Volodymyr Zhuravlov was detained near Warsaw in late September under a European arrest warrant.
The Warsaw District Court on Friday denied Germany’s request to hand over Zhuravlov and ordered his immediate release from custody.
Judge Dariusz Łubowski said the German request did not merit acceptance, adding that the case lacked sufficient evidence.
"You are free," he told Zhuravlov.
Zhuravlov’s lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, said his client had "committed no crime against Germany" and denied any involvement in the blasts.
Paprocki also argued that, amid Russia's war against Ukraine, acts targeting Russian state-controlled infrastructure should not be prosecuted as crimes.
Lawyer Tymoteusz Paprocki speaks to reporters at the Warsaw District Court on Friday. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz
Judge Łubowski noted that the court was not ruling on guilt or innocence, but only on whether the conditions for enforcing the European arrest warrant were met.
The ruling came two days after Italy’s top court blocked the extradition of another Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the Nord Stream attacks.
'The case is closed': Polish PM
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed Friday's decision, saying on X that "the case is closed."
Tusk said last week that it was not in Poland's interest to hand over the Ukrainian suspect.
He reiterated Poland's opposition to the pipelines, which supplied Russian gas to Germany and which Warsaw says deepened Europe’s reliance on Russian energy.
“The problem of Europe, the problem of Ukraine, the problem of Lithuania and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built,” Tusk said at the time.
“It is certainly not in Poland’s interest to hand over this citizen to a foreign country," he added.
German prosecutors allege that Zhuravlov, a diving instructor, was part of a team that rented a sailboat and planted explosives on the pipelines near Denmark’s Bornholm island in September 2022.
He was charged with conspiring to carry out an explosives attack and “anti-constitutional sabotage,” according to the Reuters news agency.
Swedish and Danish investigators said in 2022 that the blasts on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were an act of sabotage after traces of explosives were found at the site.
The explosions ruptured three of the four pipelines on the Baltic seabed and cut most Russian gas supplies to Europe.
European officials said at the time that Russian naval vessels had been spotted near the site, though Moscow denied responsibility and blamed the West.
Ukraine has also denied any involvement.