Croatian court approves extradition of Nord Stream blast suspect to Germany

A Croatian court has approved the extradition of a Ukrainian man who is wanted in Germany in connection with the 2022 undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines, state media said on Thursday.The report from HRT Television quoted the suspect’s lawyer Ljubo Pavaskovic as saying that he will appeal the September 18 ruling. It was not immediately clear when the man could be handed over to Germany.He was arrested on a European warrant in the northern Croatian town of Pula in August.German prosecutors have said that the suspect was a “trained scuba diver” who, along with others, “planted explosives” on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm.The undersea explosions on September 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which had been built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the Ukraine war as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour on February 24, 2022.The German prosecutor’s office identified the suspect only as Vladimir Z. A spokesperson confirmed to Associated Press that it was the same man who was arrested in Poland last year but was later released when a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany. Polish authorities identified him as Volodymyr Zhuravlov.In July, German federal prosecutors filed charges against a former Ukrainian army officer in connection with the same explosions.