Ukrainian state authorities were behind the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, German prosecutors said on Thursday.
In a statement detailing the charges brought against suspect Serhii K. on Wednesday, prosecutors said that he and six accomplices had acted “on the orders of state authorities in Ukraine.”
According to prosecutors, K., now 50, was an “officer in the Ukrainian army” at the time of the operation, and his accomplices were also “military personnel.”
They said the plan was to “destroy the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines” with the objective of “permanently halting gas supplies via the pipelines and preventing Russia from using the revenue from natural gas trade to finance its war efforts.”
Germany is one of the biggest military backers of Ukraine in its battle against the ongoing Russian invasion, making the incident potentially diplomatically awkward.
Nord Stream sabotage: how the operation took place
Detailing how the operation allegedly took place, prosecutors said K. and his team traveled from Ukraine to Germany on fake Ukrainian passports and hired a yacht, the Andromeda, from a German company in the northern city of Rostock.
Investigators reportedly discovered traces of the military explosives HMX and RDX onboard the Andromeda which were attached with timers to the underwater pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm by September 22, 2022.
The explosives detonated four days later on September 26, causing significant damage, although the pipelines were not in operation at the time.
“Before the incident, around half of Germany’s annual supply of natural gas was transported via Nord Stream 1,” said prosecutors.
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Nord Stream suspect denies charges
On Wednesday, German media had reported that K. had been charged with being an accomplice to a war crime, disruption of public services, causing an explosion and destroying structures.
The charges follow K.’s extradition to Germany from Italy, where he had been arrested on a German arrest warrant in August 2025.
K. has denied involvement and his lawyer told the Reuters news agency that he was confident his client would be acquitted.
Edited by: Karl Sexton
Editor’s note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases.
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