Germany will transfer to Ukraine as humanitarian aid a gas-fired power plant located at the point where the defunct Russian gas pipeline “Nord Stream 1” and the German gas transportation network connect.
Welt writes about this.
The 84 MW power plant in Lubmin was needed solely to provide the necessary process heat to feed Russian natural gas into the German grid. The German operator said the plant had become unprofitable due to the cessation of Russian gas supplies across the Baltic Sea in September 2022. There were no other customers for heat, so operation ceased in 2023. No buyer was found for the plant, so it was decided to transfer it to Ukraine.
The local branch of the far-right pro-Russian Alternative for Germany party criticized the move. State parliament member Nikolaus Kramer called the move “absurd” and “a slap in the face to German citizens,” as the power plant “was supposed to serve Germany’s energy security”.
Earlier, AFP, citing an internal position paper of the Alternative for Germany, wrote that this party wants to resume the operation of the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline.
“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 Sergei 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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