Germany issued an arrest warrant across Europe for the Ukrainian diving coach accused of being a member of the group that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, three German news agencies including SZ, Die Zeit and ARD broadcast on August 14.
German investigators believe the man was one of the divers who planted explosives in the gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany in the Baltic Sea in September 2022. The Nord Stream explosion suspect was confirmed to have last been in Poland.
The German prosecutor general's office said that he had asked Poland to arrest the man in June this year.
On August 14, Spiegel news magazine quoted security sources as saying that the Nord Stream suspect is believed to have left Poland.
According to Reuters, a spokeswoman for the Polish National Prosecutor's Office Anna Adamiak confirmed that the German authorities sent a European arrest warrant for Ukrainian citizen Volodymyr Z to the prosecutor's office in Warsaw in June 2024. Polish law does not allow the full name of the suspect to be disclosed.
"In the end, Volodymyr Z was not detained because he left Polish territory in early July, crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border," she said.
The Nord Stream suspect, who Germany issued an arrest warrant for, "can freely cross the Poland-Ukraine border because the German authorities have not put him in the wanted humanities database," said Anna Adamiak. This means that the Polish Border Guard does not know and has no basis to detain Volodymyr Z".
SZ, thoi and ARD reports also said that another man and a woman - also a Ukrainian diving coach - were identified by Germany as suspects in the investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage, but so far no arrest warrants have been issued.
The explosions destroyed two of the four lines of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines connecting Russia and Germany. The explosion cut off Russian gas from the European market.
Russia has accused the US, UK and Ukraine of sabotage. These countries have denied involvement.
Germany, Denmark and Sweden have all opened an investigation into the Nord Stream sabotage. Swedish investigators have found traces of explosives on some exhibits collected from the scene, confirming the explosions were intentional.
The Swedish- Danish investigation into the Nord Stream case ended in February this year without identifying any suspects.
In January 2023, Germany raided a ship suspected of being used to transport explosives and informed the United Nations that trained divers may have planted the explosives in pipelines at a depth of about 70 to 80 m.
