A Ukrainian citizen has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of helping to orchestrate the underwater bombing of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany.
The suspect, identified as 49-year-old Serhii Kuznietsov by a source, is the first person known to have been detained in connection with the attack, which German prosecutors believe was carried out by a small group of Ukrainians operating from a rented yacht.
The Nord Stream explosions, which took place at three locations on the bed of the Baltic Sea in September 2022, were among the most momentous acts of sabotage carried out in Europe in recent years.
The blasts ripped open three of the four strands of the pipelines, which were a symbol of Germany and central Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. They resulted in the biggest single methane leak on record.
Over the months that followed, various theories suggested that Russia, the United States, Poland or Britain might have been behind the bombing.
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However, a series of leaks from the German investigation suggested that the most likely perpetrators were thought to be a network of about half a dozen people from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack, despite occasional hints that the Germans had found trails of clues linking the plans to the upper echelons of the Ukrainian military and security services.
On Thursday, the German federal prosecutor’s office announced that Serhii K had been arrested by Italian carabinieri officers in Rimini three days earlier.
The suspect was arrested in Rimini, Italy
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Kuznietsov was arrested on Wednesday night after he registered under his real name at a campsite near Rimini. In Italy, the name of anyone registering at a hotel or similar accommodation is run through a police database, which triggered an alert that he was wanted by Interpol, a Carabinieri source said.
Kuznietsov arrived on Wednesday at La Pescaccia campsite in San Clemente near Rimini in a car with Ukrainian plates, accompanied by a woman and two children — a boy and a girl — and booked a bungalow for two nights.
The Carabinieri received the alert to arrest him at 11.30pm and made the arrest at 11.50pm,
the source said. The man may have used his real name because he did not know he was wanted, or because he thought his name would not be checked, he added.
Kuznietsov offered no resistance as four officers arrived at the campsite to arrest him. Carabinieri were searching the bungalow and the car on Thursday for material relevant to the investigation.
The source said the man spoke Russian and Ukrainian. No information was given as to how long he had been in Italy.
The suspect is reported to be a retired captain from Ukraine’s armed forces who served in an elite unit defending Kyiv in the early months of the war, The Wall Street Journal reported. Former comrades told the newspaper he commanded a small unit that was involved in aerial defences. Sources familiar with the case said that he and two fellow servicemen, together with civilian divers, were recruited for a secret mission to destroy the pipeline.
He is to be extradited to Germany, where he faces charges of jointly causing an explosion, destroying structures, and sabotage “in violation of the constitution”, an offence that refers to critical infrastructure such as energy or water networks.
All three crimes carry prison sentences of up to five years.
The prosecutor added that the arrested man was under “strong suspicion”, a term implying a high level of probability that he can be convicted.
The statement gives only sparse details about the allegations, claiming that Serhii K was suspected to have been “one of the coordinators of the operation”.
“For transport, he and his accomplices used a sailing yacht that started from Rostock [a port on Germany’s Baltic coast],” it said. “The yacht had previously been rented from a German business by middlemen with the help of falsified identity papers.”
Last summer, German prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for a second suspect, Volodymyr Z, who is alleged to have been one of the two divers who planted the explosives.
However, Volodymyr Z, who had previously resided in Poland, had already fled across the Ukrainian border, leading to allegations that he might have been tipped off by the Polish authorities beforehand.