A Ukrainian man arrested over the Nord Stream bombing was detained while working on a Hollywood movie about the pipeline attack itself, a film starring Adrien Brody and Sean Penn, according to a report published on Thursday.
Police in the Croatian city of Pula arrested Volodymyr Zhuravlyov on Wednesday under a European arrest warrant issued by Germany, which is seeking his extradition. German prosecutors describe Zhuravlyov as a trained diver and allege that he helped to plant explosives on the Baltic Sea energy link between Russia and Germany, an operation that destroyed three of the four pipelines in 2022.
Prosecutors allege he worked closely with Serhii Kuznetsov, a fellow Ukrainian accused of leading the team of divers behind the operation.
Germany's Legal Tribune Online reported that the arrest took place on the set of "Snake Island," a film by US director Doug Liman, best known for "The Bourne Identity," with Brody and three-time Oscar winner Penn attached to the project. According to media reports, Zhuravlyov was working as an advisor on the film. AFP was not immediately able to verify those reports with either German or Croatian authorities.
The Ukrainian suspect had previously been held in Poland over his alleged role in destroying the pipelines. Polish authorities, however, refused to extradite him and released him, taking the view that any such Ukrainian attack would have amounted to a legitimate act of war rather than a crime.
The case is politically awkward for both Germany and Ukraine, given that Berlin has been a strong supporter of Kyiv in its fight against Russia. Asked about the matter, German government officials have pointed to the independence of the judiciary. The Ukrainian government has consistently denied ordering the pipeline attack, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.
The sabotage took place months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. German prosecutors say the Ukrainian state ordered the September 2022 attack that destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea, a finding that puts fresh strain on relations between Kyiv and Berlin, Ukraine's biggest military backer. Investigators believe the aim was to cut off future Russian energy revenues that would otherwise help finance the war.
The blasts released huge volumes of methane into the atmosphere and knocked out a major energy link that had allowed Russia to earn billions from gas sales to Germany and beyond. No group ever claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kuznetsov, arrested while on holiday in Italy last summer and extradited to Germany in November, was later charged with offences including the alleged war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure. Prosecutors describe him as an officer in the Ukrainian army who, with other military personnel, acted on the orders of state authorities in Kyiv. When those charges were announced, Zelensky told reporters that officials had not yet officially received all the details and that it was too early to comment.
His team allegedly chartered a yacht in the German port of Rostock using forged identity documents, carried military-grade explosives through international waters to an area near the Danish island of Bornholm, and attached them to the pipelines with timed detonators that went off four days later. Kuznetsov is reportedly in detention in Hamburg awaiting trial; his Italian lawyer, Nicola Canestrini, has dismissed the prosecution case as fragile and said a conviction is out of the question.
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