Ukrainian diving instructor charged with bombing Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany
15 August 2024, 12:30
A Ukrainian diving instructor has become the first person to be charged with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russian gas with Germany.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The suspect, named in Sweden as 44-year-old Volodymyr Zhuravlov, has fled Poland after German prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which run under the Baltic Sea, were bombed in September 2022, taking them largely out of service.
They were sabotaged with several explosive devices, each of which detonated with a force equivalent to half a tonne of TNT.
This created the largest methane leak ever recorded.
The Nord Stream is significant because it symbolises Germany's dependence on Russian gas, even as it backs Ukraine against the Kremlin's invasion.
Several theories have circulated as to who could be behind the sabotage, with Russia blamed by some in the West, and others variously pointing the finger at the US and UK, Ukraine and Poland.
Russia blamed the Royal Navy for the attack, with British military chiefs accusing them in response of "peddling false claims".
Now Germany believes a Ukrainian group organised the sabotage using a 50ft yacht.
The Ukrainian government has said it was unaware of any attack before it took place - and continued to blame Moscow.
Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said: "Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources…
"And who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia."
German prosecutors' theory is that the group, which may have comprised as few as five people, hired the yacht from the port of Rostock, then sailed to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea with explosives on board.
Then, the prosecutors believe, two divers swam down and planted the bombs on the seabed.
German public broadcaster ARD reported that Zhuravlov denies being involved.
He has lived in Poland for several years, most recently settling in the city of Pruszkow near Warsaw.
Zhuravlov fled the country in July, managing to slip across the border into Ukraine because Germany had not registered the arrest warrant with the Schengen information service, who run a database of wanted people.
His current whereabouts are unknown.
German media have reported that he used to work at a diving school in Kyiv run by two Ukrainians who are also being investigated in connection with the sabotage.
Zhuravlov is said to have been caught on a speed camera travelling in a van through an island close to where the yacht was moored.
Germany said the criminal proceedings did not affect its political relationship with Ukraine.
A spokesperson said: "The procedures have no bearing on what the Chancellor (Olaf Scholz) has described as the support of Ukraine's defence against Russia's illegal war of aggression, as long as necessary."
