A Ukrainian man has been arrested in the picturesque Croatian seaside town of Pula on suspicion of taking part in the audacious bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
The suspect, identified by German authorities only as Vladimir Z., is widely understood to be Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, a trained scuba diver wanted for the September 2022 undersea attacks.
Geopolitical Fallout and Extradition Battles
The sabotage of the energy corridors beneath the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm severely strained relations between Kyiv and Berlin.
‘The suspect participated in the necessary dives for the sabotage,’ German prosecutors alleged, confirming they are actively pursuing his extradition from Croatia to face trial at the federal court in Karlsruhe.
A Complicated Legal History Across Europe
This arrest follows a previous detention and subsequent release of the same suspect in Poland in 2025, where a local judge controversially refused extradition by arguing that targeting the pipeline could be seen as a ‘just’ act of defense.
Meanwhile, a second suspect, former Ukrainian military officer Serhiy Kuznetsov, was arrested in Italy in August 2025 and extradited to Germany, where he appeared before a court in Hamburg.
