Poland accuses Moscow for 2024 Warsaw fire, orders closure of Russian consulate
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said Monday that he was ordering the closure of Russia's consulate in the southern city of Krakow after Polish authorities said Russia was responsible for a fire that destroyed a shopping centre in Warsaw last year.The fire broke out on May 12, 2024, in the Marywilska 44 shopping centre that housed some 1,400 shops and service points, a budget marketplace in a warehouse-like structure in a northern district of Warsaw. Many of the vendors were from Vietnam, and it inflicted tragedy on many in Warsaw's Vietnamese community.advertisementSikorski announced the closure in a statement published in Warsaw on Monday morning, exactly one year after the fire.
He also addressed the matter during a visit to Britain, telling reporters the decision was taken because the Justice Ministry and Security forces found evidence that Russia had committed arson.'This was a huge fire of a shopping mall in Warsaw in which, just by sheer luck, nobody was hurt. This is completely unacceptable," Sikorski said.'So the Russian consulate will have to leave,' he added. 'And if these attacks continue, we'll take further action.'Russia's Foreign Ministry said Monday that there would be an 'adequate response' to the consulate's closure.'Warsaw is continuing to deliberately destroy relations (between Poland and Russia) and acting against the interests of its citizens,' ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, as quoted by Russian news outlet Interfax.advertisementSikorski last year already ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Poznan, one of three at the time in Poland, in response to acts of sabotage including arson attacks that he said were sponsored by Moscow.This leaves only one Russian consulate left, in Gdansk.There are rising concerns in Europe over Russian attempts to destabilise the region through covert operations. Russia has denied that it is doing that.Countries along NATO's eastern flank, like Poland and the Baltic States, feel especially vulnerable. Lithuania in March accused Russia of carrying out an arson attack last year at an IKEA in Vilnius, the capital. Authorities in these countries have been cooperating as they see that some of the alleged perpetrators work across borders.Lithuania's prosecutor general's office said the suspect in the Vilnius IKEA fire carried out planning during a secret meeting in Warsaw to set fire to and blow up shopping centres in Lithuania and Latvia for a monetary reward.Sikorski's announcement followed Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying late Sunday that Polish officials 'now know for certain that the massive fire on Marywilska was the result of arson commissioned by Russian services.''The actions were coordinated by a person residing in Russia. Some of the perpetrators are already in custody, while the rest have been identified and are being sought,' Tusk said on X. 'We will catch them all!'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Germany's Merz says he found Trump open to dialogue and committed to Nato
Germany's Merz says he found Trump open to dialogue and committed to Nato (Image: AP) BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday, a day after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, that he encountered a US administration open to discussion and returned confident that Washington remains committed to Nato. Merz described his Oval Office meeting and extended lunch with Trump as constructive but also candid, noting that the two leaders expressed different views on Ukraine. "Yesterday, in the meeting at the Oval Office, I expressed a distinctly different position on the topic of Ukraine than the one Trump had taken, and not only was there no objection, but we discussed it in detail again over lunch," Merz said in Berlin after his return. Thursday's White House meeting marked the first time the two sat down in person. Merz, who became chancellor in May, avoided the kind of confrontations in the Oval Office that have tripped up other world leaders, including Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa. The two leaders opened with pleasantries. Merz presented Trump with a gold-framed birth certificate of the president's grandfather, Friedrich Trump, who emigrated from Kallstadt, Germany. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch vàng CFDs với sàn môi giới tin cậy IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm Undo Trump called Merz a "very good man to deal with." The American administration, he said, is open to discussion, listens, and is willing to accept differing opinions. Add he added that dialogue should go both ways: "Let's stop talking about Donald Trump with a raised finger and wrinkled nose. You have to talk with him, not about him." He said he also met with seNators on Capitol Hill, urging them to recognize the scale of Russian rearmament. "Please take a look at how far Russia's armament is going, what they are currently doing there; you obviously have no idea what's happening," he said he told them. "In short, you can talk to them, but you must not let yourself be intimidated. I don't have that inclination anyway." Merz, who speaks English fluently, stressed the need for transatlantic trust and said he reminded Trump that allies matter. "Whether we like it or not, we will remain dependent on the United States of America for a long time," he said. "But you also need partners in the world, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, are the best-suited partners. "This is the difference between authoritarian systems and democracies: authoritarian systems have subordinates. Democracies have partners - and we want to be those partners in Europe and with America." He reiterated that the US remains committed to Nato, particularly as Germany and others boost their defense spending. Trump has in the past suggested that the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don't meet defense spending targets. "I have absolutely no doubt that the American government is committed to Nato, especially now that we've all said we're doing more. We're ensuring that we can also defend ourselves in Europe, and I believe this expectation was not unjustified," Merz said. "We've been the free riders of American security guarantees for years, and we're changing that now."
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Fact check: Is Russia's new fact-checking platform credible?
