(Reuters) -Russia has complained to Germany over its investigation into the 2022 explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas 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 major 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 did not 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 U.N. anti-terrorist conventions,” Tyapkin said.
“We have officially made corresponding claims on this matter bilaterally, including to Berlin.”
Germany’s prosecutor general declined to comment on the RIA report when contacted by Reuters. The German foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts. Russia has repeatedly said the attack was carried out by the United States and Britain, both of whom have denied this.
The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have reported that Ukraine – which has repeatedly denied involvement – was behind the attack.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, additional reporting by Rachel More in Berlin; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Michael Perry and Mark Heinrich)
