Germany issued arrest warrant for Ukrainian over Nord Stream bombing, reports say

The man was identified as Volodymyr Zhuravlov by the Swedish newspaper Expressen — part of the reporting consortium covering the story.

The subsea explosions in September 2022 took out three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Germany and sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world. There are continuing unanswered questions about who was responsible and fingers pointed variously at Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and the U.K.

Nord Stream 1 had been in operation since 2011; Nord Stream 2 was completed but had not yet begun pumping gas by the time of the attacks. The pipelines had been enormously controversial, with Ukraine, the U.S., Poland and others criticizing Germany for tying itself to Russian gas exports — a position that became untenable following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Denmark and Sweden also opened probes into the explosions, but those investigations were suspended without naming a suspect.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously denied Kyiv was involved.

The German prosecutor's investigation into the blasts also points to two other Ukrainian nationals — a couple who run a diving school in Ukraine where Zhuravlov worked as a diving instructor.