“Nord Stream” blowing up. German law enforcement officers may take the case of Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov to court in two days

On Thursday, May 28, German law enforcement agencies must either complete the investigation and refer the case of Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov, whom they suspect of undermining “Nord Stream”, to court, or ask the court to extend the investigation for another three months.

Kuznetsovʼs lawyer Mykola Katerynchuk told Babel about this.

According to Katerynchuk, if the indictment is transferred to the Supreme Court, the final qualification and what exactly Kuznetsov is accused of will become clear. The lawyer did not rule out that German law enforcement officers may reclassify the case from sabotage to a war crime.

"Lawyers working in Germany say that they still do not have about a quarter of all the materials, so they cannot analyze them," says Katerynchuk.

German law enforcement officers constantly offer him to plead guilty, promising a deal, but he does not admit anything and considers himself innocent, adds Katerynchuk.

According to him, Kuznetsov looks bad, and the conditions of his detention, despite numerous appeals, have not improved. Katerynchuk also believes that the Ukrainian authorities should get involved in the situation with Kuznetsov.

"Because now it looks like Germany is trying to protect the main shareholder of the streams — ʼGazpromʼ, which finances units for the war against Ukraine. But there is no German property in the streams: the pipe belongs to Russia, no German citizen was injured, no property was damaged, the explosion did not occur in German waters," says Katerynchuk.

“Nord Stream” explosions

On September 26, 2022, three explosions occurred on the “Nord Stream 1” and “Nord Stream 2” pipelines, which run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, causing massive gas leaks. Only one of the four strands of the pipeline remained intact.

The US, UK and EU governments have declared a deliberate sabotage. Russia believes that the US and its allies are interested in the bombings. Western and Russian media have written about different versions — from sabotage by the Russians themselves to the involvement of Ukraine.

On August 26, 2025, German investigators issued arrest warrants for six Ukrainians suspected of involvement in the bombing. Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov, who was detained in Italy and suspected of involvement in the sabotage, denies the charges. An Italian court allowed his extradition to Germany.

On October 27, a court in Bologna ordered the extradition of Serhiy Kuznetsov to Germany. The defense appealed to the Italian Supreme Court. That same month, a Polish court refused to extradite another detainee in the case — Volodymyr Zhuravlyov — to Germany. The court ruled that Germany had provided insufficient evidence and that the act Zhuravlyov was accused of “was committed in the context of the criminal and genocidal war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 2014”.

On November 19, the Italian Supreme Court upheld the decision to extradite Serhiy Kuznetsov to Germany. In particular, the court found no evidence in favor of Kuznetsovʼs functional immunity as a Ukrainian military officer. One of the reasons was that no Ukrainian authority officially recognized the sabotage of Nord Stream as a military operation.

In November, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets wrote a letter to the Italian court, in which he admitted for the first time on behalf of the state that at the time of the explosions at Nord Stream, Kuznetsov was serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

On November 27, Kuznetsov was extradited from Italy to Germany. The next day, he was arrested. Later, Kuznetsovʼs lawyer Mykola Katerynchuk told Babel that the Ukrainian was treated worse in a German prison than in an Italian one.

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