WARSAW: Poland on Saturday said it had seized a high school building near Moscow’s embassy in Warsaw meant for the children of diplomats, a move the Russian envoy called “illegal”.

The spat over the 1970s multi-storey building has been going on for a year.

“This building belongs to the Warsaw City Hall,” Polish foreign ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said, adding that the move followed a bailiff’s order. The spokesman for the municipality was unavailable for comment.

Poland says there is a huge disparity in the number of diplomatic buildings each had in the other country.

“We regard this as yet another hostile act by the Polish authorities and a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention of 1961,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.

The ministry promised a “harsh reaction and consequences for Polish authorities and Poland’s interests in Russia”.

Moscow’s envoy, Sergei Andreyev, also denounced Poland’s intervention as an “illegal” intrusion on a diplomatic facility, saying teachers and staff lived on the building’s grounds. The school would continue to work in a different part of the Russian embassy’s premises, he added.

“Our priority is ensuring the safety and the interests of our employees and their families.” Poland’s foreign ministry issued a statement in March 2022, shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, saying the Polish courts had ruled that Russia had to return the buildings to Polish control.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2023