German hang Der Spiegel reported that the "Vladimir Z" suspect used a Ukrainian government car to leave Poland.
The Ukrainian divers accused of being behind the Nord Stream sabotage escaped a German arrest warrant with the help of Ukraine and possibly Poland - Der Spiegel wrote.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines under the Baltic Sea were damaged in a series of explosions in September 2022, which ended the flow of Russian gas to Germany. No one has claimed responsibility for the explosions, but several media outlets in the West have accused the sabotage of being carried out by Ukrainian citizens.
In early August, German media reported that Berlin had issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Z, a former Ukrainian military diver they accused of planting explosives on the Nord Stream pipeline. Russian media outlets identified the suspect as Vladimir Zhuravlev.
According to an investigation by Der Spiegel published on August 29, Zhuravlev was actually in Germany in May and in Poland at the time the arrest warrant was issued.
Polish authorities did nothing to arrest Zhuravlev and he may have crossed the border into Ukraine on July 6 in a car from the Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw.
"Why do we have to arrest him? For us, he is a hero!" - Der Spiegel quoted German security officials as reinterpreting the words of Polish partners.
The German news agency noted that Zhuravlev and his family entered Germany in May, en route to Denmark, and claimed to have identified the apartment in Bryggen Syd (Copenhagen), where Zhuravlev's family lived. On May 26, the family took a ferry to Rostock and stopped in Berlin, on the way back to Warsaw.
Zhuravlev has been on the radar of German authorities, but Berlin has yet to issue an arrest warrant. Berlin only took action in the first week of June and it was not until June 21 that the European arrest warrant was delivered to Poland. However, Warsaw did nothing.
Zhuravlev fled Poland on July 6, crossing the border into Ukraine in Korczowa at 6:20 a.m. Security sources told Spiegel that he was in a car with a diplomatic license plate used by the Ukrainian Embassy in Warsaw.
Spiegel security sources said Germany was very angry with Poland and would not forget Warsaws deceiving behavior.
Responding to media reports about the attack, former German intelligence director August Hanning said earlier this month that Poland and Ukraine may have cooperated with each other. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded by asking all of Nord Stream's " initiators and sponsors" to "apologise and keep quiet".
Articles about a group of Ukrainians working on a chartered cruise ship - with or without the approval of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - blaming the Nord Stream sabotage only appeared after Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that the US government was behind the explosions.
