A UKRAINIAN man suspected of being one of the co-ordinators of the undersea explosions in 2022 that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany has been arrested in Italy, German prosecutors said today.

His detention occurred the day after Nato officials attempted to work out the shape of possible security guarantees that would be part of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

The Nord Stream suspect, identified only as Serhii K, in line with German privacy rules, was arrested overnight by officers from a police station in Misano Adriatrico, near the Italian city of Rimini, federal prosecutors said.

Explosions on September 26 2022, damaged the pipelines, which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. 

Investigators have been largely tightlipped on their investigation, but they said two years ago they had found traces of undersea explosives in samples taken from a yacht that was searched as part of the probe.

In a statement today, prosecutors said Serhii K was one of a group of people who placed explosives on the pipelines and was believed to have been one of the co-ordinators. 

They said he was suspected of causing explosions, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures. 

On Wednesday, Nato military chiefs held a video conference on what security guarantees they could offer Kiev to help forge a peace agreement ending Russia’s three-year invasion of Ukraine, a senior alliance official said.

Italian Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, who chairs the Nato military committee, said that there had been a “great, candid discussion.”

But on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the RIA Novosti news agency: “We cannot agree with the fact that it is now proposed to resolve collective security issues without the Russian Federation.”

Moscow has repeatedly said that it would not accept Nato troops in Ukraine.