The Kremlin on Wednesday condemned as a “hostile act” Poland’s decision to rename the Russian city of Kaliningrad and the enclave of the same name in its official documents after the information appeared in Polish media, Reuters reported.

The measure, proposed by the Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names Outside Poland (KSNG), an institution of the Warsaw government, would require Polish authorities to refer to Kaliningrad only by its Polish name, Królewiec, Polish news site Notes reported.

“The commission determined that for the city with the Russian name Kaliningrad, it is recommended to use only the Polish name Królewiec, and the use of the name Kaliningrad in Polish is not recommended,” KSNG announced in a press release on Tuesday.

The statement added that Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian name for the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea, should be referred to in official Polish documents as the Kruliwiec Province.

The city of Kaliningrad was called Königsberg until 1946, but then came under the control of the Soviet Union as part of the peace treaties concluded after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Previously, between the 15th and 17th centuries, it was called Krulewiec, when it was part of Polish territory.

How Poland argues for the decision to use a different name for Kaliningrad

The KSNG also noted in its recommendation for the return of the historical name that the current name Kaliningrad is the result of “artificial baptism that has nothing to do with either the city or the region.”

Moreover, “the fact that a large city near the borders of Poland was named after Mykhailo Ivanovich Kalinin, a criminal who was co-responsible, among other things, for issuing a decision on the mass murder of Poles (the Katyn massacre) has an emotional and negative character in Poland”, – it was also reported in the institution from Warsaw.

It also emphasizes that “no state can be forced to use names that are not in its language.”

The statement also notes that the events related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the imposition of the so-called “Russian world” or Russia’s information war, force us to reassess some of the names that cause controversy in Poland.

“Our city has a name, the official toponym is Kaliningrad. Everything else is just insinuation. On the same note, Gdańsk can be called Danzig, and the Republic of Poland can be called the Kingdom of Poland. But we adhere to the official toponyms, which we also demand from others,” replied the press secretary of the Russian administration in Kaliningrad, Dmytro Liskov.