In early April, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs unveiled the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN) — a self-proclaimed international alliance of fact-checkers and media outlets. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The initiative was first presented at the "Dialogue about Fakes 2.0" forum in Moscow in November 2024. At a press briefing following the April announcement, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova framed the GFCN as a counter to what she called the West's "relentless stream of fake stories and disinformation campaigns," accusing Western fact-checkers of engaging in "biased pseudo-fact-checking. " "This global civic initiative," Zakharova said, "will enable us to counter destructive Western actions using our own constructive agenda." But established fact-checking sites such as Facta and Maldita have raised red flags over the GFCN's Kremlin-aligned backers, opaque operations, and overtly one-sided narratives. DW Fact check takes a closer look Who's behind the GFCN? The GFCN was co-founded by TASS, Russia's state-run news agency, and the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization ANO Dialog — both known for their close ties to the Kremlin. TASS was suspended in 2022 by the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) over concerns about its editorial independence. In 2023, the European Union sanctioned ANO Dialog for its role in spreading disinformation and for operating the pro-Kremlin website War on Fakes. Ahead of Russia's 2024 presidential election, the US Treasury also sanctioned the group under Executive Order 14024, targeting individuals and entities linked to the Russian government. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Does the GFCN meet global fact-checking standards? Independent fact-checking relies on transparency, verifiable sourcing, and open methodologies. Leading organisations such as the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) require fact-checks to cite public data and provide transparent methods that others can replicate. DW reviewed several GFCN articles and found consistent problems with sourcing and methodology. In one article titled "The Romanian Elections: How Did the West Win Only on the Second Try?", the author cites the 2024 Eurobarometer, claiming only 22% of Romanians support aid to refugees, only 14% back the EU's actions on Ukraine, and only 13% favor Ukraine's EU candidate status. But these figures are false. DW cross-checked the data and found significantly higher levels of Romanian support for EU policies on Ukraine in the 2024 Eurobarometer contradicting the article's core claim. Another piece alleges that the Soros family was the "shadow organizer" behind the "HANDS OFF!" protests against US President Donald Trump's second administration, which took place across the United States on April 5, 2025. The article argues that, since some organizers had previously received grants from the Open Society Foundations, the Soros family must have orchestrated the protest. That's misleading. The piece focuses narrowly on two groups — MoveOn and Indivisible — and ignores the broader coalition behind the rallies. While both organizations have indeed received funding from Open Society Foundations, the grants supported general programming, not the April 5 protests specifically. Moreover, these groups list dozens of funders, not just the Soros-backed foundation. Receiving support from Open Society Foundations doesn't prove direct involvement on the part of the Soros family, whose philanthropic work has long been targeted by conspiracy theorists. These narratives often paint Soros as a puppet master behind protests, migration, or global unrest — claims that have been widely discredited. Another GFCN article titled "Is ChatGPT Prone to Russian Propaganda?" fails to seriously engage with the question it raises. Instead, it spends most of its word count defending TASS and attacking a Norwegian media outlet that questioned the Russian agency's credibility. The article barely mentions recent investigations — such a report by NewsGuard, which DW covered — which document Russian attempts to manipulate generative AI platforms. The piece's only conclusion appears in the final paragraph, which vaguely states: "It is incorrect to give a chatbot human qualities and accuse it of 'preferring' one of the sources to the others." GFCN: Who is writing these stories? One contributor to the GFCN is Sonja van den Ende, a Dutch journalist living in Russia who has been embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine. Some Dutch media have described her as a conspiracy theorist. On X, she recently posted: "Germany is the country of knife pullers, used to be a country of beer and bratwurst, now asylum seekers, i.e. radicalised rebels from Syria, Iraq etc." Other GFCN contributors include Tim Anderson, director of the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. He has called the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha a "scam" and falsely claimed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine did not involve the targeting of civilian infrastructure. A familiar Russian playbook: mimic and confuse Observers say the GFCN's name — just one letter removed from the IFCN — is no accident. The International Fact-Checking Network, founded in 2015 by the Poynter Institute, is a respected consortium of more than 150 independent fact-checkers worldwide. It trains journalists, enforces professional standards, and certifies outlets based on transparency and editorial independence. The GFCN, on the other hand, appears to follow a long-standing tactic of the Russian state: imitating legitimate institutions to blur the line between journalism and propaganda. "We do not consider their activities to fall within the professional fact-checking ecosystem," IFCN director Angie Drobnic Holan told DW, citing Russia's consistent suppression of independent journalism. "Professional fact-checking requires the ability to independently verify claims across the political spectrum," she said. "Journalists must be free to publish findings that contradict the government. We are highly dubious that this effort allows for that." Tommaso Canetta, a policy officer with the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), called the GFCN a classic case of political appropriation. "This is a tactic we've seen many times; co-opting terms with credibility, like 'fact-checking,' and stripping them of meaning," he explained. "Political actors often label partisan narratives as 'fact checks' when they clearly are not." He stressed that affiliations with networks like the IFCN or the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) help distinguish legitimate outlets from those engaged in manipulation. "Without such standards, we end up with initiatives — like this one from Russia — that pollute the term and muddy the waters."
