Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines, Germany’s prosecutor general said.
The suspect, identified only as Serhii K under German privacy laws, will be brought before a German judge after being extradited, the prosecutor general said on Thursday.
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Viewed by both Russia and the West as an act of sabotage, no one has claimed responsibility for explosions that severely damaged pipelines carrying gas from Russia to Europe in September 2022, marking a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict and ramping up an energy supply crisis on the continent.
Serhii K was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, a statement from the prosecutor’s office said.
He and his accomplices had set off from Rostock on Germany’s northeastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack, it said, adding that the vessel had been rented from a German company with the help of forged identity documents via middlemen.
Authorities acted on a European arrest warrant for the suspect, who faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of buildings.
According to German investigators, the Ukrainian suspect played a coordinating role in the operation rather than being one of the divers who placed explosives on the pipelines.
Officers arrested him overnight in the province of Rimini on Italy’s Adriatic coast, the German prosecutor’s statement said.
A German investigation concluded in 2023 that a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. The team that carried out the attack reportedly consisted of two divers, two assistants, a captain, and a medic.
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Investigators have been largely tight-lipped, but said two years ago they found traces of undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht that was searched as part of the probe.
Germany’s Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said the arrest was an “impressive success” for Germany’s state prosecutors.
Hubig also called in a statement for the case to be fully resolved, including under criminal law.
Sweden and Denmark had also conducted probes into the explosions.
The explosions in 2022 ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies at the end of August 2022. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of that year.
Russia has accused the United States of staging the explosions, a charge Washington denies. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the US and some of its allies, who warned that they posed a risk to Europe’s energy security by increasing dependence on Russian gas.
Beyond their geopolitical effect, the Nord Stream pipeline leaks were a huge environmental disaster, with local wildlife affected and huge volumes of methane discharged into the Baltic Sea, in what observers believe could be the single largest release of methane due to human activity.
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