Germany\u2019s star suspect won\u2019t talk, and his defense team thinks that building the pipeline was the real crime<\/p>\n
The trial of Nord Stream bombing suspect Sergey Kuznetsov is underway in Germany, and the Ukrainian veteran\u2019s defense team have revealed their strategy: say nothing and blame Russia.
\nKuznetsov arrived at the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg under heavy security on Wednesday. The hearing is the first of 24 sessions scheduled between now and February, as German prosecutors attempt to prove that the Ukrainian military veteran led the sabotage operation that destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in September 2022, an act that they say constitutes a war crime.
\nWhat is Sergey Kuznetsov accused of?
\nThe allegations against Kuznetsov largely follow the German government\u2019s version of events, which have been drip-fed to Western media outlets in a series of leaks over the last four years. Kuznetsov, prosecutors claim, entered Germany in September 2022 using a forged Ukrainian passport, rented a pleasure yacht with six accomplices, and planted explosives on one of the four undersea lines comprising the Nord Stream project while his team sabotaged the remaining three, all \u201con behalf of Ukrainian state authorities.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Nord Stream narrative explosion: Why you\u2019ve only read half the story<\/p>\n
Variations on the story \u2013 that the CIA approved or didn\u2019t approve of the operation, and whether or not Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky personally ordered it \u2013 have circulated in the media, but Kuznetsov\u2019s alleged involvement remains a constant in most retellings.
\nAmerican journalist Seymour Hersh has shot down the German story, arguing that the Ukrainian saboteurs would not have been able to transport the requisite deep-sea diving gear and explosives aboard a 15-meter yacht, and almost certainly would have been caught in the act, as NATO was conducting active military exercises in the same area of the Baltic Sea at the time of the alleged sabotage operation. Citing intelligence sources, Hersh maintains that the CIA, working with the Norwegian Navy, used the NATO exercises as cover to plant remotely-detonated explosive devices on the Nord Stream lines.
\nWhere are his accomplices?<\/p>\n
Alleged Nord Stream saboteur Vladimir Zhuravlyov listens during his extradition hearing in Warsaw, Poland, October 17, 2025<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0 Getty Images; \u00a0Omar Marques <\/p>\n
Kuznetsov is the only one of the seven alleged saboteurs currently on trial. Another suspect, identified as \u2018Vladimir Z\u2019, was detained in Croatia in August and is currently fighting extradition to Germany. According to German media, three civilian divers and the yacht\u2019s skipper \u2013 all Ukrainians \u2013 remain at large, while a military explosives expert who reportedly took part in the operation was killed in Ukraine in 2024.
\nWhat is the evidence against Kuznetsov?
\nThe prosecution did not present any evidence against Kuznetsov at Wednesday\u2019s hearing. However, Germany\u2019s state ARD and NDR broadcasters have published details from the 136-page indictment against him. According to this report, prosecutors intend to focus on:<\/p>\n
A phone call from Kuznetsov to his wife, made in Italian custody last year, in which he defended the bombing as \u201can official military operation\u201d<\/p>\n
Photographs from tourists and speed cameras placing Kuznetsov in Germany at the time of the alleged operation<\/p>\n
Traces of the military explosives RDX and HMX from the yacht, the \u2018Andromeda\u2019<\/p>\n
Internet searches for technical data on the Nord Stream lines and Baltic Sea depths, obtained from Kuznetsov\u2019s phone<\/p>\n
What did Kuznetsov say in court?
\nKuznetsov remained completely silent throughout Wednesday\u2019s proceedings. His lawyers explained that as Kuznetsov was an officer in the Ukrainian military at the time of the Nord Stream attack, he cannot testify without divulging state secrets. He will remain silent for the rest of the trial.
\nWhat did his defense team say?
\nKuznetsov\u2019s lawyers did not outright deny their client\u2019s involvement in the attack. Instead, they argued that the evidence linking him to the operation is circumstantial, pointing out that his fingerprints were not among the prints lifted from the Andromeda, and that the prosecution has no eyewitnesses to call.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the prosecution\u2019s job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was involved,\u201d legal adviser Ilya Novikov told reporters after the hearing. Pressed by a reporter, Novikov refused to say whether or not Kuznetsov was denying guilt. \u201cHe keeps silent, and this is his position,\u201d he replied.
\nJustifying the attack
\nKuznetsov\u2019s legal team put far more energy into arguing that the Nord Stream attack \u2013 the costliest act of industrial sabotage in history \u2013 was justified. \u201cIs it unlawful to destroy an aggressor\u2019s infrastructure without harming any human beings?\u201d Defense attorney Nicola Canestrini asked the court. Jes Meyer-Lohkamp, another defense attorney representing Kuznetsov, said that the court should consider whether the pipelines \u201cshould have been operating at all in light of Russia\u2019s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, and whether action against them could have been justified.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Nord Stream \u2018suspect\u2019 arrested on Hollywood movie set \u2013 media<\/p>\n
Nord Stream, Canestrini asserted, was \u201ca weapon in the hand of the Russians.\u201d
\nCanestrini, an Italian lawyer who specializes in defending war crimes and genocide suspects in The Hague, pushed for the case to be dropped, arguing that Kuznetzov had originally been extradited for \u201csabotage,\u201d not \u201cwar crimes.\u201d
\nProsecutors countered that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines was \u201cattack by military means against civilian objects,\u201d and therefore a war crime.
\nWhat happens next?
\nCanestrini and Lohkamp may be pre-emptively justifying the destruction of Nord Stream in anticipation of some smoking gun evidence tying Kuznetsov to the crime. However, they are adamant that the prosecution has no evidence to draw on or witnesses to call, and that Kuznetsov\u2019s position in the military will protect him from testifying.
\n\u201cHe is not permitted to speak. His two immediate superiors told him that he does not have authorization to make any statements \u2013 not even to his lawyers,\u201d Lohkamp told the court, adding that under German law, \u201cAnyone who cannot speak out cannot be convicted.\u201d
\nAs such, the case will ultimately rest on the strength of the prosecution\u2019s evidence. However, with no fingerprints and no witnesses, securing a conviction will be no easy task. Given the fact that a guilty verdict would implicate the Ukrainian military in a war crime against Kiev\u2019s largest foreign donor, a logical next question is whether the trial is set up to fail.
\nStick with RT for all the latest news on the Nord Stream trial over the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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