Nord Stream sabotage trial begins in Germany with Ukrainian defendant

A Ukrainian citizen is appearing in a Hamburg court to face charges over the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, marking the first time anyone has been put on trial for the 2022 underwater bombings.

The defendant, identified by German authorities as Serhii K and named in legal records as Serhii Kuznetsov, is accused of collaborating with other Ukrainian military members to rupture the infrastructure beneath the Baltic Sea. Investigators believe the objective was to deprive Moscow of gas revenues that could fund its ongoing war against Ukraine. The defendant has denied any wrongdoing.

The blasts took place on September 26, 2022, near the Danish island of Bornholm, destroying three of the four subsea conduits connecting Russia and Germany. Nord Stream 1 had already ceased gas deliveries before the incident, while Nord Stream 2 was halted by Berlin shortly before Russia's invasion in February 2022 and had never entered commercial service.

Initial speculation in Western nations raised questions about possible Russian involvement, while Russian President Vladimir Putin accused American and British interests, which both nations rejected. Inquiries launched by Denmark and Sweden were eventually concluded without charges, leaving federal investigators in Germany to pursue the case. Their inquiry centered on a sailing yacht named the Andromeda, hired from the port of Rostock, where forensic teams later detected remnants of subsea explosives.

German prosecutors contend that the operation was executed by a team that included deep-sea divers, an explosives specialist, and a vessel captain, allegedly acting under direction linked to Ukrainian state bodies. Prosecutors have framed the act under German law as a war crime involving a military assault on civilian infrastructure, arguing that the disruption threatened national security.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently denied any state connection to the underwater blasts. Oleksandr Merezhko, who leads the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament, told the BBC that the theory put forward by German authorities is only one version of events, noting that the pipelines served as geopolitical leverage for Moscow ahead of the full-scale conflict.

The suspect was detained in Italy during August 2025 under a European warrant and transferred to Germany toward the end of that year. Another Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravlov, was freed by a Polish court that ruled the destruction was not unlawful, before being detained in Croatia. Croatian authorities have since sanctioned his extradition, though his prospective transfer date remains undetermined.