The fatal shooting of a Ukrainian man in the head by Polish police has strained Polish-Ukrainian relations

The fatal shooting of a Ukrainian man in the head by Polish police has strained Polish-Ukrainian relations, sparking Kiev to file official protests over the incident, officials said Wednesday. "We received Tuesday a note from the Ukranian embassy in Warsaw and another from the Ukrainian foreign ministry delivered to our consul general in Kiev, protesting the actions of the Polish police," said Polish foreign ministry spokesman Grzegorz Dziemidowicz. According to the Ukrainian embassy, 25-year-old Sergei K. was "shot to death with a bullet at point blank range to the head," after being stopped by a routine traffic patrol Sunday near the town of Chojno Nowe in eastern Poland. The Ukrainian was traveling with his wife, who is eight months pregnant, when he was pulled over by the traffic patrol. After getting out of his vehicle, he was attacked by the police "who pushed him to the ground and shot him in the head with a pistol," according to the embassy's spokesman, Alexei Plantonov. The police said the Ukrainian initially failed to stop his car, and then attacked the police officer and was shot accidentally during a struggle. The man's wife was hospitalized in a state of shock and then returned to Ukraine to stay with family. Prosecutors and local police are conducting an investigation to "clear up the circumstances of this tragedy," said Dziemidowicz.