"We want to hand it over to our Ukrainian guests". Warsaw seizes "Spyville" complex

"We're at Sobieskiego Street and, as I've promised, we're taking over the so-called 'Spyville', we want to hand it over to our Ukrainian guests," Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski said on Monday, announcing the seizing of the residential complex.

"I'm happy this can serve as a symbol of how Warsaw supports our Ukrainian friends," he underscored, adding that the estate would be ready for city officials to enter in a few hours.

"We will have comfort to check if the building needs to renovated, or maybe we will have to demolish one part. We don't know about its condition," Trzaskowski said.

Also present at the briefing was Ukraine's Ambassador to Poland Andriy Deshchytsia, who said he was planning to display a Ukrainian flag on the building.

"But we don't want act brutish like the Russians. We don't want to occupy anything, until it's legally handed over. We want to do all this legally and in coordination with the Polish government and the mayor," he said.

"It will certainly serve the Ukrainians and Ukraine. Maybe as a kindergarten, school, Ukrainian centre, or maybe we will move a branch of the Union of Ukrainians in Poland here. Let's see what state the building's in," he added.

Mayor Trzaskowski also said that there were plenty of firms ready to renovate the building. He and ambassador Deshchytsia said they would think about organising tours around the complex, as until now it had remained closed to the public. Many Warsaw residents have been curious about this enclave and how it looks inside.

The residential complex at 100 Sobieskiego Street, which in the Polish People's Republic era hosted employees of the Russian embassy, has 100 apartments. The building has been abandoned many years ago and requires renovation. In recent years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Warsaw City Hall have made a number of attempts to regulate the estate's legal status at the bequest of the Russian Federation in Poland, and at the bequest of Poland in Russia.

Warsaw announced it was planning to use the building to host families with little children, which had lost their homes as a result of the Russian invasion into Ukraine. However, the Ukrainian ambassador told Polish Press Agency that it was more likely that the complex would host a Ukrainian cultural centre.

"We could prepare about 50, maybe 70, normal apartments here. It would be very hard for us to pick only that few out of all the families in need," Andriy Deshchytsia said.