for the overthrow of Moscow's only remaining ally in the region, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus. Dubbed "the last dictator of Europe", Mr Lukashenko is seeking Russian support to prolong his rule into a third term. Moscow and Minsk are also toying with the idea of forming a union between the two states that would allow President Putin to remain president of the Belarus-Russian union after his second term expires in 2008. | The term "President for Life" comes to mind |
Poland also remains partly reliant on Russia for its energy supplies. It was recently dismayed by a Russian deal with Germany to build a direct pipeline via the Baltic sea to Germany, cutting them out of the transit route. |