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Germany’s chief prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea nearly two years ago, according to German media reports.
German public broadcaster ARD, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit newspapers, said the alleged perpetrator of the attacks was a Ukrainian citizen who had been living in Poland but had now gone into hiding.
The Swedish newspaper Expressen, part of the team of media outlets that broke the story, named the suspect as Volodymyr Zhuravlov, aged 44. He is suspected of “anti-constitutional 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 blasts on September 26 2022 that destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.
The explosions, near the Danish Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, led to four leaks on the pipelines. Ever since, investigators have puzzled over who could be responsible for what was one of the most spectacular instances of sabotage in Europe’s recent history.
NS1 had long been the main conduit for Russian natural gas into Germany. NS2 had been completed but had not yet gone into operation by the time of the blasts, amid rising political tensions between Berlin and Moscow in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The two lines had long been a source of friction between Berlin and its east European neighbours, which said they would allow Russia to increase its control of European energy markets by bypassing countries like Poland and supplying gas directly into the region’s largest economy and manufacturing powerhouse.
By the time of the explosions, Moscow had already suspended much of its gas deliveries to Germany.
ARD said the alleged attackers had used a German sailing yacht, the Andromeda, which they rented in September 2022, and used to sail into 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 citizens, one a woman, as potential suspects. They believed the two, both experienced divers, might have attached the explosives to the pipelines.
The broadcaster also reported that so far police and prosecutors had found no evidence that the Ukrainian military or intelligence services were involved in the attacks. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has always denied that his government was involved.
Sweden and Denmark suspended their investigation into the blasts at the start of 2024, but the German prosecutor’s office continued its probe.
The media reports said German investigators had succeeded in gathering enough evidence to procure an arrest warrant against Zhuravlov from a judge at the German Federal Court at the beginning of June.
They then approached the Polish authorities with a European arrest warrant. It was unclear, ARD said, why Poland had failed to act on it. It said Polish authorities had so far not responded to the German request.
ARD and the newspapers said investigators assumed Zhuravlov had been living in a town west of Warsaw, but had recently gone into hiding. It was unclear whether he was now back in Ukraine.
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