The Ukrainian diver allegedly behind the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines managed to escape a German arrest warrant with the help of Kiev and possibly Warsaw, Der Spiegel has claimed.
The pipelines under the Baltic Sea were damaged in a series of explosions in September 2022, ending the flow of natural gas from Russia to Germany. No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts, but some media outlets in the West have claimed the operation was carried out by a group of Ukrainian nationals.
Earlier this month, German media revealed that Berlin had issued an arrest warrant for “Vladimir Z,” a former Ukrainian military diver who they alleged had planted the explosive charges on the pipeline. Russian outlets have identified the suspect as Vladimir Zhuravlev.
According to an investigation by Der Spiegel published on Thursday, Zhuravlev was actually in Germany in May and in Poland at the time the warrant was issued. Polish authorities did nothing to detain him, the outlet claimed, and Zhuravlev was able to cross into Ukraine on July 6 in a car belonging to the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw.
“Why should we arrest him? For us, he is a hero!” Der Spiegel quoted German security officials as paraphrasing their Polish counterparts.
The German outlet noted that Zhuravlev and his family entered Germany in May, on their way to Denmark and claimed to have identified the apartment in Copenhagen's Bryggen Syd district where the Zhuravlevs stayed. On May 26, the family took the ferry to Rostock and stopped in Berlin, on their way back to Warsaw.
Zhuravlev was already on the German authorities’ radar, but they had yet to issue a warrant for his arrest. Berlin only acted in the first week of June, and it took until June 21 for a European arrest warrant to be forwarded to Poland. Warsaw, however, did nothing.
Zhuravlev fled the country on July 6, crossing the border into Ukraine at Korczowa at 6:20am. Security sources told Spiegel that he was in a vehicle with diplomatic plates, used by the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw.
Spiegel’s security sources claim that Germany is “very angry” with Poland and will not forget Warsaw’s “foul play.”
Responding to media reports about the attack, former head of German intelligence August Hanning claimed earlier this month that Poland and Ukraine likely worked together. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded by telling all “initiators and patrons” of Nord Stream to “apologize and keep quiet.”
Reports about a group of Ukrainians working off a rented yacht – with or without Vladimir Zelensky’s blessing – being responsible for the Nord Stream sabotage surfaced only after Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that the US government was behind the blasts.