Germany's Bild newspaper has said in an article that Lambrecht "committed a nasty foul” in the matter, the dw.com/pl website has reported.
Germany offers Patriot systems to Poland
The article, penned by Angelika Hellemann, says that, following a deadly missile incident in a Polish village near the Ukrainian border in mid-November, Germany’s federal government sought to provide support to Polish authorities.
Lambrecht was tasked with offering that Germany could send some of its Patriot air defence systems to Poland, for deployment near Poland’s border with Ukraine, Hellemann wrote, as cited by dw.com/pl.
However, according to Hellemann, Berlin’s offer led to a serious rift with NATO ally Warsaw, because the German defence minister “broke the confidentiality of the talks, for PR purposes," dw.com/pl reported.
Hellemann added that such an approach was “absolutely unacceptable” and represented “a nasty foul,” according to dw.com/pl.
Reconstructing the timeline of the talks, Bild reported that Germany’s defence ministry made the offer of relocating some of its Patriot systems to Poland on November 17, dw.com/pl said.
Poland’s defence ministry replied the next day, with officials saying the German proposal was being “studied carefully,” and requesting that Berlin “refrain from disclosing the information,” according to dw.com/pl.
“Poland in effect asked Berlin to keep its offer secret,” Hellemann wrote, as quoted by dw.com/pl.
Lambrecht discloses offer in media interview
According to Bild, “for Lambrecht, self-promotion evidently took precedence over Poland’s plea to keep the matter confidential,” dw.com/pl reported.
On the morning of November 21, Lambrecht "revealed the details of the Patriot offer in an interview with the Rheinische Post,” Bild reported, as cited by dw.com/pl.
A German defence ministry official was quoted as saying: “It was unprofessional. You can’t treat NATO allies in this way. It is damaging both to Germany and to the Bundeswehr."
Marcus Faber, a politician with Germany's liberal FDP party, was also critical of Lambrecht, according to dw.com/pl.
Faber said, as quoted by dw.com/pl: “With NATO partners such as Poland, we need to communicate in a way that is based on respect.”
He added: “I would recommend that the defence minister not disclose information against the will of allies. Otherwise the foundations of trust-based cooperation are being destroyed,” according to dw.com/pl.
Missile incident in Poland
Two Polish citizens died when "a Russia-made missile" caused an explosion outside the southeastern Polish village of Przewodów, about 6 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, at around 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15, according to a statement by the Polish foreign ministry.
The explosion at a grain facility in Przewodów came as Russia fired dozens of missiles against cities across Ukraine in a new wave of attacks targeting critical energy infrastructure, according to officials.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said last month that the missile was probably a stray fired by Ukraine's air defences and not a Russian strike, but added that Russia "bears ultimate responsibility" for the incident as it "continues its illegal war" against Ukraine.
Tuesday is day 286 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: dw.com/pl, bild.de