Germany issued a Europe-wide arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor accused of being a member of the group that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, three German news agencies, including SZ newspaper, Die Zeit and ARD television station, announced. August 14.
German investigators believe that this man is one of the divers who placed an explosive device on the gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea in September 2022. The suspect in the Nord Stream explosion was confirmed to have most recently stayed in Poland.
The German prosecutor general's office said that Germany asked Poland to arrest this man in June this year.
On August 14, news magazine Spiegel quoted security sources as saying that the suspect in the Nord Stream case is believed to have left Poland.
According to Reuters, spokesperson for the Polish National Prosecutor's Office Anna Adamiak confirmed that German authorities sent a Europe-wide 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 revealed.
"In the end, Volodymyr Z was not detained because in early July he left Polish territory, crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border," she said.
According to Ms. Anna Adamiak, the suspect in the Nord Stream case whom Germany issued an arrest warrant "can freely cross the Polish-Ukrainian border because German authorities have not included him in the wanted people database. This could This means that the Polish Border Guard does not know and has no basis to detain Volodymyr Z".
News reports from SZ, Zeit and ARD also said that another man and another woman - also Ukrainian diving instructors - have been identified by Germany as suspects in the investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage case. but so far no arrest warrant has been issued.
The explosions destroyed two of the four routes of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines connecting Russia and Germany. The explosion cut off Russian gas from the European market.
Russia blamed the US, UK and Ukraine for the sabotage. These countries have denied involvement.
Germany, Denmark and Sweden have all opened investigations into the Nord Stream sabotage. Swedish investigators found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the scene, confirming the explosions were intentional.
The investigation into the Nord Stream case by Sweden and Denmark 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 attached explosive devices to pipelines at a depth of about 70 to 80 m.
