OMM Redaksiyası
A Ukrainian former special forces soldier identified as Serhii Kuznetsov is due to stand trial in Hamburg next week over the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to the BBC.
German prosecutors accuse him of causing an explosion and committing a war crime by attacking civilian infrastructure, allegedly on behalf of Ukrainian state agencies. Kuznetsov and Ukraine deny involvement.
Under German privacy rules, he will be identified at trial as Serhii K. He was arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany, where he has spent months in a high-security prison.
Investigators traced evidence to a rented yacht
The first blast struck at 02:03 on 26 September 2022, rupturing the pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea. Two further explosions hit Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. Both pipelines have been inoperable since.
Prosecutors say four timed devices containing high-performance explosives were placed about 80 metres below the surface. They suspect Serhii K led a team that included four deep-sea divers and used a rented yacht called “Andromeda”.
German investigators followed forensic evidence linked to the boat, including DNA that was allegedly left behind. The case alleges that Serhii K entered Germany using a forged passport, likely issued by Ukraine’s security services.
He was identified as a key suspect by 13 August 2025. Italian police said the arrest warrant was issued on 18 August, after he had travelled south from Poland. He was detained later at a holiday resort near Italy’s Adriatic coast.
Another suspect is contesting extradition
Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, the only other suspect publicly identified so far, is contesting extradition from Croatia, where he was arrested in August. He denies involvement in the attack.
Zhuravlyov had previously been arrested in Warsaw on a German warrant, but a Polish judge refused to extradite him. The judge said that a Ukrainian attack on the pipelines, if that was what had happened, would be a just act in a war.
The case has political implications for Berlin and Kyiv. Germany is now Ukraine’s largest supplier of military aid, while the far-right AfD party has cited the investigation in arguing that support for Kyiv should end.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously denied that Ukraine carried out the explosions. Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi told the BBC that discussion had focused on who destroyed the pipelines rather than who built them, arguing that they had enabled Russia to wage war without relying on gas transit through Ukraine.
Serhii K’s lawyers are expected to argue that he cannot disclose details of military activities and to submit sworn statements from two of his military superiors. The BBC reported that one of them is widely identified as the alleged mastermind of the operation.
