Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said it’s not in Poland’s interest to extradite a Ukrainian national suspected of being involved in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines and expressed support for the attack on Russia and Germany’s energy infrastructure.
“The problem of Europe, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built,” Tusk told reporters on Tuesday, according to DW.
“It is certainly not in the interest of Poland to hand over this citizen to a foreign country. Russia, with money from some European states and German and (Anglo-) Dutch companies, built Nord Stream 2 against the vital interests not only of our states, but of all of Europe, and there can be no ambiguity about that,” Tusk added.
The Polish leader’s comments were in reference to a Ukrainian identified as “Volodymyr Z” who was arrested in Poland last month over his alleged role in the pipeline bombing, which occurred in September 2022 and damaged three out of four of the Nord Stream pipelines. A Polish court ruled on Monday that the suspect must remain in custody for 40 days while it considers a German request for his extradition.
There are conflicting narratives about who was responsible for the Nord Stream bombings. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in February 2023 that President Biden himself ordered the attack and that it was carried out by US Navy divers who planted explosives during NATO drills in the Baltic Sea.
A few weeks after Hersh’s report, US and German media began reporting that the US had suspected Ukrainian involvement in the attack and that it was likely carried out by a small team of Ukrainian divers on a sailboat. For his part, Hersh said he believed the narrative that Ukrainians bombed the pipeline was a cover story.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has previously suggested US involvement. “Thank You, USA,” Sikorski wrote on X on the day of the attack in a post that included a photo of the disturbance in the water caused by the gas leak. At the time, Sikorski was a member of the European Parliament, and he later deleted the tweet.
