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Katelyn Ferral
By Katelyn Ferral March 1, 2024

Polish foreign minister did not call the U.S. ‘dysfunctional and unreliable’ over Ukraine aid

If Your Time is short

  • In a Bloomberg News interview, Poland’s foreign minister expressed concern about U.S. not sending more military aid to Ukraine but did not call the U.S. dysfunctional and unreliable.

  • This quote was lifted from an X poster’s summary  of the foreign minister’s interview.ut We find no evidence it is a direct quote.

  • Learn more about PolitiFact's fact-checking process and rating system.

As Congress weighs whether to send more military aid to Ukraine, European leaders are voicing concern over what a halt to U.S. financial support for the battle against Russia  war could mean for Ukraine.

A Feb. 25 Instagram post claimed that Poland’s foreign minister called the U.S. "dysfunctional and unreliable" because of congressional delays and deliberation over sending more military aid to Ukraine.

"If the United States of America fails to deliver military support to Ukraine despite the commander in chief’s (President Joe Biden’s) desire to do so, allies will start developing their own nuclear weapons because America is dysfunctional and unreliable," read a quote attributed to Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The post was published by Occupy Democrats, a left-wing advocacy group  founded in 2012 in response to the conservative Tea Party movement.

This Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Poland’s foreign minister did express concerns about the prospect of no more U.S. military aid for Ukraine on Feb. 22 in a nearly nine-minute Bloomberg News interview. Sikorski said he wanted to appeal to the U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. 

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"Please let democracy decide this issue,"Sikorski said. "Please allow this Ukraine supplemental (aid package) to go to a vote. Otherwise, if you preclude your commander in chief from doing what he wants to do,  … Your credibility will be damaged."

Also the interview, Sikorski said, "If the supplemental (funding package proposed by Democrats) doesn't go through and U.S. allies are disappointed and get the idea that the United States might not be able to help you even when the commander in chief wants to help you, that will have profound consequences for all American alliances around the world." 

The Occupy Democrats post appears to trace to Ukrainian-born race car driver Igor Sushko’s X post on Feb. 24  that summarizes Sikorski’s Bloomberg News comments, but not Sikorski’s actual words. 

Occupy Democrats did not answer an email from PolitiFact seeking comment.

There is no evidence Sikorski called the U.S. "dysfunctional and unreliable" in his Bloomberg News comments and we found no evidence that he said this elsewhere.

We rate the claim that Poland’s foreign minister called the U.S. "dysfunctional and unreliable" False. 

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Polish foreign minister did not call the U.S. ‘dysfunctional and unreliable’ over Ukraine aid

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