The State Forests have taken over and secured the property leased to the Embassy of the Russian Federation. The land in the Zegrze Forestry, with an area of nearly 5 ha, had been used since the 1980s as the Embassy’s holiday resort.

The lease agreement for the property was terminated on 13 April 2022 with immediate effect. Since then, the Embassy has been called several times to return the property.

“We have been patiently waiting for the Russian Embassy to leave the property. We have made repeated calls on the matter several times and hoped for an amicable settlement of the land dispute. Unfortunately, with no success. For this reason, we have decided to take appropriate action, in this case to seize and secure the site in order to carry out an inventory of the property there”, said Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment Edward Siarka.

The Russian news agency TASS reported that the Russian embassy in Poland will file a protest to the Polish Foreign Ministry over “illegal actions of the Polish authorities and the State Forestry Service regarding the Embassy’s recreation centre”.

The Russian Embassy explains that the Russian Embassy’s recreation centre in Poland in Skubianka, located 30-40 km from Warsaw, has been closed since the beginning of this year and has not been used for security reasons, as well as due to the expulsion of a large group of embassy employees by the Polish authorities in March this year and the departure of the employees’ family members.

“The forest plot for the embassy resort has been leased from the Polish state forestry since the 1980s. At the same time, several buildings have been built on this land at the expense of the Soviet side, which we consider to be the property of the Russian Federation. For reasons unknown to us, the Polish side refuses to register these buildings as the property of the Russian Federation”, reports the Russian embassy.

Arkadiusz Slomczynski