A UKRAINIAN man has been arrested over the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipe explosion.

He is suspected of being one of the coordinators of the undersea blasts which severely damaged pipelines between Russia and Germany.

The suspect has been identified only as Serhii K after he was detained overnight by officers from a police station in Misano Adriatrico, near the Italian city of Rimini.

Germany’s Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig called the arrest an “impressive success” for Germany’s state prosecutors.

Two Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by explosions under the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Sweden almost three years ago.

The blasts caused four leaks as shocking images showed the twisted remains of the pipeline.

Footage showed twisted metal on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, 262ft down in the Baltic Sea.

Around 165ft of pipeline was destroyed or buried under the seafloor.

The attacks sent millions of cubic metres of methane boiling to the sea’s surface and pushed sky-high gas prices even higher.

Investigations into who was behind the attacks went on for months with security experts initially blaming Russian sabotage.

The explosions were believed to have been timed to coincide with Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as European countries moved away from Russian energy sources.

In a statement Thursday, prosecutors said Serhii K. was one of a group of people who placed explosives on the pipelines and is believed to have been one of the coordinators.

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

The suspect and others used a yacht that set off from the German port of Rostock, which had been hired from a German company using forged IDs and with the help of intermediaries, prosecutors said.

They didn’t give any information on the other people aboard the yacht or say anything about who else might have been involved in coordinating the suspected sabotage.