WARSAW, September 29. /TASS/. Poland’s former foreign minister (2007-2014), European parliament member Radoslaw Sikorski, on Thursday removed from Twitter his thanks to the United States for damaging the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.
On Tuesday, Sikorsky thanked the US for the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipeline on his Twitter page. He illustrated the post with a photo from the site of the emergency and supplied it with a hashtag #Nordstream. In support of his conclusion Washington was behind the incident Sikorski cited US President Joe Biden’s remark dropped on February 7 to the effect that the United States would put an end to Nord Stream 2, if Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border.
Sikorski's statement triggered a wave of sharp criticism in Poland. It was called extremely irresponsible. Also, many in Warsaw demanded a probe into Sikorski’s sources of funding in addition to his earnings as a member of the European Parliament.
On Wednesday, Sikorski tried to present an excuse, saying his speculations about the US involvement in damaging the gas pipelines were his personal working suspicion. He said he was glad that the pipeline, which the Polish governments had been fighting against 20 years, was three-quarters paralyzed. He said that was good for Poland and expressed the hope that the Danish investigation would expose those responsible.
On September 27, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow was "extremely concerned about this news." He did not rule out that the disruption of the pipelines’ operation might have been a result of sabotage.
Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the routes the Nord Stream pipelines on Monday. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, classified these incidents as sabotage.
"Any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united response," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell underlined in a statement.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that in any case Washington would have to explain gas leaks incidents on pipelines and make a confession. Zakharova also said that the US president was obliged to answer the question whether Washington had acted on its February 7 threat against Nord Stream 2. The US administration has denied that Biden actually threatened to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden had in mind joint efforts with Germany to freeze the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 project.