Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has mentioned handing over the Ukrainian diver isn’t within the nation’s finest pursuits.
Printed On 17 Oct 2025
A Polish courtroom has blocked the extradition of a Ukrainian diver wished by Germany in reference to the 2022 Nord Stream gasoline pipeline explosions, a handover that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk mentioned earlier this month was not in his nation’s finest pursuits.
The Warsaw District Court docket rejected the extradition of the person, solely recognized as Volodymyr Z, on Friday and ordered his instant launch.
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The federal government had beforehand mentioned that the choice about whether or not Volodymyr Z needs to be transferred to Germany was one for the courts alone.
Tusk has mentioned the issue was not that the undersea pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany, had been blown up in September 2022, however that they had been constructed in any respect.
The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was inaugurated in 2011 and carried Russian pure gasoline to Germany underneath the Baltic Sea till Russia reduce off provides in August 2022.
Additionally they broken the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which by no means entered service as a result of Germany suspended its certification course of shortly earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The explosions largely severed Russian gasoline provides to Europe, marking a serious escalation within the Ukraine battle and squeezing vitality provides.
Germany’s prime prosecutors’ workplace says Volodymyr Z was one in all a bunch suspected of renting a crusing yacht and planting explosives on the pipelines close to the Danish island of Bornholm.
He faces allegations of conspiring to commit an explosives assault and of “anti-constitutional sabotage”.
His Polish lawyer rejects the accusations and says Volodymyr Z has carried out nothing flawed. He has additionally questioned whether or not a case regarding the destruction of Russian property by a Ukrainian at a time when the nations are at battle is a felony matter.
Volodymyr Z’s spouse has informed Polish media her husband is harmless and that they had been collectively in Poland on the time the pipelines had been blown up.
He’s one in all two Ukrainians whose extradition German judicial authorities have been attempting to safe within the case.
A person suspected of being one of many assault’s coordinators was arrested in Italy in August. This week, Italy’s prime courtroom annulled a decrease courtroom’s choice to order his extradition and known as for an additional panel of judges to reassess the case, his lawyer mentioned.
