A Ukrainian man was arrested in Croatia on suspicion of taking part in the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022, German prosecutors said.
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said the suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, a trained scuba diver, was arrested in Pula, Croatia, and was “strongly suspected of jointly causing explosions.” Croatian police confirmed an arrest but said they were still working to confirm the identity of the detainee.
Zhuravlyov was previously arrested in Poland. He was detained on a European arrest warrant, and Germany was seeking his extradition. But Poland refused to extradite him and released him, claiming the bombing would have been a legitimate act of war on behalf of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his government did not know about any plans to blow up the pipelines. But German investigators think the attack was ordered by a Ukrainian state agency to deny Russia future energy revenues which would help its invasion of Ukraine.
German prosecutors alleged that Zhuravlyov collaborated with Sergiy Kuznetsov, another Ukrainian who was arrested in Italy in 2025, and then extradited to Germany. Authorities claim they used a rented yacht near the Danish island of Bornholm, and destroyed three of four seafloor pipelines of the major energy link.
Berlin has strongly backed Kyiv during the Russia–Ukraine war, but German officials said the Nord Stream case is in the hands of the judiciary, which is a separate and independent state power. The arrest could revive a politically sensitive issue for Berlin as German investigators pursue allegations that Ukrainians were behind the destruction of infrastructure that once underpinned Germany’s energy relationship with Russia. Any evidence connecting the operation to a Ukrainian state agency would be particularly consequential, potentially creating friction between Kyiv and one of its most important European military and financial supporters. (AFP)
