(Reuters) – Russia said on Saturday it was outraged by Poland’s destruction of a Soviet war monument, warning Warsaw of the “most negative consequences” after what it said was a flagrant violation of an agreement between the two countries on protecting memorial sites.
Poland has been one of the most vocal critics of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014. Russia and Poland share a history of conflicts and the disagreement over war memorials is likely to add to tensions.
“Warsaw must finally understand that the ‘war of monuments’ unleashed in Poland may have the most negative consequences, for which the responsibility lies squarely with its initiators,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Authorities in the western Polish town of Nowa Sol took down the brotherhood-in-arms of Polish and Red Army soldiers memorial at the end of June, reducing it to a pile of rubble.
“The monument was large (dozen tonnes of concrete), ugly, always dirty with rust leaking out of the abyss of its emptiness, like blood or tears,” Wadim Tyszkiewicz, Nowa Sol’s mayor said on his Facebook profile earlier this week.
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