German authorities have arrested a second Ukrainian man and “trained scuba diver” suspected of sabotaging two Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea in 2022.
Croatian police in Pula arrested a man on Aug. 19, identified by German prosecutors only as Vladimir Z. due to privacy laws.
Prosecutors described Vladimir Z. as part of a group associated with Serhii K., a former Ukrainian army officer
arrestedlast year. Vladimir Z. faces charges under German law of anti-constitutional sabotage and destruction of buildings and structures.
Serhii K. was formally charged on July 2 with causing an explosion, damaging property, disrupting public service and being an “accomplice to war crimes” by attacking civilian objects.
“The suspect participated in the necessary dives,” German prosecutors said in a statement following Vladimir Z.’s arrest.
Authorities allege that Vladimir Z. and the group left Rostock, a port in northeastern Germany along the Baltic Sea, on board a sailing yacht rented from a German company using fake IDs.
Explosives were allegedly detonated by the suspects on Sept. 26, 2022, according to prosecutors.
Vladimir Z. will face a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Germany after he is extradited from Croatia.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office confirmed with the AP that Vladimir Z. was the same man who was arrested in Poland last year—identified as Volodymyr Zhuravlov—and later released when a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the time that Zhuravlov’s extradition was not in the country’s interest. The judge also ruled the German application inadmissible.
It was not immediately clear why Zhuravlov left Poland following the ruling.
“Volodymyr knew that the ruling applies only on the territory of Poland,” his Polish lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, told The Associated Press, adding that Zhuravlov’s wife was also surprised that her husband was detained in Croatia.
Police officers escort Ukrainian defendant Volodymyr Zhuravlov (C) from the courtroom at Warsaw's Regional Court after a hearing on his extradition to Germany as he is suspected of unconstitutional sabotage, destruction of property, and destruction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline infrastructure, in Warsaw, Poland, on Oct. 17, 2025. Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
The German government welcomed the arrest.
“We’re simply glad that the federal prosecutor’s office is making progress in these investigations, because it’s important that the bombing of the pipelines be clarified as well,” Justice Ministry spokesman Nicholas Limmer told reporters in Berlin.
Alice Weidel, leader of the German AfD party, called for the federal government to take action following the second arrest.
“A second Ukrainian has been arrested as the alleged perpetrator of the Nord Stream pipeline explosion,” Weidel said in an X post. “The terrorist attack on our energy infrastructure must finally be clarified and have consequences! What is the federal government doing? Nothing!”
The multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines run from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, delivering Russian state-owned gas to Europe.
The leaks were discovered in 2022 between Sept 26 and Sept 29 in the Swedish and Danish economic zones near the Danish island of Bornholm.
Investigators in Denmark, Germany, and Sweden notified the United Nations Security Council in 2023 that they concluded the explosions were a deliberate act of sabotage.
Russia conducted its own independent probe of the incident.
A United Nations report completed in January 2025 found the explosions resulted in the planet’s largest human-caused release of methane.
Environmental damages from the leaks were local and limited to the affected area, authorities reported, but the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions were “substantial and worrisome,” investigators said.
Europe typically supplies 40 percent of its gas needs from Russian sources each year, but has made up for the shortage by conserving and through other suppliers.
The pipelines were empty at the time of the explosions. Russia’s gas company Gazprom had shut off gas flows to Nord Stream 1 a month before, and Nord Stream 2 had never entered commercial service after Germany suspended its certification process just before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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