Germany zeroes in on Ukrainian suspect in Nord Stream pipeline explosions

The man accused of being behind the most serious attack on Germany’s energy supplies since World War II can be seen on Facebook standing by the sea and smiling at the camera.
His name: Vladimir Zhuravlev. Nationality: Ukrainian. Place of residence: Kyiv. Profession: diving instructor.
According to a report in German news program Tagesschau on Wednesday, a German warrant was issued in June for his involvement in the Sept. 26, 2022, attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
German investigators suspect that Ukrainian citizens chartered a yacht called “Andromeda” and divers used it to sail to the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm and planted explosives.
The subsea explosions took out three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Germany; and there has since been a blame game over who was responsible: Russia, Ukraine, the United States or the United Kingdom.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted last year that his country was not behind the attack, saying: “I would never act that way.”
Nord Stream 1 had been in operation since 2011; Nord Stream 2 was completed but had not yet begun pumping gas by the time of the attacks. The pipelines had been enormously controversial, with Ukraine, the U.S., Poland and others criticizing Germany for tying itself to Russian gas — a position that became untenable following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
After the invasion, Germany moved to end Russian gas imports.
Although the pipeline was not shipping any gas at the time of the explosions, German investigators said that the attack had been planned by a Ukrainian group as early as 2014, reported Welt and POLITICO — both owned by Germany’s Axel Springer. The energy project had been repeatedly rejected by Ukraine.
According to leaked documents posted online, the U.S. had information that Ukraine was planning to attack the Baltic Sea gas links three months before the explosions, the Washington Post reported last year.
However, some Western and German intelligence officials told Welt am Sonntag and POLITICO that they had doubts over Ukraine’s responsibility, considering a so-called “false flag operation” aimed at covering up Russia’s involvement.
This theory is particularly popular in Polish security circles, which sent a document with the names of Russian suspects to German’s BND Federal Intelligence Service. However, German investigators were not persuaded and prosecutors moved to issue the warrant for Zhuravlev’s arrest.
Denmark and Sweden also opened probes into the explosions, but those investigations were suspended without naming a suspect.
German authorities transmitted the arrest warrant for Zhuravlev to Poland in June after they were able to identify him thanks to photos and statements from witnesses, Die Zeit reported.
Zhuravlov was not arrested because he had left Poland for Ukraine in early July, Anna Adamiak, a spokesperson for Poland’s prosecutor general, told Polish media. She added that Germany had not entered his name into a law enforcement database, which is why Polish border guards were not aware he was wanted when he crossed the border.
Tagesschau also named two other people as suspects alongside Zhuravlev — the married couple Svitlana and Yevhen U., who run a diving school in Ukraine and for whom Zhuravlov was said to have worked as a diver.
In an interview with POLITICO on Wednesday morning, Svitlana Uspenska said that neither she nor her husband were involved in the attack, insisting she was in Kyiv at the time.
Uspenska confirmed that she was a diver, “but my maximum depth is 30 meters.” The explosions happened at a depth of 70 to 80 meters, something she said might have been done by special forces but not by her. She added she plans to sue German media outlets for “a couple of million euros” for naming her in the case.
She fled her home country after the Russian invasion and lived with her children in Austria and Bulgaria, among other places. Uspenska is now in Poland. Her husband Yevhen is a soldier fighting against Russian troops.
Uspenska provided POLITICO with several photos and associated geodata showing her at various locations in Ukraine in the fall of 2022. It is unclear what role the German authorities attribute to her and her husband in the planning and execution of the attack. 
Zhuravlev did not immediately respond to a request for comment.