Radoslaw Sikorski has been criticized online for declaring the end of Russian gas imports via Ukraine a “victory”
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has celebrated Ukraine’s decision to halt the flow of Russian gas to the EU as a victory for the West, despite the cutoff leading to higher prices and shortages in some countries.
Russia stopped gas transit through Ukraine early on Wednesday morning, after Kiev refused to extend an agreement under which it collected transit fees to move the gas through its own pipeline network and into Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then on to Austria and Italy.
Sikorski took to X to celebrate. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin spent billions building Nordstream to circumvent Ukraine and blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies,” he wrote, referring to two pipelines that linked Russia with Germany until they were destroyed in an act of sabotage in 2022.
“Today Ukraine cut off his ability to export gas direct to the EU,” Sikorski continued, hailing the decision as “another victory after the enlargement of NATO by Finland and Sweden.”
Kiev’s decision caused EU gas prices to spike to €50 per megawatt hour, a figure unseen since October 2023. Slovakia, which relied heavily on Russian gas imports via Ukraine, will be severely affected, as will EU candidate state Moldova, which used Russian gas to generate much of its electricity.
Sikorski should be “locked up in a mental institution” for “celebrating cutting Europe off gas in the middle of winter,” wrote journalist Thomas Fazi responded to Sikorski’s post.
“Russia was clearly trying to blackmail Europe by supplying even more gas to them. Thankfully, Ukraine heroically ‘saved’ Europe by cutting off the gas,” another commenter wrote. “The absurdity of this logic is mind-blowing.”
“People like Sikorski who want to destroy European economies by cutting them off from global resources and markets should not be allowed to live in Europe,” another comment read. “Go to the USA where your loyalties lie.”
Sikorski was similarly ridiculed back in 2022, when he responded to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines by posting – and then deleting – an image of the blast site along with the caption: “Thank you, USA.” While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy.
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American security services,” referring to the US and UK.
