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Ukrainian citizen Serhii Kuznetsov went to trial in Hamburg on Oct. 14 on suspicion of involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.
A series of explosions rocked the controversial Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in September 2022, destroying three out of four key gas pipelines linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea.
Kuznetsov, a former soldier, was accused of leading the sabotage group, involving six other people. German investigators claim that he commanded the yacht "Andromeda," from which a team of divers allegedly carried out the attack against the pipelines.
On the first day of the trial, prosecutors accused Kuznetsov of being an accomplice to war crimes by committing an attack against civilian infrastructure.
Kuznetsov and Kyiv have denied any involvement in the sabotage.
The trial — the first held in connection with the Nord Stream sabotage — is expected to run until February.
Kuznietsov was arrested in August 2025 near the Italian town of Rimini under a European arrest warrant before being extradited to Germany.
Another Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Zhuravliov, was detained in Croatia in August 2026 and awaits extradition. Zhuravliov was first detained in Poland in September 2025, but a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany and instead released him a month later.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never became operational, had long been a flashpoint in European energy politics.
Even before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, critics said it deepened Germany's dependence on Russian gas and undermined European energy security.
