Suggestions that Poland helped sabotage Nord Stream are unfounded, presidential adviser says By Reuters

WARSAW (Reuters) – Suggestions that Polish-backed Ukrainian authorities were behind the planning and execution of the 2022 sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines are unfounded, an adviser to the Polish president said on Sunday.

Former German intelligence chief August Hanning told Die Welt this week that he believed there was agreement between the presidents of Poland and Ukraine to carry out the attack.

“These are completely unfounded insinuations,” said Mieszko Pawlak, head of the international policy office in President Andrzej Duda’s office, when asked about the Polsat broadcast’s allegations, PAP Newswire reported.

Pawlak said Hanning was serving when Gerhard Schroeder was German chancellor and the Nord Stream 1 pillars came up and “as head of intelligence he certainly played a shameful and important role in the investment.”

German media reported this week that German prosecutors have identified a Ukrainian diving instructor as a key suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage attack and have issued an arrest warrant for him in Poland.

Poland received the warrant, but the suspect left the country because Germany did not include his name in a database of wanted people, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.

“To all the initiators and patrons of Nord Stream 1 and 2. The only thing you should do today is apologize and shut up,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on the X platform on Saturday.

Tusk did not directly address allegations of Polish involvement.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that private businessmen funded the Nord Stream sabotage, overseen by a top Ukrainian general. Ukraine denies any involvement.

The pipeline to Germany under the Baltic Sea was the main route for Russian gas flows before the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.