Germany reportedly issues 1st arrest warrant related to 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts

BERLIN — German prosecutors have issued a first arrest warrant in their investigation into the undersea explosions in 2022 that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, according to a media report Wednesday.

Prosecutors in neighboring Poland said they received a warrant for a Ukrainian man, but that he left the country before he could be arrested.

German public broadcaster ARD, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the weekly Die Zeit said in a joint report that federal prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant in June against a Ukrainian man believed to have resided until recently in Poland. The report, which did not cite sources, identified the man as Wolodymyr Z.

The German federal prosecutor’s office said it doesn’t comment on media reports or on arrest warrants.

However, the Polish national prosecutor’s office confirmed that district prosecutors in Warsaw received a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian citizen named Wolodymyr Z. from German authorities in June, without specifying what he was accused of.

It said that authorities could not detain him because he crossed the border from Poland into Ukraine in early July.

Explosions on Sept, 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources. Who was responsible for the sabotage remains a mystery and investigators have been tight-lipped about their findings so far.

Swedish and Danish authorities closed their investigations in February, leaving the German prosecutors’ case as the sole probe.

The blasts happened as Europe attempted to wean itself off Russian energy sources following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Russia cut off supplies at the end of August 2022.

They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of that year.

Russia has accused the U.S. of staging the explosions, a charge Washington denies. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the U.S. and some of its allies, who warned that they posed a risk to Europe’s energy security by increasing dependence on Russian gas.

In March 2023, German media reported that a pro-Ukraine group was involved in the sabotage. Ukraine rejected suggestions it might have ordered the attack and German officials voiced caution over the accusation.

Officials said last year that investigators found traces of undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht that was searched as part of the probe.

German government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner declined to comment on the reported warrant Wednesday, referring questions to federal prosecutors. But he said that clearing up what happened has the “highest priority.”