Italian police announced Thursday that they had arrested a Ukrainian man accused of being one of the planners of the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which were planned to transport gas from Russia to Germany.
Prosecutors say the man was part of a group that planted underwater bombs on pipes.
According to federal prosecutors, officials from a police station in Misano Adriatrico, near the Italian city of Rimini, apprehended the suspect overnight, who has only been identified as Serhii K. in accordance with German privacy standards.
The pipelines, which were constructed to transport Russian natural gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea, were damaged by explosions on September 26, 2022.
As European nations began to wean themselves off of Russian energy sources after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the damage exacerbated tensions over the conflict.
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In a statement Thursday, prosecutors said Serhii K. was one of a group of people who placed explosives on the pipelines and is believed to have been one of the coordinators.
They stated he is accused of instigating explosives, anti-constitutional sabotage, and structural destruction.
He was arrested on a European arrest warrant obtained on Monday.
According to prosecutors, the defendant and others used a yacht that left from the German port of Rostock and was chartered from a German company using false IDs and middlemen.
German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig praised what she called “a very impressive investigative success”.
She said in a statement that the explosions must be cleared up and it was good progress is being made.
The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow 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 has denied.
The pipelines were long a target of criticism 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.
