Warsaw, Poland (AP) – Polish authorities have arrested a Ukrainian diver. Node stream gas pipeline corrupted Three years ago, in the Baltic Sea between Russia and Germany, Polish and German prosecutors said Tuesday.
Volodymyr Z. was taken into custody at Pruszkow of Piotr Antoni Skiba, a spokesman for the Warsaw District Prosecutor’s Office, and told a press conference.
The suspect whose full name has not been released due to privacy regulations has been detained on a European arrest warrant issued by German authorities.
According to Polish radio station RMF FM, Polish police tried to arrest the man last year, but he was able to leave for Ukraine.
The 46-year-old is a Polish resident, where he lived with his family and owned a business in the country, Skiva said.
The man is “strongly suspected” of criminal offences related to explosives, obstruction and destruction of structures, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
“Trained Divers” were part of a group that filmed sailing yachts rented with forged documents from the coastal city of Rostock, Germany, to the vicinity of Bornholm Island, where they dived to place explosives that had exploded with Node Stream 1 and Node Stream 2 piperine.
“The explosion severely damaged both pipelines,” the prosecutor’s statement said.
Skiva said Polish prosecutors are considering demanding a temporary arrest of the man for seven days, and will prepare a request for extradition during that time.
Another Ukrainian has been arrested Last month in Italy In connection with the explosion of a submarine pipeline built to transport Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Volodymyr Z.’s lawyer Tymoteusz Paprocki said the defense would fight extradition.
“Considering the full-scale war in Ukraine and the fact that Nordstream is owned by Gazprom, a Russian company that funds these activities, the defense currently sees no chance of pushing people to file charges against those who attended these events,” Paprokki told RMF FM.
The undersea explosion on September 26, 2022 damaged a pipeline built to transport Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Damage added to tension War in Ukraine Following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European countries began to withdraw from Russia’s energy sources.
