Germany provides warrants related to Nord Stream bombing

German authorities have issued a warrant for the arrest of a Ukrainian citizen who is suspected of blowing up the gas pipelines “Nord Stream” and “Nord Stream 2” in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, said several German media on Wednesday.

A Ukrainian diving instructor is suspected. The German media identified him as Volodymyr Z., but the Swedish newspaper “Expressen” reported that the wanted man is Volodymyr Zhuravlyov forty-four years old. He was in Poland when the order was issued, according to the German public broadcaster ARD and the newspapers “Die Zeit” and “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.

The first warranty

This is the first warrant issued by Germany in connection with the bombing of gas pipelines, according to German media. However, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office has not commented on the news reported by the media. Two other Ukrainian citizens – a man and a woman – are known to be suspects, but their arrests have not been requested. They claim to the German media that they do not know Zhuravlyov and that they were on holiday in Bulgaria at the time of the explosion. The investigation did not find that the Ukrainian government was involved in the sabotage of the gas pipeline connecting Germany and Russia. Kyiv has again denied involvement in the gas pipeline bombing. Several German investigators have been suspicious of Ukrainians in the past, although they have not directly blamed the Ukrainian government. It is believed that the suspects moved in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 with the yacht “Andromeda”, which may have been used in the sabotage.

The search is not captured

The newspaper “Wall Street Journal”, referring to informed sources about the progress of the German investigation, has already reported at the beginning of the year that the attack on the gas pipelines was organized from the borders of Poland, but Warsaw did not want to give it up. the information requested to Berlin.

The German Prosecutor’s Office issued a European Arrest Warrant in June this year and appealed to the Polish authorities with a request for the Volodymyr Z. However, this did not happen, and the person who was suspected of Poland.

A representative of the Polish National Prosecutor’s Office told the “Reuters” group that the German authorities had sent a European arrest warrant to Warsaw in June, but the suspect could not be caught. “Volodymyr Z. was not detained because he left the Polish territory at the beginning of July, crossing the Polish-Ukraine border,” said the representative of the Polish Prosecutor’s Office. The suspect was able to cross the border because the German authorities “did not enter him in the database of wanted persons, which means that there was no information and motive at the Polish border guards to detain him, the prosecutor’s office explained. German journalists reportedly contacted Volodymyr Z., but he denied​​​​​​ that he was involved in the sabotage and quickly hung up.

Sweden and Denmark have closed the investigation

Despite the results of the investigation, the relationship between Berlin and Kyiv will not be affected, the office of the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced. Denmark and Sweden also launched an investigation into the explosions that occurred in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm, which damaged both the “Nord Stream” pipeline and one of the “Nord Stream 2” pipelines. . However, both countries ended the investigation this year without naming those responsible for the sabotage. As a result of the explosion, a lot of methane was released into the Baltic Sea.

The Russian state gas company Gazprom, which controls Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, announced that in 2022 800 million cubic meters of gas had entered the Baltic Sea.

The gas leak was stopped only after several days. At the time of the explosion, no gas was supplied to Europe through these pipelines. As the international situation worsened after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow had cut off gas supplies to Europe via “Nord Stream” as early as August 2022. on the other hand, the construction of “Nord Stream 2” was completed in the fall of 2021 and the two pipelines of this project were filled with gas, however, shortly before Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, Germany decided to refuse certification. “Nord Stream 2”.