Poland's Top Diplomat 'Calls US Alliance Worthless'

A man who sounds a lot like Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski doesn't mince words about his feelings toward the US—and his fellow Poles—in a boozy, secretly recorded backroom chat obtained by Polish magazine Wprost. The man the magazine identifies as Sikorski says the "Polish-American alliance isn't worth anything. It is even harmful because it creates a false sense of security," the AP reports. We are "suckers, total suckers," the man continues. "The problem in Poland is that we have shallow pride and low self-esteem."

The magazine shook Polish politics last week with the release of a recording of the country's interior minister and the chief of the central bank discussing how the bank could help the governing party win elections this year. The new recording—apparently made before the Ukraine crisis—drags the scandal into foreign policy at a critical time and the magazine says it will release full transcripts today, reports the New York Times. The magazine, which says the recordings were obtained from a businessman, was raided last week by prosecutors who tried to seize the editor-in-chief's laptop. The government later admitted there had been "legal deficiencies" and the raid should never have happened, the BBC reports. (More Radek Sikorski stories.)