Italian police have arrested a Ukrainian man, identified as Sergey K, who is suspected of involvement in the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The incident, which caused major damage to critical energy infrastructure, is currently under investigation by German prosecutors. The suspect was detained in Italy under a European arrest warrant, with authorities alleging that he led a group responsible for the attack. The operation, which reportedly involved placing explosives on the pipelines near Bornholm, is part of a broader probe into the use of a rented sailboat and forged identification documents to execute the attack.
German prosecutors have been investigating the blasts for more than two years on suspicion of sabotage and causing explosives to be detonated. The attacks, which ruptured both the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, were initially blamed on Russian operatives, but later forensic evidence linked the operation to Ukrainian nationals. According to investigators, Sergey K was part of a group that placed explosives on the pipelines near the island of Bornholm in September 2022. The accused was allegedly one of the coordinators of the operation. He and his accomplices are said to have used a sailing yacht that departed from the German city of Rostock. The vessel had previously been rented from a German company through intermediaries using forged identification documents.
After being transferred from Italy, the accused will be brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice. Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General has reportedly been investigating the blasts for more than two years on suspicion of sabotage and causing explosives to be deton, which were seen at the time as an attack on critical energy infrastructure and a stark example of the rising economic fallout of the Ukraine conflict.
In 2023, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report claiming that then-US President Joe Biden had given the order to destroy Nord Stream. According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives had been planted by US Navy divers a few months earlier under the cover of a NATO exercise. The White House denied the report at the time, calling it “complete fiction.”