The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Poland's decision to change the name of Kaliningrad in official Polish documents was a "hostile" act on the part of Warsaw. The Reuters agency, which reported this from Moscow, emphasizes that relations between Poland and Russia continue to deteriorate due to the war in Ukraine.

 Kaliningrad, the administrative center of the Russian exclave between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea coast, was formerly known as Koenigsberg. After the Second World War, the Soviet Union annexed this territory and renamed the city Kaliningrad, after the Soviet statesman Mikhail Kalinin.

 Poland claims that Kalinin's connection with the Katyn massacre in 1940, when thousands of Polish officers were shot by Soviet troops, has a negative connotation in Poland. In Warsaw, it is believed that from now on the city should be called Krolewiec, as it was called in the 15th-16th centuries as part of the Polish kingdom.

 "The current Russian name of the city is created artificially and has nothing to do with either the name of the region or the name of the city," the Polish State Committee for Geographical Standardization stated on Tuesday.

 Kremlin representative Dmytro Peskov called this decision "bordering on madness."

 "It's not even Russophobia anymore, it's such processes bordering on madness that are taking place in Poland," the TARS agency quoted Peskov as saying on Wednesday.

 Moscow claims that the USSR liberated Poland as the Soviet Army drove Nazi forces back into Germany. Many Poles believe that the Soviet Union succeeded the Nazi occupation and established its own repressive regime, according to a Reuters publication.