Nord Stream sabotage: Germany has brought charges against the Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov
He was charged under several sections:
- complicity in a war crime — an attack on civilian targets;
- organising an explosion using explosive substances;
- destruction of structures;
- obstructing the operations of enterprises providing for public needs.
German prosecutors allege that Kuznetsov, together with other military personnel and on the instructions of Ukrainian state authorities, devised a plan to destroy the ‘Nord Stream 1’ and ‘Nord Stream 2’, which run along the seabed of the Baltic Sea to Lubmin in Germany.
“The aim was to permanently halt gas supplies via these pipelines and prevent Russia from using revenue from natural gas trade to finance its war,” the text states.
According to prosecutors, a group was formed for this purpose, comprising several professional divers, a skipper and an explosives expert. The group was led by Sergei Kuznetsov.
According to the investigation, on 4 September 2022, Kuznetsov entered Germany via Poland using a forged Ukrainian passport. Shortly afterwards, law enforcement officials say, he and other members of the group boarded a sailing yacht. The yacht had previously been chartered through intermediaries from a German company in Rostock, using forged documents.
According to the German public prosecutor’s office, a significant quantity of powerful military-grade explosives was transported on this yacht through international waters to an area near the Danish island of Bornholm.
“By 22 September 2022, the group led by Sergei K. had attached several explosive devices fitted with timers to the gas pipelines lying on the seabed. The explosive devices detonated on 26 September 2022, causing serious damage to both pipelines,” the prosecutors added.
The Nord Stream pipeline explosions: what is known
On 26 September 2022, three explosions occurred on the ‘Nord Stream 1’ and “Nord Stream 2” pipelines, which run along the seabed of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, three explosions occurred, causing massive gas leaks. Only one of the four pipeline strands remained intact.
On 26 August 2025, German investigators issued arrest warrants for six Ukrainians suspected of carrying out the sabotage. Serhiy Kuznetsov, a Ukrainian national who was detained in Italy and is suspected of involvement in the sabotage, denies the charges. In November, Kuznetsov was extradited from Italy to Germany. He was arrested the following day. Later, Kuznetsov’s lawyer, Mykola Katerynchuk, told *Babel* that the Ukrainian was being treated worse in a German prison than he had been in an Italian one.
In November, the Verkhovna Rada’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, wrote a letter to an Italian court in which, for the first time on behalf of the state, he acknowledged that at the time of the explosions on the ‘Nord Stream’ pipelines, Kuznetsov was serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, a Polish court refused to extradite another suspect in the case — Vladimir Zhuravlev. The court ruled that Germany had provided insufficient evidence, and that the act of which Zhuravlev is accused “was carried out in the context of the criminal and genocidal war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 2014”.
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