Mark Brzezinski nomination has been confirmed as US ambassador to Poland

Mark Brzezinski, the son of the late Polish-born Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as the national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, has been confirmed by the US Senate as the American ambassador to Warsaw. Mr Brzezinski, who is fluent in Polish, is a lawyer, political scientist and diplomat.

Brzezinski Junior served in Barack Obama’s administration as the first executive director of the White House’s Arctic Executive Steering Committee and as US ambassador to Sweden. He also served on the White House National Security Council during Bill Clinton’s administration, first as director for Russia and Eurasia and later as director for the Balkans.

Apart from Polish, he speaks French, was a Fulbright scholar in Poland, and is the author of “The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland”, and a recipient of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

During an earlier hearing before the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr Brzezinski gathered favourable opinions from politicians from both major parties, Democratic and Republican, who said that his duties in Warsaw would include insisting on democratic values, especially media freedom. He spoke of his opposition to Nord Stream 2, the nearly-ready Russia-Germany gas pipeline, which bypasses Eastern Europe and is seen by Warsaw as a threat to the region’s energy security.

The previous US ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, ended her mission after Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump.