Polish premier slams opposition for supporting Musk’s verbal 'attack' on foreign minister

WARSAW

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday rebuked opposition Polish politicians for supporting verbal attacks made by US politicians on Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski over the weekend.

The spat between US and Polish officials started with US billionaire Elon Musk's X post on Sunday.

The head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and owner of SpaceX, which provides internet via Starlink satellites, Musk said: "My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. If I turn it off, the entire front (of Ukraine in the ongoing Moscow-Kyiv war) will collapse."

Sikorski responded: "Starlink for Ukraine is financed by the Polish Ministry of Digital Affairs at a cost of about $50 million per year. Leaving aside the ethics of threatening the victim of aggression, if SpaceX turns out to be an unreliable supplier, we will be forced to look for other suppliers."

Politicians from the opposition party came out supporting the US administration after Musk told Sikorski on X: "Be quiet, little man. You pay a small part of the costs. And there is no replacement for Starlink."

Lawmaker Michal Wojcik appealed for the resignation of the Polish government, while Pawel Jablonski stated that "for the good of Polish diplomacy, someone should take away Sikorski's Twitter."

Member of European Parliament Arkadiusz Mularczyk wrote on X: "We apologize for Sikorski."

Tusk then said on X: "By attacking Sikorski, who calmly explains to politicians from another country about the Polish national interest, (the opposition) PiS (Law and Justice party) is losing the last remnants of its national dignity. Political and moral bankrupts."

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an X post, accused Sikorski of "making things up," and said: "Nobody threatened to cut Ukraine off from Starlink. And say thank you, without Starlink, Ukraine would have lost this war a long time ago, and the Russians would now be on the border with Poland."

Recently, talks between Eutelsat -- one of Europe’s largest satellite operators -- and the EU have reportedly intensified and the satellite operator could eventually replace the network of American communication terminals in Ukraine.