[4] Born in Bydgoszcz, Sikorski served as chairman of the local student strike committee in March 1981 while studying at the I Liceum Ogólnokształcące (High School).

He won the 1st prize singles in the category Spot News of World Press Photo Awards in 1988 for a photograph of a family killed and mummified in their home as a result of communist bombing raid.

[17] His article describing an ambush on the Benguela Highway conducted by Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebels attracted widespread interest.

He briefly served as deputy defence minister in the Jan Olszewski government in 1992, in which he helped launch the Polish bid to join NATO.

From 1998 to 2001, Sikorski served as undersecretary of state at the ministry of foreign affairs in the Jerzy Buzek's government, being deputy first to Bronisław Geremek, and then to Władysław Bartoszewski.

[21] During his time as a Deputy Foreign Minister, Sikorski focused on reforms inside the Ministry and started the campaign to protest the use of the misleading term "Polish concentration camps" in western media.

Other major conferences included 25th Anniversary of the birth of Solidarity,[26] "Axis of Evil: Belarus – The Missing Link"[27] and "Ukraine's Choice" at the time of the Orange Revolution.

During his time in MoD, he moved Warsaw Pact-era files to the Institute of National Remembrance, declassified Warsaw Pact maps which demonstrated Soviet plans to use nuclear weapons in an offensive war against NATO[30] and cancelled the military pension of Helena Wolińska-Brus, a Stalin-era prosecutor who sentenced the anti-communist Polish resistance general August Emil "Nil" Fieldorf to death.

[34] Sikorski resigned on 5 February 2007, on the eve of Poland's engagement in the war in Afghanistan in protest against the activities of the chief of military intelligence, Antoni Macierewicz.

[36] Sikorski was sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Donald Tusk's government on 16 November 2007, succeeding Anna Fotyga.

[39] As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sikorski normalized relations with Russia, and helped to terminate the Russian embargo on Polish agricultural products.

He restated NATO criteria that Russia would have to meet are: be a democratic state, have civilian control over the army, and to settle any territorial disputes with its neighbours.

Over seven years his ministry carried out various reforms, introducing the Diplomatic Security Service, global digital secure communications, ISO standards in procedures, electronic document management, a blackberry and laptop for every diplomat, a satellite phone for every posting, new visual standards book; The Foreign Service Day, a dress code, the Bene Merito honorary badge,[43] The Polish Institute of Diplomacy, Poland's Lech Wałęsa Solidarity Prize[44] (worth 1 mln EUR); reduced the number of chancelleries in the MFA HQ from over 30 to 2, reformed the telegram and courier systems, reduced employment while raising salaries; quadrupled ambassadors and consuls operational funds, closed down 30 embassies and consulates and opened several new ones;[45] he opened a Polish consulate in Sevastopol, the only one representing a Western country in that city for four years; built a new EU embassy in Brussels,[46] a new Embassy residence in Washington, DC,[47] a new Consulate-General in London;[48] he moved consulates in Cologne, Manchester and Madrid; he created the MFA committee on cyber defence; the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), authorized intelligence operations.

[58] The annex to the agreement, which envisages shorter-range missiles capable of defending Poland's territory was signed in the presence of Sikorski and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton on 3 June 2010 in Kraków.

[59] In March 2010, Sikorski took part in the Civic Platform Presidential primaries against the then Sejm Speaker, Bronisław Komorowski, who went on to defeat the late Lech Kaczyński's brother Jarosław and becoming president.

[64] In a February 2011 interview with Israeli journalist Adar Primor, Sikorski declared: "Nazi Germany carried out the Holocaust on our soil – against our will, but in front of our eyes".

[65] In June 2014, a magazine in Poland published redacted transcripts of an illegally taped conversation between Sikorski and the former Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski.

[66][67] Sikorski is heard criticizing the British Prime Minister David Cameron for his handling of the EU's fiscal pact to appease Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party.

On 16 July 2014, shortly after publicly accusing Russia of strengthening support for separatist rebels in Ukraine and a Ukrainian military transport plane shootdown, and shortly before an EU summit on whether to impose sanctions on Russia, Sikorski flew to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Pavlo Klimkin.

[78][79] Sikorski was the leading European politician during the Maidan crisis in February 2014, which was sparked by refusal of signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement by since-deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich.

[citation needed] On 3 August, Sikorski told CNN's Fareed Zakaria that the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash had helped bring European leaders together against Russia.

He noted the sanctions will cause economic "losses all around", especially for Poland, but declared that Europe cannot "stand silently by when Russia annexes, for the first time since the Second World War, a neighbour's province.

On 30 August, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was appointed President of the European Council and Mogherini prevailed over Sikorski.

We take this decision as both a signal of appreciation of the policies Poland has pursued over ten years of its EU membership and a sign that the distinctions between 'old' and 'new' member states are rapidly crumbling.

This prompted the Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin to answer on his Telegram channel that "Sikorski is causing a nuclear conflict in the center of Europe.

Sikorski and the like are the reason why Ukraine must not only be liberated from Nazi ideology, but also demilitarized, ensuring the status of a country free of nuclear weapons.

[98][better source needed] Four hours later, after numerous media outlets had speculated that Sikorski implied the U.S. blew up the pipelines,[99][100] he made subsequent tweets, where he called the explosions a "special maintenance operation", alluding to the Russian government's euphemism for the invasion of Ukraine.

[105] During the "June 4th March", which was part of the 2023 Polish protests, Sikorski was seen on the Balcony of a building that houses the Lawyer's office of Roman Giertych, watching the protestors from above.

[106] Sikorski was reappointed as minister of foreign affairs in Donald Tusk's third government on 13 December 2023 following that year's election.

[114] In November 2024, Sikorski officially confirmed he would participate in the presidential primary election organized by the Civic Coalition, his main rival being Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski.