Escalation: Germany charges Serhiy Kuznetsov, alleges Kyiv orders
German federal prosecutors charged Serhiy Kuznetsov at the Hamburg regional court with a war crime for directing an attack on civilian energy infrastructure, as well as causing an explosion and disrupting public services. The indictment says he led the operation that blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on orders from Ukrainian state authorities to stop gas deliveries and cut Russian energy revenue.
Prosecutors place him in Germany on Sept. 4, 2022, entering via Poland on a forged Ukrainian passport and chartering a yacht in Rostock with fake IDs. A team of professional divers, a skipper and an explosives expert then sailed to waters near Denmark’s Bornholm and attached timed charges to the seabed pipelines. The blasts on Sept. 26 ruptured three of the four lines.
The operation was staged from the sailing yacht Andromeda, where traces of the explosives HMX and RDX were found. Accounts differ on whether he led six or seven accomplices. He denies involvement.
Synthesized from 17 sources
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AI-synthesized from multiple reported sources
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