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
How Trump-Musk break-up can severely affect NASA and its future space missions
America's ambitious space plans for the coming years could become one of the biggest casualties of the sudden and dramatic falling out of United States President Donald Trump and the world's richest person Elon Musk. Over the last few years, the US space agency NASA has developed a significant dependency on Musk's company SpaceX that would inevitably set back NASA's plans by several years if a decoupling were to occur. It would also seriously jeopardise space missions such as the one being executed by Axiom Space, a private US company, next week. This mission, Axiom-4, is carrying four astronauts, including India's Shubhanshu Shukla, to the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket as well as the main spacecraft being used for this mission are those of SpaceX. Musk and Trump are engaged in a bitter war of words on social media, triggered by Musk's strong criticism of a Congressional tax Bill that he claims will result in a massive increase in the national debt. Trump has hit back saying Musk was concerned about the bill's provisions relating to tax credits on electric vehicles (EVs), which could adversely affect Tesla, the EV company of Musk. Trump went on to say that the easiest way to save government money — 'billions and billions of dollars' — was to terminate government contracts and subsidies for Musk's companies. Musk retorted that in the light of the President's statement, SpaceX would begin decommissioning of its Dragon spacecraft 'immediately'. He relented a few hours later, saying the decommissioning won't happen. The incident might have cooled down for now, but Musk's threat to decommission the Dragon spacecraft revealed the vulnerability of NASA which is now dependent on private companies for many critical systems in the space programme. Much of it has been actively encouraged by NASA to create a vibrant public-private space ecosystem that allows it to focus mainly on more ambitious planetary exploration activities while leaving the more routine and mundane jobs like transportation to private companies. NASA's reliance on SpaceX The Crew Dragon spacecraft of SpaceX is currently the only reliable vehicle that NASA has to transport astronauts to and from the ISS, a permanent laboratory in space, about 400 km from Earth, that is manned throughout the year. The ISS is used mainly by astronauts from the US and Russia, but occasionally those from other countries also make short visits, just like Shukla's crew would be doing next week. The astronauts on ISS are typically changed twice a year. In addition, three to four cargo missions are also sent to the ISS every year. Russian astronauts typically travel in the Soyuz spacecraft built by the Russian agency Roscosmos. But NASA has discontinued its space shuttle programme, which included vehicles such as Atlantis, Discovery or Endeavour, primarily on cost considerations. The last NASA space shuttle mission was flown in Atlantis in 2011. These space shuttles used to be launched by NASA's own rockets. The discontinuation of the space shuttle programme stopped the production of these rockets as well. Between 2011 and 2020, NASA used the Russian transport, Soyuz, for travel to the ISS. After that, it has been hiring SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which launches exclusively on the Falcon 9 rocket, also of SpaceX. NASA has also contracted other companies, notably Boeing, to transport astronauts and cargo to the ISS. Boeing's Starliner has carried out a few cargo sorties but its first crewed mission, carrying Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, last year was a troubled one. The Starliner, which uses Boeing's Atlas rockets to launch, managed to drop the astronauts at the ISS, but was rendered risky for a return journey due to a technical glitch. The two astronauts were stranded at the ISS for nine months before a SpaceX mission brought them back in February this year. The ISS missions are only one part of NASA's increasing reliance on SpaceX. Musk's company, which started in 2006 and has grown to become the largest private space corporation, is heavily involved with the Artemis programme as well, the ambitious NASA plan to get humans back to the Moon, this time for extended periods of time. The crewed missions under the Artemis programme are expected to use the Starship spacecraft of SpaceX. The first of the crewed missions is scheduled for 2027. Extra-planetary exploration missions, like those to Saturn, are also being done in collaboration with SpaceX. In many segments, SpaceX has developed superior technologies that have increased NASA's dependence on it. SpaceX has also created a constellation of satellites to provide Internet services around the world. NASA is not linked to this network, but some other US government agencies are, creating dependencies elsewhere too. A Reuters report said SpaceX had about $22 billion worth of government contracts, across different agencies. The contract to transport astronauts to the ISS on the Dragon spacecraft was alone worth about $5 billion, it said. Feud not over Musk may have tried to dial down a bit, but it would be premature to suggest that his feud with Trump is over. The US President has been unrelenting on the issue of continued tax concessions for EVs, even when Musk supposedly was a close friend. Now that Musk has opened a public battle, making personal attacks, the possibility of Trump suspending government contracts of Musk's companies, as he suggested in one of his social media posts, cannot be ruled out. If that happens, the implications for NASA, and America's space programme, are going to be huge. The Artemis programme would almost certainly be pushed back, and the schedule for the ISS would get badly affected. It might force NASA to scale back its involvement with other private players as well, and return to more in-house production of space systems. NASA is not expected to receive much support from Trump either. The space agency is already having a tough time under his Presidency, with prospects of big budget cuts, reduction of workforce, and shutting down of some of its offices.
