After almost four years, they reach a conclusion that was already evident in 2022.
On Thursday, German prosecutors filed charges against Sergei Kuznetsov, a former officer of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), over the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022.
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In the indictment, prosecutors stated that he and other members of the Ukrainian military acted “under orders from the Ukrainian state authorities.”
Arrested in Italy during the summer of 2025 and extradited to Germany months later, the 49-year-old man is charged with “complicity in a war crime” in connection with the explosions that destroyed three of the four sections of the pipeline system, which connected Russia with Germany and was one of the European country’s main energy supply routes.
More specifically, prosecutors said the suspects “acted on behalf of the Ukrainian state authorities and developed a plan to destroy the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which connect Russia with Lubmin, Germany, through the Baltic Sea.”
“The objective was to permanently cut off the gas supply through the pipelines and prevent Russia from using the revenue generated from natural gas sales to finance its war effort,” prosecutors added.
To carry out the plan, Kuznetsov assembled a group consisting of professional divers, a captain and an explosives expert. He entered Germany on Sept. 4, 2022, from Poland using a forged Ukrainian passport.
“Shortly afterward, he and other members of the group boarded a yacht that had previously been rented from a German company in Rostock using false documentation and intermediaries,” prosecutors said.
The vessel was used to transport large quantities of high-powered, military-grade explosives to the vicinity of the Danish island of Bornholm in international waters.
There, the Ukrainian saboteurs placed multiple timed explosive devices on the pipelines running along the seabed, a task that continued until Sept. 22, 2022. The charges detonated on Sept. 26 of that year.
The German Investigation Corroborated Early Allegations
During a news conference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “it is becoming increasingly paradoxical that Germany continues to allocate money to the war machine of the Ukrainian regime.”
“The German authorities’ decision confirmed the information we have had practically since the beginning of this story regarding the involvement of the Ukrainian regime and state in terrorist activities and in the attack on critical infrastructure of the European Union,” he emphasized.
On Sept. 26, 2022, Germany, Denmark and Sweden declined to conduct a joint investigation with Russia into the Nord Stream explosion, which occurred near a Danish island and off the Swedish coast in areas under NATO control.
“The pipeline operator, Nord Stream AG, said the damage was unprecedented and that it was impossible to estimate how long repairs would take. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities opened a criminal investigation into international terrorism,” outlet Tiempo Argentino recalled.
“An investigative report by U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner, asserted that U.S. military divers placed the explosive charges during NATO’s BALTOPS exercises held in June 2022. According to that investigation, the decision to carry out the attack was made personally by then-U.S. President Joe Biden,” it added.
teleSUR/ JF
Sources: Tiempo Argentino – Europa Press – Sputnik
From teleSUR English via This RSS Feed.
So what makes this a “war crime”, but not all the oil refineries Ukraine has been destroying? Not that I object, but it is curious to think there’s a distinction here.
