Germany is seeking to extradite a Ukrainian man arrested in Poland on suspicion of diving down to the Baltic sea bed to plant explosives in the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline attack.
The man, identified in Polish media reports as Volodymyr Z and by Germany as Vladimir Z, is described as a trained diver and is sought by investigators in Germany, who believe he was part of a group that sabotaged the pipeline, consisting of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.
“He was part of a group of people who placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the island of Bornholm in September 2022,” Germany’s federal court of justice said. “The accused participated in the necessary dives.”
It said the man and his accomplices had used a sailing yacht “rented from a German company through intermediaries using forged identification documents” that had left from the German port of Rostock.
Undersea explosions on 26 September 2022 damaged three of the four pipelines built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, and worsened an energy crisis as European countries attempted to wean themselves off Russian supplies.
The suspect’s lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, on Tuesday confirmed the arrest to the Polish broadcaster TVN24. “In the early hours my client was detained in a town near Warsaw as a result of a European arrest warrant, which was issued by Germany and pertains to matters related to Nord Stream 2.”
He said he was ready to argue on his client’s behalf that no Ukrainian could rightfully be held criminally responsible for attacks on the pipelines, since the proceeds from gas sent through Nord Stream 2 were intended to help finance Moscow’s war effort, as those from Nord Stream 1 had been for years.
Nord Stream 2 never went into operation. It had been built to carry Russian gas beneath the Baltic Sea to Europe, but Germany halted its certification process in February 2022 over Moscow’s recognition of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine before its invasion. It has remained out of use.
The Russian government said it can be repaired, even as Germany has ruled out bringing it into operation.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that Russia hoped Germany would complete its investigation into the explosions, for which, he said, Moscow blamed Kyiv.
Initially, many assumed Russia was behind the attack. But German investigators have since identified a Ukrainian group of five men and a woman who they believe were responsible.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines and denied responsibility.
German prosecutors said if the man is extradited, he will be brought before an investigating judge at the federal court in Karlsruhe. The case is diplomatically awkward as Ukraine has been backed by Germany against Russia with and weapons.
Last month another Ukrainian, Serhii Kuznietsov, 49, was arrested while on holiday in Italy on the basis of a European warrant. An Italian court ordered he be extradited to Germany to face charges related to the Nord Stream attack.
Kuznietsov is believed to have forged identity papers to charter a yacht through intermediaries, from which the attacks were carried out near the Danish island of Bornholm.
