NEW YORK, August 20. /TASS/. A Ukrainian national suspected by German authorities of sabotaging the Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines left Poland by car on July 6 and headed for Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
According to the newspaper, German authorities were "alarmed" when Polish prosecutors told them they could not arrest the suspect because their security service had not yet reviewed the case. A senior Polish official also privately told a German counterpart that the sabotage suspects should be awarded medals rather than arrested.
The newspaper pointed out that Poland later sent a letter to German prosecutors informing them that the suspect had left the country. German authorities considered this move by Poland as "adding insult to injury."
On August 14, the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported, citing a joint investigation by the ARD TV channel and the Die Zeit newspaper, that German prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor suspected of having played a role in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines. According to the newspaper, he had recently been living in Poland, having gone into hiding. The German prosecutor's office, the newspaper said, suspects two other Ukrainian diving instructors of involvement in the Nord Streams sabotage. In addition, the German media accused Poland of lack of assistance in the investigation into the explosions at the Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 pipelines. According to German investigators, the Polish authorities "were not ready to cooperate from the very beginning."
In turn, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported, citing sources, that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky approved the plan to sabotage the Nord Stream and Nord Stream - 2 pipelines, but tried to cancel his decision after the CIA learned about it.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the route of the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. Following the incident, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal case on charges of international terrorism.