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World

Croatian court approves extradition of Nord Stream blast suspect to Germany

A court in Pula approved the extradition of Ukrainian suspect Volodymyr Zhuravlov over the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage; the ruling is not final and will be appealed.

By James Calloway · · 2 min read

A Croatian court has ruled that a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts can be extradited to Germany, Ukraine’s Suspilne news portal reported on Thursday.

German prosecutors have identified the man as Vladimir Z., a trained scuba diver accused of being part of a team that planted explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm on September 26, 2022.

The County Court in Pula issued the ruling on September 18 but confirmed it publicly on Thursday, adding that it could not give details until the parties decide whether to appeal. Zhuravlov’s lawyer dismissed the ruling as biased and political and said an appeal would be filed, so the extradition is not yet final.

Zhuravlov was arrested in August in a hotel in the Croatian coastal city of Pula on a European arrest warrant and has denied any involvement, his lawyers have said.

German courts treat the case as within their jurisdiction because the damaged pipelines terminate in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and their destruction affected Germany’s energy security and internal safety.

A second suspect, former Ukrainian army officer Serhii K., was charged by German federal prosecutors in July with orchestrating the blasts. He was arrested in Italy in August 2025, transferred to Germany in November, and is due to face trial at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court on October 14, with proceedings possibly running through February 2027. He has also denied any involvement.

German investigators believe a Ukrainian state agency ordered the attack to deprive Russia of revenues to finance its invasion of Ukraine, according to Al Jazeera — a politically awkward case for Berlin, one of Kyiv’s strongest supporters.

Sources

More on this topic: all World stories

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