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Germany’s chief prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of blowing up Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea about two years ago, German media reported.
German public broadcaster ARD and the daily newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit said the alleged perpetrator of the attacks was a Ukrainian citizen who had been living in Poland but had since gone into hiding.
The Swedish newspaper Expressen, part of the team of media outlets that broke the story, identified the suspect as Volodymyr Zhuravlov, 44. He is suspected of “unconstitutional sabotage and causing an explosion.”
A spokeswoman for the German prosecutor’s office declined to comment.
If confirmed, it would be the first breakthrough in the long-running investigation into the explosions on September 26, 2022, that destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines.
The explosions, near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, caused four pipeline leaks. Investigators have since puzzled over who was responsible for what was one of the most spectacular cases of sabotage in recent European history.
NS1 had long been the main pipeline for Russian natural gas into Germany. NS2 had been completed but had not yet entered service at the time of the explosions, amid rising political tensions between Berlin and Moscow following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The two lines had long been a source of friction between Berlin and its Eastern European neighbors, who argued they would allow Russia to increase its control over European energy markets, bypassing countries such as Poland and supplying gas directly to the region’s largest economic and manufacturing power.
At the time of the explosions, Moscow had already suspended much of its gas supplies to Germany.
ARD said the alleged attackers had used a German sailing yacht, the Andromeda, which they had chartered in September 2022 and used to sail in the Baltic Sea. In July 2023, investigators discovered traces of explosives on the boat, which they believe were used to transport the charges for the attack.
The broadcaster said investigators had identified two other Ukrainian nationals, one of them a woman, as potential suspects. They believed the two, both experienced divers, may have attached explosives to the pipelines.
The broadcaster also reported that police and prosecutors have so far found no evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian military or intelligence services in the attacks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently denied that his government was involved.
Sweden and Denmark suspended investigations into the explosions in early 2024, but German prosecutors continued their investigation.
According to media reports, German investigators managed to gather enough evidence in early June to obtain an arrest warrant for Zhuravlov from a German Federal Court judge.
They then turned to Polish authorities with a European arrest warrant. It was unclear, ARD said, why Poland had not acted on the matter. It said Polish authorities had so far not responded to the German request.
ARD and the newspapers said investigators assumed Zhuravlov lived in a town west of Warsaw but had recently gone into hiding. It was unclear whether he had now returned to Ukraine.
