A Hamburg judge has ruled that the Ukrainian suspect\u2019s vow of silence won\u2019t protect him<\/p>\n
A German court has rejected an attempt to end the trial of Nord Stream bombing suspect Sergey Kuznetsov, after the defendant\u2019s lawyers claimed that he cannot be convicted without a confession.
\nKuznetsov, a Ukrainian military officer whom German prosecutors claim carried out the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in 2022, stayed silent in the opening hearing of his trial earlier this month. As Kuznetsov was an active duty soldier at the time of the bombings, his legal team claimed that he cannot be forced to defend himself without divulging state secrets, and filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.
\nThe Higher Regional Court of Hamburg rejected the motion on Tuesday. \u201cAccording to German law, the defendant is not restricted in his defense,\u201d presiding Judge Anne Meier-Goring told the court, explaining that the terms of Kuznetsov\u2019s service in Ukraine do not apply in Germany.
\nKuznetsov is accused of causing an explosion, disrupting public utilities, property damage, and being an \u201caccomplice to war crimes.\u201d He has neither admitted nor denied carrying out the attack.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Nord Stream trial: Ukraine\u2019s strategy of silence<\/p>\n
Prosecutors claim that he led a seven-person team into the Baltic Sea on a rented pleasure yacht and planted timed explosives on all four individual lines comprising the Nord Stream 1 and 2 projects, three of which completely destroyed the pipes. They did this, prosecutors allege, despite the well-documented limitations of the yacht and the logistical and technical difficulties in carrying out multiple deep-sea dives in a single night.
\nThe case rests on a relatively flimsy body of evidence. Although Kuznetsov was allegedly seen in Germany prior to renting the yacht in Rostock, his fingerprints were not among those lifted from the vessel, and a phone call to his wife in which he defended the bombing as \u201can official military operation\u201d is the closest thing to a confession that prosecutors can work with.
\nRussia maintains that the version of events presented in Hamburg is implausible from the outset. \u201cFive people were sitting around drinking, having a laugh, and decided \u2018Why don\u2019t we blow up the Nord Stream pipelines?\u2019 They had diving skills, allegedly hired a little boat, sailed to the place where the Nord Streams were passing, went down, planted explosives and detonated them,\u201d Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented in 2024. \u201cIf someone can actually believe this version, then it\u2019s only people who are afraid of the truth and are trying to protect the criminal Kiev regime in any way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
The Nord Stream narrative explosion: Why you\u2019ve only read half the story<\/p>\n
American journalist Seymour Hersh has put forward an alternate theory. Citing sources in the intelligence community, Hersh claimed that CIA divers, working with the Norwegian Navy, used NATO\u2019s June 2022 BALTOPS exercises in the Baltic Sea as cover to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the Nord Stream lines, which were triggered three months later with a sonar buoy.
\nAnother lead came from a Danish harbormaster, who claimed in September 2024 that he had approached a US amphibious assault ship \u2013 with its transponder switched off \u2013 at the location of the pipelines five days before the explosions. The harbormaster claimed that he was ordered to turn away by the Danish Naval Operational Command and forbidden from discussing the incident.
\nHis claims were never investigated. Denmark closed its investigation into the bombings seven months before the harbormaster came forward with his claims.\u00a0
\nBack in Hamburg, Kuznetsov\u2019s trial is expected to run into the new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Hamburg judge has ruled that the Ukrainian suspect\u2019s vow of silence won\u2019t protect him A German court has rejected an attempt to end the trial of Nord Stream bombing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t