Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian national suspected of involvement in the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion.
Source: European Pravda, citing German newspaper Spiegel
Details: Italian police arrested Serhii K., a Ukrainian national suspected of involvement in the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion, in the Rimini area on Wednesday evening under a European arrest warrant.
According to Spiegel, Ukrainian special forces carried out the pipeline attacks in September 2022. Divers are believed to have been transported on a specially chartered sailing yacht to the pipeline area, where they planted explosives on the seabed.
Serhii K. is said to have been on board a vessel called Andromeda. Investigators from the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office believe he was not among the divers but instead played a coordinating role.
When Spiegel spoke in 2024 with sources familiar with the events in Ukraine, they said the Ukrainian special forces unit responsible for the Nord Stream operation had no intention of committing a crime. For the service personnel of this unit, the pipeline explosion was considered an attack on a legitimate military target in the war with Russia. Profits from gas supplies to Germany, the sources argued, have contributed significantly to financing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The investigation also allegedly found evidence that the operation had been authorised by the Ukrainian armed forces.
Politicians and media initially assumed that Russians were behind the explosions. German federal police and prosecutors eventually tracked a sailing yacht and uncovered links to Ukraine.
Last year, Federal Prosecutor Jens Rommel obtained the first arrest warrant against one of the suspected divers.
However, the suspect left his home in Poland before he could be arrested. According to reports, the Polish authorities warned the Ukrainian authorities in advance. The suspect crossed the border into Ukraine in a car bearing diplomatic plates.
Sources in law enforcement agencies told Spiegel that it is not yet known when Serhii K. will be extradited to Germany from Italy.
Background:
Last year, Jens Rommel said that the investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines had made progress, in particular, the identities of two suspects had been established.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had not been involved in the explosions and suggested analysing who might have sought to spread such claims in the media.In late September 2022, after explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, a total of four leaks were detected on two pipelines.
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