Poland is revolting against simple enforcement of laws, with the country’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk this week making clear Warsaw’s position that it won’t follow the German extradition request for a Ukrainian national wanted by EU authorities for suspected involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions. This is still ultimately pending a Warsaw court decision.
As we detailed previously, the suspect – identified only as “Volodymyr Z” – was initially arrested in Poland on Sept. 30 on a German warrant accusing him of participating in the sabotage. A Polish court has ordered his 40-day detention while deciding on extradition.
The man in custody has been described by Reuters as a Ukrainian diver wanted by Germany. It marked the second recent arrest related to the Nord Stream sabotage investigation, as last month another Ukrainian man was arrested in Italy in connection.
Amazingly, Tusk and many in Poland argue that even if the man took part in the attack, his actions should be viewed positively rather than punished. Tusk is directly challenging and flouting European law and basic norms against sabotage and terrorism.
“The problem with North [sic] Stream is not that it was blown up. The problem is that it was built,” declared Tusk, also posting his defiance on X for the world to see.
He had also said Tuesday, “It is certainly not in Poland’s interest, or in the interest of a simple sense of decency and justice, to charge or extradite this citizen to another country,” as quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “The decision will be up to the court, but our [the Polish government’s] position here is clear.”
Others within the country’s security and law enforcement establishment agree:
Meanwhile, the head of President Karol Nawrocki’s National Security Bureau, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, told Polsat News on Tuesday that he believes Volodymyr Z. “should not have been detained at all” and “the Polish state should refuse to cooperate in this matter”.
“Poland should not contribute to any operation to extradite a person who has harmed Russia,” he continued. “We need to find a formula in which we will remain within the law, and at the same time we will not hand over to the Germans – or potentially Russians – someone who has harmed the Russian war machine.”
Poland’s judiciary reportedly has up to one hundred days to decide whether it will comply with the European Arrest Warrant, but given the pressure so obviously coming from the prime minister’s office and other government entity’s, it will likely refuse the extradition request.
The problem with North Stream 2 is not that it was blown up. The problem is that it was built.
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) October 7, 2025
The mainstream media narrative on this major event which came early in the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically several times. In the opening months, the MSM was lockstep in collectively assuming Russia must have bombed its own key pipelines, effectively economically sabotaging itself and a (at the time) leading European energy export partner.
Then, as we highlighted, there was in 2024 the “bombshell” WSJ Nord Stream report which was a shift, but yet another attempt by mainstream gatekeepers to put official distance between President Zelensky and his supposedly ‘rogue’ top general at the time who ‘oversaw’ the covert op.
The WSJ report with the lengthy title: “A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage: Private businessmen funded the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off,”… has for the most part become the official accepted narrative.
But legendary US journalist Seymour Hersh has maintained the whole time that it was the CIA and a special elite diving branch of the US Navy behind it, in “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”.
Reprinted with permission from Zerohedge.
