The district court of the Croatian city of Pula ordered the extradition to Germany of Ukrainian Volodymyr Zhuravlev, who was detained in the case of the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Zhuravlev’s lawyer, Mykola Katerynchuk, told Ukrainian Suspilne that the defense will appeal the decision, and the suspect himself intends to go on a hunger strike.
Katerynchuk also said that Zhuravlev intends to go on a hunger strike in protest. The Croatian court’s decision marked a new stage in the case, which Germany is investigating as sabotage of underwater infrastructure.
According to German authorities, Zhuravlev, who works as a diving instructor, was part of a group of Ukrainians that planted explosives on underwater gas pipelines near Bornholm in 2022. An arrest warrant for him was issued in the summer of 2024, but he managed to leave Germany.
Later, Zhuravlev was detained in Poland, but the local court refused to extradite him. The ruling said that a Ukrainian citizen cannot be held responsible for the destruction of gas pipelines in a country at war with his homeland, and the sabotage of enemy infrastructure during defensive actions was described as a military operation rather than a crime.
On August 19, 2026, Zhuravlev was detained in Croatia. According to media reports, he arrived in the country as a consultant for the filming of the feature film Snake Island, dedicated to the sabotage of the gas pipelines.
Another suspect in the case is already in custody in Germany — Ukrainian Serhii Kuznetsov. He was extradited from Italy in November 2025, and he has been charged with attacking civilian energy infrastructure, anticonstitutional sabotage, organizing an explosion, and destroying engineering structures. The explosions on Nord Stream 1 and 2 took place on September 26, 2022; three of the four lines were damaged, and both gas pipelines were not operating at the time.
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