Ukrainian Arrested in Italy Over Nord Stream Pipelines Attack

A Ukrainian suspected of coordinating the September 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines has been arrested in Italy, the German prosecutor general said on Aug. 21.

The suspect, named only as Serhii K. because of German privacy laws, is set to be transferred to Germany from Italy and will then be brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s highest criminal and civil court.

Serhii K. was arrested pursuant to a European arrest warrant issued in Germany on Aug. 18 and has been held by police in Misano Adriatico, Rimini, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, about 75 miles southeast of Bologna.

According to prosecutors, he was part of a group of individuals who placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

Prosecutors said that he was “allegedly one of the coordinators of the operation” and that he and his accomplices used a yacht, which departed from Rostock on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, as transport for the bombing attack.

“The yacht had previously been rented from a German company through intermediaries using forged identification documents,” prosecutors said. “The explosives detonated on September 26, 2022. The explosions severely damaged both pipelines.”

The Italian Carabinieri also confirmed the arrest in a statement, describing the suspect as a 49-year-old Ukrainian citizen.

German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig praised the investigating authorities for the arrest.

“The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has achieved a very impressive investigative success,” she said in Berlin on Aug. 21, according to a stern.de report.

“The blowing up of the pipelines must be investigated, including through criminal prosecution.”

The Ukrainian government has not yet commented on the arrest.

Last year, German newspapers SZ and Die Zeit, along with the ARD broadcasting network, citing unnamed sources, reported that Germany issued a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor, named only as Volodymyr Z., who was allegedly part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

As yet, Volodymyr Z. has not been detained.

Ukraine, Russia, and the United States have all previously denied responsibility for the explosion.

Along with Germany, both Sweden and Denmark also conducted investigations into the incident, but both Scandinavian nations closed their probes in February 2024.

Copenhagen concluded there was “deliberate sabotage of the gas pipelines” but found “insufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case,” and Stockholm cited a lack of jurisdiction in closing its investigation.

The multibillion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, transporting gas under the Baltic Sea, were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022. The blasts released vast amounts of methane into the air seven months after the Russia–Ukraine conflict began.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, a subsidiary of the Russian state-controlled company Gazprom, had a joint annual capacity of 110 billion cubic meters—more than half of Russia’s normal gas export volumes.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which connected Russia and Germany directly under the Baltic Sea, became operational in 2011 and was a key component of Europe’s energy supply.

Nord Stream 2, built to run parallel to Nord Stream 1, was intended to double the capacity of gas delivered to Germany, but it never came into operation amid global political tensions.

According to a study published by the United Nations Environment Programme, up to 485,000 metric tons of methane leaked out of the pipelines in the wake of the blasts.

“Over the short-term, the Nord Stream leak contributed as much to global warming as would have 8 million cars driven for a year,” the study said.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Carabinieri for comment.

Owen Evans contributed to this report.