Croatia arrests Ukrainian suspected of Nord Stream sabotage, to be tried in Germany
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The Croatian police on Aug. 19 arrested a Ukrainian man wanted by the German authorities for the alleged sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, according to the German public prosecutor's office.
Explosives were detonated on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022, rendering them unusable, but after Germany had already stopped importing gas through them.
The man arrested was a Ukrainian identified by German authorities only as "Vladimir Z.," who the German public prosecutor's office describes as a trained diver who "participated in the necessary dives."
The Croatian police arrested the man in the town of Pula, on the Adriatic coast. He is to be transferred to Germany where he will face trial for "jointly causing an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage, and the destruction of buildings."
Germany in July also charged Serhii Kuznietsov, who they accuse of leading the operation.
A separate investigation by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office has thus far not established Kyiv's involvement in the sabotage of the two pipelines.
Even if the suspects are found guilty of sabotaging the pipelines, it seems unlikely that Germany will bring Nord Stream back online to import gas from Russia, despite Alice Weidel, the leader of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, pushing to do so.
If the suspects are found guilty, "the AfD will certainly capitalize on this to put the government under pressure," Thomas Laffitte, a researcher with the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, told the Kyiv Independent.
"However, any political leverage will be limited: Ukrainian involvement in the damage to Nord Stream has long been public knowledge, and German public opinion continues to look favorably on Ukraine overall," he said.
Back when Kuznietsov was arrested, German member of the European Parliament Daniel Freund told the Kyiv Independent that even though "justice must take its course — transparently and without political interference... Germany's solidarity with Ukraine remains unshaken."
