Moscow's ambassador to Poland was summoned to the country's Foreign Ministry on Thursday so Warsaw could express its "strong condemnation of Russian state terrorism" after a spate of suspected hybrid warfare incidents blamed on the Kremlin. The move comes after Poland on Wednesday issued a statement expressing solidarity with Berlin over an attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport. German authorities earlier this week said Russia was behind the incident at the site, a major cargo hub used to transport military supplies to Ukraine and support NATO logistics. In response, the German government has announced it is shutting a Russian consulate and a Russian cultural center in Berlin. Russia denies involvement and on Thursday said it would close Germany's Goethe-Institut cultural centers in a tit-for-tat measure. ‘Strong condemnation’ Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski discussed security on Thursday with his German and French counterparts in the German city of Weimar. Sikorski told reporters that Warsaw had summoned Russian ambassador Georgy Mikhno to express "strong condemnation of Russian state terrorism." Maciej Wewiór, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw, said that Poland had called in the envoy to express "our strong opposition to the escalation of Russia's aggressive actions." Suspected recent sabotage incidents in several countries, including Germany and Poland, have targeted critical infrastructure and defense companies, amid concerns that Russia is testing NATO and punishing countries that support Ukraine. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday that a fire at a Polish factory in the south-central city of Skarżysko-Kamienna that supplies drone components to Ukraine was an act of sabotage. Germany, meanwhile, was investigating a suspected arson attack outside a defense firm in Munich on Thursday, days after two sabotage attempts on the country's power grid. Linas Kojala, CEO of the Vilnius-based Geopolitics and Security Studies Center, told TVP World that Europe must take a more proactive approach to the threat posed by Russian sabotage operations – otherwise Moscow will continue to “move up the escalation ladder.”
