Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved a plan to sabotage the Nord Stream gas pipelines two years ago before changing his mind – but Valeriy Zaluzhniy, his then-commander in chief went ahead and did it anyway, it has been sensationally claimed.
German prosecutors yesterday issued a first arrest warrant in their investigation into the undersea explosions in 2022, which damaged the network of pipelines between Russia and Germany.
Prosecutors in neighbouring Poland said they received a warrant for a Ukrainian man, but that he left the country before he could be arrested.
A report carried in the Wall Street Journal claimed four senior Ukrainian defence and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot. All insisted Nord Stream was a legitimate target.
An official of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, denied his government had anything to do with the sabotage, insisting Mr Zelensky in particular “did not approve the implementation of any such actions on the territory of third countries and did not issue relevant orders.”
Express.co.uk has contacted Mr Zaluzhniy, now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, for comment via its London embassy.
German public broadcaster ARD, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the weekly Die Zeit said in a joint report that federal prosecutors obtained an arrest warrant in June against a Ukrainian man thought to have lived until recently in Poland. The report, which did not cite sources, referred to the man as Wolodymyr Z.
The German federal prosecutor’s office insisted it did not comment on media reports or on arrest warrants.
However, the Polish national prosecutor’s office confirmed that district prosecutors in Warsaw received a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian citizen named Wolodymyr Z. from German authorities in June, without specifying what he was accused of.
It said that authorities could not detain him because he crossed the border from Poland into Ukraine in early July.
Explosions on September 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Spectacular pictures at the time showed vast quantities of gas bubbling up from under the surface of the Baltic Sea.
The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources. Who was responsible for the sabotage remains a mystery and investigators have been tight-lipped about their findings so far.
Swedish and Danish authorities closed their investigations in February, leaving the German prosecutors’ case as the sole probe.
The blasts happened as Europe tried to wean itself off Russian energy sources after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Russia cut off supplies at the end of August 2022.
They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of that year.
Russia has accused the US of staging the explosions, a charge Washington denies. The existence of the pipelines had been fiercely criticised by the US and some of its allies, who warned that they posed a risk to Europe’s energy security by increasing dependence on Russian gas.
In March of last year, German media reported that a pro-Ukraine group was involved in the sabotage. Ukraine rejected suggestions it might have ordered the attack and German officials voiced caution over the accusation.
Officials said last year that investigators found traces of undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht that was searched as part of the probe.
German government spokesperson Wolfgang Buchner declined to comment on the reported warrant Wednesday, referring questions to federal prosecutors. However, he said that clearing up what happened has the “highest priority.”