On Saturday, Warsaw City Hall announced the takeover of a Russian secondary school building in the city’s Mokotow district. The building, which has been illegally occupied by the Russian embassy in Poland, was taken over following a court ruling.
On Saturday, state-run television channel TVP Info broke the news on its website, providing the first update on the story.
“Police officers appeared on Saturday morning in front of a building at 45 Kielecka Street in Warsaw that houses a Russian secondary school,” the website wrote. “It turns out that the city has started taking over the building that has been illegally occupied by Russians.”
“A bailiff take-over has taken place at the request of the Capital City of Warsaw in full cooperation with the Foreign Ministry based on a court ruling that granted the Polish state the ownership right to the building that for years has been illegally held by the Russian embassy,” Lukasz Jasina, spokesman for the Polish foreign ministry, told PAP on Saturday.
According to Jasina, the building did not have diplomatic status.
Last year, the Polish foreign ministry recommended starting legal proceedings for two properties owned by the Russian embassy that were not being used for diplomatic or consular purposes. One of the properties was a school building and the other was a former housing establishment for Russian diplomats that had been left unused for decades. Following a court ruling, Warsaw was able to take ownership of the latter property last year.
Polish broadcaster TVP Info reported that a school was likely closed in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.