Germany puts Ukrainian on trial accused of blowing up Nord Stream pipelines

The case has highlighted differences of opinion on the trial in Kyiv and Berlin. Oleksandr Merezhko, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Ukrainian parliament, points out that the blasts took place during a time of war with Russia and "Nord Stream 2 was nothing but a tool used by Russia in order to get prepared for the war".He told the BBC they had no confirmation of the German account: "It's one of the versions."However, Stefan Meister, of the German Council on Foreign Relations, says successive chancellors in Berlin have done their best to remove the politics from the case."They tried to make not a big story out of it, not to give it too much attention, to give it to the institutions, to the judiciary that they will deal with it. This is not a political case. So they tried to depoliticise it," he explained.In August 2025, Serhii K was arrested after checking into a hotel near the Italian Adriatic resort of Rimini, by police acting under a European arrest warrant issued by federal prosecutors in Germany.After several weeks of court battles fighting extradition, Serhii K - identified in court documents as Serhii Kuznetsov - was transferred to Germany late last year.German prosecutors allege that in 2022 he was a serving officer in the Ukrainian army, and he had led a group of professional divers, a boat captain and an explosives expert.