The Attorney General of Germany announced this Wednesday the arrest in Croatia of the Ukrainian citizen Volodimir Z, who is linked to the sabotage against the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022. The arrest was carried out in compliance with a European arrest warrant with a view to his extradition to the German authorities.
According to the Attorney General, Volodimir Z, a professional diver, would have been part of a group of six Ukrainian citizens who placed explosive charges on these energy infrastructures located in the section connecting Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea.
The explosion took place on September 26, 2022, near the Danish island of Bornholm, off the coast of Sweden, in the full context of the war in Ukraine. Since the beginning of the investigations, Moscow has distanced itself from any implication in the attack.
The German authorities attribute to him the status of a suspect of having jointly participated in an explosion, in an act of sabotage contrary to the constitutional order and in the destruction of critical infrastructures.
Volodimir Z was arrested in the city of Pula, in the northwest of Croatia, and will be made available to Germany through extradition. At the end of September 2025, he had already been arrested in Poland, but the Polish authorities decided to release him and not to respond to the extradition requests made by Berlin, where another of the alleged members of the group has already been brought before Justice.
This other implicated individual is Serhi K, considered the mastermind of the operation, who was captured in Italy and subsequently extradited. He is accused as an accomplice of a war crime for the destruction of three of the four pipes of these gas pipelines, one of the main energy supply routes for Germany.
Nord Stream 1 had previously served to transport Russian gas to Germany, while Nord Stream 2 never entered into service after the start of the invasion of Ukraine.