{"id":30496,"date":"2026-08-19T14:47:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/30496\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T14:47:20","slug":"ukrainian-man-arrested-in-croatia-over-nord-stream-pipeline-blasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/30496\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian man arrested in Croatia over Nord Stream pipeline blasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

BERLIN (AP) \u2014 A Ukrainian man wanted in Germany in connection with the 2022 undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines<\/a> was arrested on a European warrant in Croatia on Wednesday, Germany\u2019s federal prosecutor said.<\/p>\n

The German prosecutors said that the suspect was a \u201ctrained scuba diver\u201d who belonged to a group of people who \u201cplanted explosives\u201d on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm.<\/p>\n

The undersea explosions on Sept. 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which had been built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine<\/a> as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources after the Kremlin\u2019s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.<\/p>\n

The suspect was \u201cstrongly suspected of jointly causing explosions, anti-constitutional sabotage, and destruction of buildings and structures,\u201d the prosecutors\u2019 statement said. It said he was arrested in the Croatian seaside city of Pula and would be brought before an investigating judge at Germany\u2019s federal court of justice after his extradition.<\/p>\n

The German prosecutor\u2019s office identified the suspect only as Vladimir Z. in its statement announcing his arrest. A spokesperson, however, confirmed to The Associated Press that it was the same man who was arrested in Poland last year but was later released when a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany. Polish authorities identified him as Volodymyr Zhuravlov.<\/p>\n

Poland has long opposed the Nord Stream pipelines, viewing them as an attempt by Russia to use its vast energy resources to gain leverage across Europe. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the time of Zhuravlov\u2019s extradition hearing that it would not be in Poland\u2019s interest to hand him over.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear why Zhuravlov left Poland given the arrest warrant that was out for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cVolodymyr knew that the ruling applies only on the territory of Poland,\u201d his Polish lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, told the AP, adding that Zhuravlov\u2019s wife was also surprised that her husband was detained in Croatia.<\/p>\n

The German government welcomed the arrest on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re simply glad that the federal prosecutor\u2019s office is making progress in these investigations, because it\u2019s important that the bombing of the pipelines be clarified as well,\u201d Justice Ministry spokesman Nicholas Limmer told reporters in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Last month, German federal prosecutors filed charges against a former Ukrainian army officer<\/a> in connection with the same explosions.<\/p>\n

The suspect, identified only as Serhii K., faces charges of causing an explosion, damaging property, disrupting public service and being an \u201caccomplice to war crimes\u201d by attacking civilian objects. <\/p>\n

Serhii K. was detained in August<\/a> 2025 in an Italian village, where officers raided a bungalow where he was staying with his family. Police said he surrendered without resistance. He was extradited to Germany in November.<\/a><\/p>\n

The suspects allegedly used a yacht that set off from the German port of Rostock. The yacht had been rented from a German company using forged IDs and intermediaries.<\/p>\n

The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia\u2019s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies<\/a> in August 2022. They also damaged Nord Stream 2, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process<\/a> shortly before Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n

Initially some officials in the West suspected that Russia might have carried out the explosions. But German investigators later pointed to suspected Ukrainian involvement.<\/p>\n

Russia has accused the U.S. of staging the explosions, a charge Washington has denied. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the U.S.<\/a> and some of its allies, which warned that they increased dependence on Russian gas.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland, and Fanny Brodersen in Berlin contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERLIN (AP) \u2014 A Ukrainian man wanted in Germany in connection with the 2022 undersea explosions that damaged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10946,839,5681,10944,154,195,2023,10945,835,56,3788,6,10930,161,81],"class_list":["post-30496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-claudia-ciobanu","tag-donald-tusk","tag-extradition","tag-fanny-brodersen","tag-general-news","tag-germany","tag-law-enforcement","tag-nicholas-limmer","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-poland","tag-poland-government","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-vladimir-z","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}