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A Polish court has rejected Germany’s request to extradite a Ukrainian man accused of involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Friday.
“The Polish court denied extradition to Germany of a Ukrainian national suspected of blowing up Nord Stream 2 and released him from custody. And rightly so. The case is closed,” Tusk said in a post on X.
The suspect, identified as 46-year-old Volodymyr Z. under Polish privacy laws, was arrested near Warsaw in late September based on a German warrant alleging his role in the underwater blasts that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines.
The pipelines, which had transported Russian gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea, were severely damaged by large explosions in September 2022, a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
German prosecutors said the man was a trained diver believed to be part of a group that planted explosives on the pipelines near Bornholm Island in the Baltic Sea. He is one of two Ukrainian nationals Germany is seeking to extradite in relation to the case.
Volodymyr Z. was accused of sabotage, destruction of property, and damaging the Nord Stream 2 infrastructure, offenses punishable by up to 15 years in prison under German law. He was wanted under a European arrest warrant issued by the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe for alleged constitutional sabotage and property destruction.
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