(Reuters) – Russia has complained to Germany over its investigation into the 2022 explosions of the Nord Stream pipelines, RIA news agency reported on Monday, after a key suspect escaped arrest in Poland.
German media reported last week that German prosecutors had identified a Ukrainian diving instructor as a key suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage attack and issued a warrant to arrest him in Poland.
Poland received the German warrant but the suspect has left the country as Germany failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.
Moscow believes the German investigation will be closed without identifying those responsible, RIA cited Oleg Tyapkin, the head of a European department at the Russian foreign ministry, as saying.
“We have raised the issue of Germany and other affected countries fulfilling their obligations under the UN anti-terrorist conventions,” Tyapkin said.
“We have officially made corresponding claims on this matter bilaterally, including to Berlin.”
The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry)
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