Ukrainian on trial in Germany over Nord Stream blasts

A former Ukrainian military officer is facing trial in Germany, charged with masterminding the covert 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipelines that severed Western Europe's main conduit for Russian natural gas.

Serhii Kuznetsov appeared on Wednesday before Hamburg's Higher Regional Court, where his defense sought dismissal of war crimes and sabotage charges in proceedings expected to run into February.

Four years after explosions ruptured the Baltic Sea pipelines, prosecutors allege that Kuznetsov commanded a dive team that planted charges on the seabed under orders from Ukrainian state authorities. Ukraine denies any state involvement. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in August that his country had never officially taken part in operations targeting the pipelines.

Prosecutors told the court the former special forces officer had committed a war crime by targeting civilian infrastructure, and has charged him with causing the explosions, destroying property, and disrupting essential services.

The trial is politically sensitive in Germany, one of Kyiv's closest allies since the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022 — seven months before the pipeline explosions. The proceedings mark the first time evidence from the multiyear investigation has been aired in open court.

Kuznetsov, who was extradited to Germany last year, denies the charges. He was arrested while on a family holiday in Italy, with prosecutors alleging he had been traveling on a false passport.

A second suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, an air-conditioning installer and amateur diver, was arrested in northern Croatia in August on a European warrant. He has applied for asylum there and is fighting extradition to Germany, denying any role in the attack.

Defense lawyers countered that investigators have gathered only circumstantial evidence in the years since the blasts.

"(Prosecutors) made a thorough investigation of four years," Italian defense lawyer Nicola Canestrini told reporters outside the courtroom. "They did not find one single witness, they did not find no forensics, no DNA, no fingerprints — nothing!"

Prosecutors allege Kuznetsov coordinated six accomplices — divers, an explosives specialist, and a ship's captain — who used a rented yacht to plant timer-controlled charges at around 80 meters depth in the Baltic Sea, near the Danish island of Bornholm.

The explosions on Sept 26, 2022 ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had never been put into operation after Germany suspended the multibillion dollar project prior to the start of the conflict.

Lawyers for Kuznetsov also argued the case should be dismissed, saying their client had spent 11 months in near-total solitary confinement and was being treated "like a pawn on a chessboard".