A man of Ukrainian origin allegedly involved in the Nord Stream explosion has been arrested in Italy , the German Federal Prosecutor's Office announced.
The man, Serhii K., believed to be one of the coordinators of the sabotage operation that took place in September 2022 , was arrested during the night on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice on 18 August 2025, explains the press release from the Karlsruhe public prosecutor's office.
The arrest was carried out in the province of Rimini by officials from the Misano Adriatico Carabinieri station, in close collaboration with the International Police Cooperation Service. The 49-year-old man had been on vacation in Italy with his family for several days .
"The defendant is strongly suspected of collectively causing an explosion with explosives, unconstitutional sabotage, and the destruction of buildings," the statement reads. According to the arrest warrant, Serhii K. was allegedly part of a group of individuals who planted explosive devices in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the island of Bornholm in September 2022.
For the transportation, as already known, the Ukrainian and his accomplices used a sailing yacht departing from Rostock. The yacht had previously been chartered by a German company through intermediaries using false identity documents.
The explosions occurred on September 26, 2022, and caused serious damage to both gas pipelines . After being transferred from Italy, the arrested man will be brought before the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice.
Both pipelines were built to transport cheap natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea and are 51% owned by the Russian state company Gazprom . Moscow was initially blamed, but it later emerged that the sabotage was the work of Ukrainians, according to the WSJ, under the command of former armed forces chief Valeriy Zaluzhny, who allegedly acted against the orders of President Volodymyr Zelensky .
