There is a first suspect in the investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines that took place on September 26, 2022, seven months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is a Ukrainian citizen, Vladimir Zhuravlev, a diving instructor by profession.
The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office has identified him as co-responsible for the explosions that damaged the pipelines that run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, causing the most serious attack on German energy supplies since the Second World War, as well as a continuous passing of the buck between Moscow, Kiev, Washington and London.
In the last two years or so, the judicial authorities of Denmark and Sweden had also conducted investigations, but in both cases the proceedings had ended with nothing being done.
The investigation launched in Germany, however, has reached a possible turning point. The German media have revealed the details The Time, South German Newspaper And ArdLast June, Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel obtained an arrest warrant for Zhuravlev, but he remains missing. The Time she managed to contact him by phone but the man categorically denied being involved in those events.
German investigators have identified him thanks to photos and statements from witnesses. Zhuravlev’s last known address was in Poland, but when Polish authorities sought to arrest him at Berlin’s request, they discovered that he had left the country to return to Ukraine.
According to Anna Adamiak, spokeswoman for the Polish Prosecutor General, who told Polish media, Germany had not entered his name into the law enforcement database, meaning Polish border guards were unaware that he was wanted.
But Zhuravlev is not the only perpetrator of the sabotage. The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office believes that a group of Ukrainian citizens chartered a yacht called “Andromeda” to reach gas pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm and planted explosives there.
Two more Ukrainian divers are under suspicion: the spouses Svitlana and Yevhen U., who run a diving school in Ukraine and for which Zhuravlov is said to have worked as a diving instructor.
Interviewed by the online newspaper Politician.EuSvitlana Uspenska has denied any involvement of hers or her husband, who is currently at the front in Ukraine fighting as a soldier against Russian troops.
The woman provided to Political several photos and associated geolocation data showing her in various locations in Ukraine in the fall of 2022. Uspenska also announced that she will sue German media for “a couple of million euros” for naming her in the case.
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