Russia summoned Poland’s ambassador on Thursday and announced it would shut Warsaw’s consulate in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in retaliation for Poland closing a Russian consulate over accusations of sabotage.
Russia’s Ukraine offensive has badly damaged ties between Warsaw and Moscow, with Poland becoming a hub for Kyiv-bound Western weapons and taking in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.
Warsaw last week closed Russia’s Gdansk consulate after accusing Moscow of orchestrating an act of sabotage on a Polish rail line.
“Curtailing the Russian consular presence in Poland under an absurd pretext is a blatantly hostile and unjustified move by the Polish leadership,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
As a “retaliation measure”, Poland’s ambassador was informed of Moscow’s decision to “withdraw its consent for the functioning of the Polish Consulate General in Irkutsk as of 30 December 2025”.
Warsaw had previously shut down Russian consulates in Poznan and Krakow, while Moscow had shut down Warsaw’s consulates in Saint Petersburg and Kaliningrad.
This will leave the main embassies in the capitals as the only diplomatic missions for both countries.
Poland is the only European country to have a consulate in Irkutsk – a city near Mongolia – an outpost that helped deal with the repatriation of descendants of Polish deportees sent to Siberia under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
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