Nord Stream sabotage trial set for October in Germany

A Ukrainian man will go on trial in Germany on October 14 over the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court said.

Serhii Kuznietsov will face trial in Hamburg in proceedings expected to last until February.

The Baltic Sea sabotage attack came months after Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and destroyed three of the four pipelines in the major energy link.

The court said there was sufficient suspicion that Kuznietsov was a co-perpetrator of a war crime involving prohibited methods of warfare through an attack on civilian objects, causing an explosion, destroying structures and disrupting public utilities.

German prosecutors say Kuznietsov used forged identity documents to charter a yacht that left Rostock to carry out the attacks.

German investigators believe the attack was ordered by a Ukrainian state agency to deprive Russia of energy revenues used to finance its war in Ukraine. Ukraine denies orchestrating the sabotage, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his government knew nothing about any plan to blow up the pipelines.

Kuznietsov was arrested in August 2025 while on holiday in Italy and later extradited to Germany. An alleged accomplice, Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, was arrested in Croatia last month.