Nord Stream Indictment Points to Possible Ukrainian State Role

A man indicted in Germany in connection with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines claimed that he was serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and working for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at the time of the attack. The claim is contained in an indictment filed by the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office and reviewed by the weekly magazine Stern.

In wiretapped conversations, the accused, identified under German privacy laws as Serhiy K. but named in media reports as Serhiy Kuznetsov, complained that his country and its president had “left him to fend for himself”. At the same time, he expressed a desire to speak with “Roman”, whom he identified as his commander.

According to Stern, this may refer to Roman Chervinsky, a Ukrainian intelligence officer. After Kuznetsov's arrest, Chervinsky stated in writing that Kuznetsov had been under his command during the sabotage operation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long denied Ukraine's involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage.

The indictment points to possible involvement by Ukrainian state authorities in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office filed the indictment several weeks ago, but the court has not yet accepted it. According to Stern, investigators have only circumstantial evidence against Kuznetsov. It is the first indictment brought by German prosecutors in connection with the 26 September 2022 attack on the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

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Arrest in Italy

The suspect was arrested last year while on a family vacation in the Italian province of Rimini. Italian police detained him on 21 August 2025 under a European arrest warrant.

He was extradited to Germany in late November, where a judge ordered him held in custody the following day. Kuznetsov has strongly denied any involvement, claiming he was in Ukraine when the explosions occurred.

His lawyer, Nicola Canestrini, previously described the evidence as weak and said he was confident his client would be acquitted.

Intentional Sabotage

Powerful underwater explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The pipelines, built to transport Russian gas directly to Germany while bypassing Poland and Ukraine, had long been a source of geopolitical controversy.

Immediately after the attacks, speculation emerged in Western political circles that Russia may have staged a false-flag operation to deepen Europe's energy crisis. Investigations by Danish and Swedish authorities, which concluded in 2024 without identifying specific perpetrators, established only that the explosions were acts of deliberate sabotage.

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice indicated that the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was highly likely to have been carried out on the orders of a foreign state, specifically Ukraine. This emerged from its 10 December 2025 ruling on Kuznetsov’s pretrial detention.

According to the court, the pipelines served civilian rather than military purposes, and their destruction also affected Germany's sovereignty because they were intended to help secure the country's gas supplies. The court also concluded that the operation was a covert intelligence mission in which the suspect did not act as a combatant.

The ruling is consistent with findings published by Der Spiegel, which reported that the 2022 attack was carried out by a Ukrainian commando unit. According to the magazine, the saboteurs used a chartered yacht and placed explosives on the seabed.

(ntv, bak, lud)