Zakharova Warns Tusk’s Nord-Stream Position Could Undermine European-Security
Moscow – 22 August – 2026 – (MT Team) : Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s answer to a media question regarding Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk’s remarks defending the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines on August, 21, 2026.
Question: During a news conference on August 20, in Krakow, Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk issued a statement in defence of individuals whom, according to German law enforcement agencies, are suspected of perpetrating the terrorist attack against the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. The head of the Polish government called upon Berlin – no more, no less – simply to abandon their criminal prosecution and, quite literally, shamed former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in absentia for having, at the time, supported the Nord Stream 2 construction project.
How would you comment on such an appeal by the Polish side to its German neighbour?
Maria Zakharova: One can only speculate as to what grievance Donald Tusk may have harboured against the former Federal Chancellor during his tenure as President of the European Council, yet his present remarks, in any event, carry a perilous and destructive charge for those vestiges of the international legal order not yet eradicated by the geopolitical nihilism propagated by the collective West.
A public pronouncement by the head of government of a major European state, offering justification for a terrorist act committed openly before the eyes of the world, emits a profoundly destabilising signal – one whose chain reaction could ultimately precipitate the collapse of all constraints that have thus far prevented interstate relations on the European continent from descending irretrievably into the law of the jungle.
The position ostentatiously assumed by Warsaw regarding the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines could, in the future, rebound to the detriment of Poland’s own vital interests and security.
Donald Tusk’s statement has also laid bare the deeply entrenched, historically rooted Polish-German antagonism and rivalry in pursuit of the overweening ambitions of Berlin and Warsaw (with the backing of the White House) within the alliances shared by both capitals – the European Union and NATO.
The Polish side’s pointed appeal to its German ally – essentially to accept with gratitude a terrorist attack against the key energy infrastructure of the Federal Republic of Germany, infrastructure which guaranteed Germany tens of billions of euros in profit – constitutes, unequivocally, a direct provocation.
Whilst Berlin is desperately attempting to halt the progressive deindustrialisation of its economy, exacerbated by the compulsion to import costly energy from the United States, Norway and other nations, Warsaw is reaping a windfall from the re-export of American LNG to Ukraine and is drawing ever closer to de facto control of the gas transmission system inherited by Kiev from the USSR.
Within the context of the Polish-German divide, the Nord Stream pipelines affair is manifestly becoming nothing but a source of political and economic losses for the Federal Republic of Germany and a perilous dizzy spell for Warsaw.
