Kaliningrad name change: Russia erupts as Poland changes name of exclave to Królewiec

The city, formerly known as Königsberg, is in the region wedged between Lithuania and Poland and found about 660km away from Russia. The region was initially handed to the Soviet Union as part of the Potsdam Agreement following World War II and the status quo became permanent in 1990.

Founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Order, the city was named in honour of the Bohemian King Ottokar II, and was known as Konigsberg — Krolewiec in Polish, Karaliaucius in Lithuanian, and Korolevets in Russian.

When the Soviets took over, it was renamed Kaliningrad in honour of Bolshevik revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin.

Germans were expelled from the area and were replaced with mostly ethnic Russians.

The region has been the subject of tension between Europe and Russia, with multiple demands from Moscow for land access denied following the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly sent nuclear-capable missiles as well as Mig-31 fighter jets armed with hypersonic missiles to the “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, sending tensions soaring.

But it’s the name of the area that has caused the latest spat.

Poland has now said it will stop using the official name for Russia’s enclave and instead revert to its historic equivalent.

Citing a recommendation by a state commission tasked with standardising foreign names in the Polish language, Poland’s development minister Waldemar Buda said Kaliningrad would now officially be called Königsberg — Królewiec in Polish.

“We do not want Russification in Poland and that is why we have decided to change the name in our native language of Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region,” Mr Buda said in a statement on Wednesday.

The historic name for the enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania will now be used in official documents and maps, a move that triggered an angry response from Russia.

Moscow reacted furiously.

“It’s not even Russophobia anymore, these are processes close to madness that are going on in Poland,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“It brings no good to Poland. These are not just unfriendly actions: these are hostile actions,” he added.

Poland shot back, saying that Kalinin was to blame for the notorious Katyn massacre, during which 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia were killed by the Soviet Union’s political police in a forest near Smolensk in 1940.

“The fact of naming a large city close to our border after Kalinin, a criminal co-responsible for, among others, issuing the decision on the mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940, evokes negative emotions in Poles,” Mr Buda said.

The Soviet Union had long denied responsibility for the killings, accusing the Nazis of the crime, before admitting the truth in 1990.

Envoys summoned

In a separate development on Wednesday, Moscow summoned the Polish charge d’affaires after Russia’s ambassador in Warsaw was blocked by pro-Ukrainian activists from laying flowers at a Soviet memorial on Tuesday when Russia celebrated victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

The Russian foreign ministry slammed “the outrageous act”, saying Poland’s “Russophobic policy is aimed at distorting the history of the Second World War.” Warsaw for its part summoned Moscow’s ambassador after a Russian fighter jet intercepted a Polish plane on patrol for the EU’s border agency over the Black Sea last week.

Lukasz Jasina, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman, said Warsaw condemned “the provocative and aggressive behaviour of the Russian side, which constitutes a serious international incident”.

– with AFP