Nord Stream suspect arrested in Croatia, Germany says

A Ukrainian man identified by AFP as Volodymyr Zhuravlyov has been arrested in Croatia on suspicion of taking part in the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, German prosecutors said Wednesday.

Germany's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office said the suspect, whom it only partially named, was arrested in Pula on a European arrest warrant. Prosecutors said the trained scuba diver was “strongly suspected of jointly causing explosions” and said Germany was seeking his extradition.

The Baltic Sea explosions came months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and destroyed three of the four seafloor pipelines in the major energy link. German prosecutors allege that Zhuravlyov was part of a team that used a rented yacht for the underwater sabotage operation near the Danish island of Bornholm.

Prosecutors said he worked closely with Sergiy Kuznetsov, another Ukrainian man who was arrested in Italy last year before being extradited to Germany.

German investigators believe the attack was ordered by a Ukrainian state agency with the aim of depriving Russia of future energy revenues to finance its war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.

Zhuravlyov had previously been arrested in Poland on the same charges, but Polish authorities refused to extradite him and let him go. They judged that any Ukrainian attack on the pipelines would have been a legitimate act of war rather than a criminal act.

The case is sensitive for Germany and Ukraine, as Berlin has strongly backed Kyiv against Russia. German government officials, when asked about the case, have pointed to the independence of the judiciary.