A Polish politician suggested the United States was behind the sabotage of two Nord Stream pipelines linking Russia to Germany.
“Thank you, USA,” European Parliament member Radoslaw Sikorski said on Twitter, sharing a photo of the Nord Stream leak in the Baltic Sea.
Thank you, USA. pic.twitter.com/nALlYQ1Crb
— Radek Sikorski MEP (@radeksikorski) September 27, 2022
Hours later, Sikorski added a follow-up tweet.
“BTW, there’s no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany,” he wrote. “Nordstream’s only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity.”
BTW, there’s no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia to Western Europe, including Germany. Nordstream’s only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity.
— Radek Sikorski MEP (@radeksikorski) September 27, 2022
The first tweet was shared thousands of times and sparked criticism that Sikorski, who formerly served as Poland’s minister of defense and foreign minister and serves as both a distinguished statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a senior fellow at Harvard’s Center of European Studies, could be seen as blaming the U.S. for the leaks.
“You can be sure [this] entry will circulate in all Russian media,” Maciej Wasik, Poland’s secretary of state in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, said on Twitter. “I have no doubts about the author.”
Poland’s secretary of state, Stanislaw Zaryn, also took aim at the tweet, which he blasted as “Russian #propaganda” and a “smear campaign against Poland, the US and Ukraine.”
“Authenticating the Russian lies at this particular moment jeopardizes the security of Poland,” he said. “What an act of gross irresponsibility!”
Asked Tuesday afternoon if the Biden administration had information about the cause of the damage to the pipelines, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she would not speculate.
Sikorski’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Sikorski has previously held high-level appointments in the Polish government and has been affiliated with American think tanks, including now the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the husband of Anne Applebaum, an American journalist and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin.
The three separate leaks that erupted on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on Monday have prompted accusations of sabotage, with Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, telling reporters Tuesday, “These are deliberate actions, not an accident.”
Early speculation pointed to possible Russian involvement, though no official comments had been made.
German officials said Tuesday that there is concern that the sudden loss of pressure in the twin pipelines could be the result of a “targeted attack” and that Russia’s involvement “could not be excluded.”
Berlin is conducting its own investigation, separate from inquiries also being carried out by Denmark and Sweden.
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German news outlet Spiegel reported Tuesday that the CIA warned Berlin earlier this summer about possible attacks on its gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.
