Poland has received a European arrest warrant from Germany related to the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline attacks, but the suspect has already left Poland due to an omission by German authorities.

Polish prosecutors informed Reuters that Germany failed to include the suspect’s name in a wanted persons database. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which transport gas under the Baltic Sea, were damaged by explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to German media reports, investigators believe a Ukrainian diver was involved in planting the explosives.

Anna Adamiak, a spokeswoman for the Polish National Public Prosecutor’s Office, stated that German authorities issued an arrest warrant in June for Ukrainian citizen Volodymyr Z., who was under investigation in Germany. However, he was not detained because he left Poland in early July, crossing into Ukraine. The Polish Border Guard did not detain him because his name was not in the wanted persons database, leaving them unaware of any grounds for arrest.

German officials have mostly refrained from commenting on the situation, with the prosecutor general’s office declining to address the media reports, and the interior and justice ministries either declining or not responding to requests for comment.

In addition to Volodymyr Z., German investigators have identified two other Ukrainian diving instructors—a man and a woman—who are believed to be accomplices in the sabotage. However, no arrest warrants have been issued for them yet. The explosions destroyed three out of four Nord Stream pipelines, a significant blow to the already strained German-Russian gas relations following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has blamed the United States, Britain, and Ukraine for the explosions, accusations which these countries have denied. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched investigations into the incident. Sweden found evidence of explosives on objects recovered from the site, confirming the blasts were intentional, but closed its investigation without identifying any suspects. In January 2023, Germany raided a ship believed to have transported the explosives and suggested that trained divers may have attached the devices at a depth of 70 to 80 meters.