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Nord Stream charges
German prosecutors have filed charges against a Ukrainian national over the 2022 blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea, moving the case toward trial in Germany.
“Germany charges Ukrainian suspect over Nord Stream blasts, alleges war crime Serhii K”
The suspect, identified under German privacy laws as Serhii K, is said to have led and co-ordinated the attack that transported natural gas from Russia to Germany, and German media reports say he was arrested in Italy last summer and extradited to Germany in November.
Anadolu Ajansı says Serhii K, currently in pretrial detention in Hamburg, faces charges that include detonating explosives and targeting critical civilian infrastructure, which German prosecutors accuse him of committing as a war crime.
The BBC reported that the indictment was served on Wednesday and that the suspect has denied involvement, while Ukraine has denied involvement in the case that may have serious implications for its relationship with Germany.
Court and evidence
In Italy, Avvenire reports that the Court of Appello di Bologna decided that Serhii Kuznietsov, arrested on 21 agosto in provincia di Rimini, would be judged by German courts, with extradition dependent on the outcome of an appeal in Cassazione.
Avvenire also says the sabotage of the submarine pipelines managed by Gazprom occurred in September 2022, and that German investigators allege the action was planned by a group of Ukrainian military personnel.
DW reports that German federal prosecutors accuse the 50-year-old Ukrainian soldier from Kyiv of leading a team of seven accomplices and of commanding the sailing yacht Andromeda, from which the attack was allegedly carried out.
DW further says investigators discovered traces of the military explosives HMX and RDX on the Andromeda, and that the suspect has denied involvement while his lawyer told Reuters he was confident his client would be acquitted.
Europe-wide fallout
Euronews frames the case as a “War crime” and says the German public prosecutor’s office announced it had indicted a suspect in the sabotage case, with German media reporting he is a Ukrainian national presented as the leader of the team that carried out the operation.
“- Published German prosecutors have filed charges against a Ukrainian national over the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea in 2022”
Euronews adds that the Federal Prosecutor reclassified the charges, moving from sabotage directed against the constitutional order to a war crime, and that Kuznietsov denies the charges while the law firm representing him told AFP he was indicted for attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.
The BBC reports that the explosions on 26 September 2022 ruptured three of the four pipelines, and that Nord Stream 1’s two pipelines provided a steady supply along a 1,200km stretch of the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast to north-eastern Germany.
The BBC also notes that Germany cancelled its process to approve Nord Stream 2 shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and that Russia shut down Nord Stream 1 blaming problems with equipment, while the case has become a flashpoint in tensions between Moscow and the West.
