A 44-year-old Ukrainian man has been wanted by a German court, suspected of having sabotaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022 near Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. According to reports from Expressen and several German media outlets, including Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, and ARD, the man, who is a diver living in Poland with his family, has denied any involvement in the sabotage. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Additionally, two other Ukrainians, a man and a woman, are also under suspicion. The woman has similarly denied any involvement in the gas pipeline sabotage. While Danish and Swedish police have halted their investigations, German authorities continue to pursue the case.
Surveillance footage of a white van on the German island of Rügen plays a central role in the investigation. The van, which is registered in Ukraine, reportedly transported Ukrainians from Ukraine to Germany and back. The driver claimed to have been instructed to transport these individuals and identified the suspected diver as one of the passengers.
German police previously connected the yacht ‘Andromeda’ to the sabotage. At the time the van was filmed on Rügen, the ‘Andromeda’ was docked on the island.
The explosions occurred on September 26, 2022, with Nord Stream 2 being damaged first, followed by explosions on Nord Stream 1 and additional damage to Nord Stream 2 only 17 hours later. The four leaks occurred in both Denmark and Sweden’s exclusive economic zones in the Baltic Sea, all in international waters. Investigations quickly concluded that the damages were the result of sabotage.