WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s former Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski came under fire Tuesday from the prime minister and political opponents over a U.S. magazine interview in which he allegedly said Russia’s president offered Poland the opportunity to jointly carve up Ukraine in 2008.

Sikorski, now the parliamentary speaker, was quoted as saying in Sunday’s issue of Politico Magazine that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wanted us to become participants in this partition of Ukraine.”