Polish consulate in west Ukraine attacked with grenade launcher

The Polish consulate in Lutsk, Ukraine was attacked near midnight on March 29 with a grenade launcher or other heavy artillery, local media reported. No one injured in the attack, which put a hole in the building and shattered a window underneath. In response, the Polish Foreign Ministry submitted a request for an investigation and punishing those responsible, also calling for a meeting with Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Andriy Deshchytsia.

In his turn, Deshchytsia told Polish television that he had no doubt the Russian government was responsible for the attack. “I suppose attacks on gravestones were not enough,” he said, referring to a March 12 vandalism of Polish graves in the neighboring Lviv region. “That didn’t help in causing conflict between Ukrainians and Poles and now there’s a new phase of attacks on consulates and on diplomatic relations.”

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has opened an investigation into the attack and is considering the possibility of a terrorist act committed by Russian-aligned agents. As its response, a Russian Foreign Ministry official dismissed the accusation with a sarcastic comment on Facebook, not directly addressing it.

Zenon Zawada: Relations have been strained for the last year because of a nationalist wave in Poland that has drawn new attention on historical conflicts. That has been exacerbated by a large number of Ukrainian migrants arriving for work. We don’t see this so much as being caused by the Russian government as being exploited by it.

The bigger issue is that as long as the military conflict persists in Donbas (two Ukrainian soldiers were killed yesterday), it poses a military threat to neighboring countries as well. The failure to resolve the ongoing armed conflict with Russia – which has fallen off the radar screens of the Western establishment – will continue to pose more threats to European security.