Croatian police arrested a Ukrainian diver in Pula on 19 August 2026 over his alleged role in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, Croatian broadcaster HRT reported. German prosecutors confirmed to AP that the suspect was Volodymyr Zhuravlov (Zhuravliov in Ukrainian official transliteration). Legal Tribune Online reported that he was detained on the set of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island.

The arrest gives German prosecutors a third chance to secure Zhuravliov after two attempts in Poland failed. If Croatia extradites him, he would become the second suspected member of the alleged team to face proceedings in Germany. Berlin has pursued other suspects in the Nord Stream case across Europe, but the identity of the person who ordered the sabotage remains unknown.

Previous arrests and arrest attempts

Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Zhuravliov was a trained scuba diver who took part in the dives needed to place explosives on Nord Stream 1 and 2 near Denmark’s Bornholm island. Prosecutors say the group sailed from Rostock aboard a yacht that middlemen rented from a German company using forged identity documents.

The 2024 European arrest warrant accuses Zhuravliov of jointly causing an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage, and destroying structures. He would appear before an investigating judge at Germany’s Federal Court of Justice following extradition, prosecutors said. A Croatian court must first approve his surrender.

LTO reported that investigators first sought Zhuravliov’s arrest in Poland in the summer of 2024, but he crossed into Ukraine before police detained him. Polish police arrested him near Warsaw in autumn 2025. However, a court rejected Germany’s extradition request after finding that the pipelines could be treated as a legitimate military target during an armed conflict. Zhuravliov has denied involvement.

His lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, told AP that Zhuravliov understood the Polish ruling applied only within Poland.

Another Ukrainian suspect, Serhii K., was arrested near Rimini in August 2025 and extradited to Germany that November after unsuccessful appeals. Prosecutors allege he coordinated the operation rather than joining the dives. They charged him in Hamburg in June 2026.

What was Nord Stream?

Nord Stream 1 and 2 ran beneath the Baltic Sea, carrying—or designed to carry—Russian gas directly to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Explosions on 26 September 2022 damaged three of their four lines at a depth of about 80 meters.

No court has established who ordered the attack. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office says no facts demonstrate Ukrainian state involvement and is examining whether Russia staged a false-flag operation using Ukrainians. LTO reported that Germany’s Federal Court of Justice found strong grounds in December 2025 to believe that a state had initiated and directed the sabotage, but did not identify which state.

Ukraine has opened its own criminal investigation into the 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, months after Germany charged a Ukrainian over the blasts, Suspilne reported. Prosecutors in Kyiv registered the case on war-crimes grounds and say they will test whether Russia staged the sabotage to discredit Ukraine. Serhii Kuznietsov is due to stand trial in Germany in October.

Kyiv will test a Russian false-flag version

Ukraine's Security Service, under the Prosecutor General's Office, opened proceedings on 9 July under the article on violations of the laws and customs of war. Kuznietsov's Ukrainian lawyer, Mykola Katerynchuk, told Suspilne about the case.

The Prosecutor General's Office confirmed it is supervising a probe into the "possible commission in September 2022, amid the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, by citizens of Ukraine, of actions connected to the undermining" of both pipelines in the Baltic Sea. It said the case was registered after the "independent discovery in the media" that Germany had charged a Ukrainian citizen.

Given Russia's use of hybrid methods, investigators will also examine whether Russians organized the explosions as a "false flag" operation, using Ukrainian citizens or imitating their participation to discredit Ukraine.

The office said it used the laws-and-customs-of-war charge because it matches the qualification chosen by Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office.

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The case against Serhii Kuznietsov

The pipelines exploded on 26 September 2022. On 8 August 2025, Germany's Federal Court of Justice issued an arrest warrant for Kuznietsov, alleging he led a group of six who mined the pipelines and detonated them remotely.

Italian police arrested him on 21 August 2025, and Italy's Supreme Court later confirmed his extradition to Germany. A Polish court, by contrast, refused a German request for another Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravlov.

On 2 July 2026, Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office published its charges — an attack on civilian objects, causing an explosion, and destroying structures. Kuznietsov denies guilt.