Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General has filed the first formal charges over the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline attack, accusing a former Ukrainian army officer of being an accomplice to a war crime.
The suspect, named in German media as Serhii Kuznietsov but identified in court papers only as Serhii K under privacy rules, was charged on June 30, 2026.
Prosecutor General Jens Rommel’s office said the defendant had helped lead a team that destroyed three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea on September 26, 2022.
He also faces charges of causing an explosion, destroying structures and disrupting public services.
Prosecutors alleged that Kuznietsov and other Ukrainian servicemen had acted on the orders of state authorities in Kyiv.
They said the aim was to halt gas supplies permanently and to stop Russia funding its war through energy revenues.
The group allegedly chartered a sailing yacht, the Andromeda, from the northern German port of Rostock, hiring it with forged Ukrainian passports and the help of intermediaries.
Investigators said military-grade explosives were carried through international waters and attached to the pipelines near Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea.
The operation reportedly cost around $300,000 (€260,000).
Kuznietsov, who was arrested in August 2025 near Rimini, eastern Italy, and extradited to Germany last November, has denied any involvement.
His lawyers have argued that he was serving in the Ukrainian military and was in Ukraine at the time, which they said would grant him “functional immunity” under international law.
Kyiv has consistently rejected any role in the sabotage.
Speaking at a news conference in Dublin, President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was too early to comment in detail. “We do not know all the details of this process now,” he said.
He added that the two governments would be in contact once Ukraine had received the full case file.
German intelligence officials have previously voiced doubts that Kyiv ordered the attack, suggesting it could have been a Russian “false-flag” operation.
Germany remains the only country still pursuing the case, after Denmark and Sweden closed their investigations without charging anyone.
Prosecutors have identified seven suspects, all Ukrainian nationals, one of whom has since died fighting in the war.
A second suspect detained near Warsaw was freed after a Polish court refused to extradite him.
