WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s prime minister said Thursday the country is reviewing oversight of its oil and gas facilities and other strategic locations after a weekend incident in which three foreign divers had to be rescued near from a key oil port where they weren’t allowed to be.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also said he asked the secret security services to produce a detailed report on the incident.
Police in northern Poland are questioning why they released the three rescued divers near the oil port of Gdansk without questioning them in detail.
Security experts said the divers’ presence in the sensitive Gulf of Gdansk area last weekend had raised concerns, given high tensions with Russia over its energy supplies. The divers had Spanish identity papers.
According to Polish media, the divers were rescued early on Sunday after sending a distress message when their small, unregistered boat malfunctioned in stormy weather. They were equipped with professional diving equipment and said they were looking for amber, but none were found in the boat. They weren’t allowed to dive in the gulf.
Despite a high level of security introduced across Poland due to the country’s support for neighboring Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, police freed the men. This raised questions, especially since the phone numbers they gave turned out to be inactive.
Morawiecki, when asked about the matter, said he had instructed the Polish secret service to look into the matter closely.
“Of course they may be dangerous people, but they may not be dangerous people and what they said is true,” Morawiecki told reporters.
He pointed out that Poland had increased its level of oversight of strategic infrastructure after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, but was also reviewing security protocols.
“It is obvious that in the midst of the war in Ukraine, when the risk of sabotage by Russia increased immeasurably, there was a need for increased monitoring of critical infrastructure. We are also looking at that oversight,” Morawiecki said.
In raising concerns, experts point to last summer’s underwater explosions that damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines that run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea and were meant to transport Russian gas to Germany. Authorities in Sweden and Denmark said the leaks were sabotage.
Some Polish media suggested that the three divers might have been involved in a smuggling ring and might have been looking for contraband.
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