Moscow has warned Warsaw of the "most negative consequences" after a town in western Poland tore down a Soviet war monument.
Authorities in the western Polish town of Nowa Sol took down a monument dedicated to the brotherhood-in-arms of Polish and Red Army soldiersl at the end of June, reducing it to a pile of rubble.
Wadim Tyszkiewicz, Nowa Sol's mayor, said in a Facebook posting that "the monument was large, ugly, always dirty with rust leaking out of the abyss of its emptiness, like blood or tears."
In a statement on July 4, Russia's Foreign Ministry described the Polish action as an "unfriendly move" and a "direct and flagrant" violation of a 1994 agreement between Poland and the Russian Federation on memorial sites.
A Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters that the 1994 agreement only covered cemeteries.
Relations between Warsaw and Moscow are already strained over the conflict in Ukraine.
