Ukrainian ex-officer goes on trial in Germany over Nord Stream blasts

The trial is expected to run into February and could test Germany’s political stance on Ukraine.A Ukrainian former military officer is standing trial in Germany, accused of organising the secret operation that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 and cut Western Europe off from its biggest source of Russian natural gas.The trial opened on Wednesday at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court and is expected to run into February next year.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3German prosecutors charge Ukrainian suspect over Nord Stream explosionslist 2 of 3Why the world should care about the far right’s rise in Germanylist 3 of 3Ukrainian suspect, a ‘trained scuba diver’, arrested over Nord Stream blastend of listIt is the first public hearing of the evidence in a years-long investigation.The defendant, a 50-year-old identified under German privacy rules only as Serhii K., is accused of leading a group of Ukrainian agents – including divers and an explosives expert – in one of the biggest infrastructure sabotage operations of modern times.He denies any involvement and is the only person on trial.The prosecutionSerhii K. was arrested in Italy in August 2025 and extradited to Germany that November.Prosecutors accused him of working with other members of the military to plan the operation on behalf of unidentified Ukrainian state entities.They allege he travelled to Germany through Poland on a forged Ukrainian passport about three weeks before the attack.They say the group used a sailboat hired in the northern city of Rostock to reach an area near the Danish island of Bornholm, where they attached military-grade explosives with timers to the pipelines on the seabed.German prosecutors say attacking civilian targets and destroying infrastructure in this way would amount to a war crime.A handout picture released on September 27, 2022, by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline [Handout/Danish Defence Command via AFP]The blasts and the falloutOn September 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists detected several blasts, some 17 hours apart.