According to the prosecutor general of Germany, a Ukrainian man is wanted by Italian police and is suspected of planning the Nord Stream pipeline attacks.
After being extradited, the suspect, who is only identified as Serhii K under German privacy laws, will be brought before a German judge, according to the prosecutor general’s statement on Thursday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the explosions that severely damaged Russia’s and the West’s pipelines in September 2022, which marked a major escalation of the Ukraine conflict and a continent-wide energy supply crisis.
According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office, Serhii K was a member of a group of people who planted explosives close to the Danish island of Bornholm.
According to the report, he and his accomplices had taken a sailing yacht to carry out the attack from Rostock on Germany’s northeastern coast, and the pair had used middlemen to obtain forged identification documents.
Authorities acted on a suspect’s arrest warrant in Europe, who is accused of conspiring to create an explosion, sabotage, and building destruction.
German investigators believe that the Ukrainian suspect did not participate in the operation by coordinating with the divers who loaded explosives onto the pipelines.
According to a statement from the German prosecutor, officers in Rimini, on the Adriatic coast of Italy, arrested him overnight.
A pro-Ukrainian group was identified as the sabotage group behind the Nord Stream pipeline, according to a German investigation that was conducted in 2023. Two divers, two assistants, a captain, and a medic reportedly made up the attack’s team.
Although investigators have been largely quiet, they have reported finding undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht during a probe two years ago.
Stefanie Hubig, the justice minister of Germany, described the arrest as an “impressive success” for the country’s state prosecutor.
Hubig also demanded a statement calling for the matter to be resolved, including criminal law.
Sweden and Denmark had also conducted explosion-related investigations.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany, was shattered by the explosions in 2022 until Moscow stopped receiving it at the end of August 2022. Because Germany had its certification process halted shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of that year, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was never operational.
Washington refutes the accusations made by Russia that the United States orchestrated the explosions. The US and some of its allies have long been critical of the pipelines because they increase Russia’s dependence on gas, which raises a threat to Europe’s energy security.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply