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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
He emphasized that no one died as a result of the gas pipeline explosions, and that the real war crime is Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Former Ukrainian ambassador to Croatia Oleksandr Levchenko said at a press conference in Zagreb that “something’s off here” in the case of Ukrainian national Volodymyr Zhuravlov. A court in Pula has already authorized Zhuravlov’s extradition to Germany, which suspects him of a war crime for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, reports Večernji list.
“I do not represent the Ukrainian state, but I represent Ukrainian society and I tell you that something’s off here,” Levchenko said. He asked, “Who was killed or physically harmed if this is a war crime? No one. And what ship, perhaps, was damaged while passing through? None.” He then promised to show what a war crime looks like and displayed photos of Russian strikes on civilian targets in Kyiv, Kramatorsk, and other cities.
Levchenko linked his remark that “something’s off” to the visit of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to Kyiv. On Sunday, 4 October, Russia struck a very busy bridge in Kyiv on the day Merz arrived to meet President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. “We see that some strange things are happening here. At the same time that the arrested man here is being accused of a war crime, the federal chancellor arrives and announces further aid to Ukraine in the amount of 1,3 billion euros,” Levchenko suggested.
Germany suspects Zhuravlov of participating as a diver in a group of Ukrainians who in September 2022 detonated the Russian-German Nord Stream pipeline. The court in Pula ruled on the basis of a European arrest warrant, and the appeal is now being considered by the Croatian High Criminal Court.
Zhuravlov’s lawyer Ivan Grzich answered a question about whether his client regrets leaving Poland. “I cannot say that he regrets it, but the very fact of being deprived of his freedom is in no way acceptable to him,” the lawyer said. According to Grzich, neither the Polish nor the Croatian court assessed Zhuravlov’s guilt on the merits, but the Polish court ultimately refused extradition. Zhuravlov relied on that decision and believed that no other EU country would extradite him on the same warrant. The defense is now dealing with a new European arrest warrant from August 2026.
Grzich explained that the Polish court’s decision does not bind Croatian or other EU courts, because each state examines a European arrest warrant under its own criminal law. However, EU Court practice provides that some findings from another state’s decision should be taken into account when the same warrant is reconsidered.
Zhuravlov was detained in Pula on 19 August on a European arrest warrant, and the court remanded him in custody the next day. The defense then emphasized that Germany seeks extradition based on the same facts and the same legal classification that were already rejected in Poland. The Warsaw court did indeed refuse extradition and released Zhuravlov on 17 October 2025, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called that decision fair.
German investigators suspect seven Ukrainians of blowing up the pipelines. Germany has already filed charges against one of them, who was transferred from Italy.
That the Nord Streams were a lawful military target is argued in an article in ZN.UA titled “Legitimate Target: the Military Nature of the Attack on the Nord Streams,” written by lawyers Mykola Katerynchuk and Svitlana Kustova, partners at the law firm Katerynchuk, Moor & Partners.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "«Тут щось не так»: екс-посол України про звинувачення українця у справі «Північних потоків»". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
