Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced that Poland will not comply with Germany’s extradition request for Volodymyr Z., a Ukrainian national wanted by European authorities for his alleged role in the 2022 explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which connected Germany and Russia.

Tusk declared that extraditing Volodymyr was “not in Poland’s interest,” adding, “Europe’s problem—along with that of Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland—is not that Nord Stream 2 was destroyed, but that it was ever built. Russia, financed by several European states and German and (Anglo-) Dutch companies, constructed Nord Stream 2 in direct opposition to the vital interests of our nations and all of Europe. There should be no ambiguity about that.” His remarks were seen as an implicit rebuke of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to approve the project.