CaliToday (08/10/2025): In a pointed geopolitical move, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Wednesday that Poland will not fulfill Germany's extradition request for Volodymyr Z., a Ukrainian national wanted in connection with the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
The suspect is currently the subject of a European Arrest Warrant, sought by German authorities for his alleged role in the series of underwater explosions that crippled both the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The pipelines were built to transport Russian gas directly to Germany.
Speaking to reporters in Warsaw, Prime Minister Tusk stated unequivocally that handing over the Ukrainian citizen was "not in Poland's interest." However, he did not stop at a simple legal refusal. Instead, Tusk used the opportunity to deliver a sharp critique of Germany’s past energy policy, reframing the entire Nord Stream controversy.
"The problem for Europe, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland was not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built at all," Tusk declared, broadening the issue from a criminal investigation into a matter of strategic failure.
His comments were a thinly veiled rebuke of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration, which championed the pipeline project despite years of stark warnings from Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine.
Tusk elaborated on this point, stating, "Russia, with money from some European countries and German and (Anglo-)Dutch companies, built Nord Stream 2 against the vital interests not only of our countries, but of all of Europe, and there can be no ambiguity about that."
This powerful statement effectively shifts the narrative. From Poland's perspective, the focus should not be on prosecuting those who destroyed the pipeline, but on holding accountable those who approved a project that Warsaw has long argued served only to deepen Europe's energy dependence on Moscow and provide the Kremlin with immense geopolitical leverage.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were hit by a series of explosions in September 2022, in an act widely regarded as deliberate sabotage. The incident occurred in international waters near the Danish island of Bornholm, severing a major artery for Russian gas supplies to Europe and escalating tensions already inflamed by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While investigations by several European nations are ongoing, no definitive public blame has been assigned.
Poland's refusal to extradite a key suspect marks a significant complication in the German-led investigation and signals a deepening rift between Warsaw and Berlin on matters of European security and historical policy decisions. Tusk's administration is asserting Poland's role as a critical voice in Eastern European security, unwilling to cooperate in a process it views as disconnected from the larger strategic error that preceded it.