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Russian ambassador is a no-show after Poland summons him over a missile that entered its airspace (apnews.com)

submitted 7 months ago by HowRu68@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.de

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Russian ambassador to Poland did not show up Monday for a meeting at the Polish Foreign Ministry where he had been summoned because of a Russian cruise missile that violated Polish airspace on the weekend, the Polish ministry’s spokesman said.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 41 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

So, assuming that this is intentional -- and it isn't impossible that it's just some kind of screw-up -- I don't think that it's normally considered acceptable to just refuse a summons. That's not a way to express disagreement.

https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2020/07/summoning-or-inviting-an-ambassador-is-there-a-difference/

There is no obligation under international law to comply with a summons, but failure to do so may prompt the receiving State to declare the head of mission persona non grata.

And Poland is clearly hinting at that.

Paweł Wroński, the Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters in a brief statement outside the ministry that Andreev did not come to the meeting, and that his failure to appear has led the Warsaw government to wonder “whether he is able to properly represent the interests of the Russian Federation in Warsaw.”

That being said, I don't think that the Polish Foreign Ministry has this right, if it's saying refusing a summons is a violation of the Vienna Convention:

Wroński said the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations “clearly defines the duties of an ambassador in a host state.”

EDIT: Yeah, it was intentional:

https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/03/25/russian-ambassador-ignores-polish-summons-over-missile-incident/

Andreyev himself confirmed he had not visited the ministry, saying that Poland had not provided any evidence of the missile violating Polish airspace, reports Reuters, citing Russian state news agency Novosti.

Wroński noted that the ministry would send a diplomatic note to Russia formally requesting clarification regarding the incident, which happened on Sunday morning amid the Russian bombardment of western Ukraine.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

So, assuming that he was acting under orders from the Foreign Ministry and not on his own -- which I assume is the case, given that Moscow's had enough hours to sort this out if he was just going off the rails individually -- you figure that Russia wants to have an international spat over this. I wonder what they aim to gain? Some kind of "look, NATO is being hostile" thing for the Russian public? I don't really see how Russia gains from this.

If that's the position that Moscow has and intends to maintain this position, then declaring him persona non grata and ejecting him from Poland means that presumably Poland's going to just do a similar declaration for each new replacement ambassador who gets sent in, since it's not actually the ambassador that's the factor in question.

Poland could totally break diplomatic relations, but I don't think that they'd say that this warrants that.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You are thinking too far.

The Russian position is "What missile? We never send a missile there! Did you see a missile? Where are the pictures of the missile? We didn't see a missile!"

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If that's the Russian position then it's the ambassador's duty to tell the Poles.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de -3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thats what they did. They claim Poland did not provide any evidence of any missile in polish airspace to them, therefore there is no reason for them to come. It is the "this is so wrong it does not warrant further attention" approach.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago

If they wanna gaslight they should at least have the decency to do it in person.

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