The Nord Stream Investigation
German prosecutors have filed charges against a Ukrainian national over the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea in 2022.
The suspect, named only as Serhii K under German privacy laws, is alleged to have led and co-ordinated the attack on the pipelines that transported natural gas from Russia to Germany, German media reports say.
They say he is the same person arrested in Italy last summer and extradited to Germany in November. He has denied involvement.
No-one has admitted carrying out the attack, and Ukraine has denied involvement in the case which may have serious implications for its relationship with Germany.
BBC 1 July 2026
Poland has refused to extradite one of the suspects to stand trial in Germany. It instead views him a hero for destroying a vital source of revenue for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has long questioned Germany’s dependence on Russian energy, ridiculed the investigation.
The problem isn’t that the pipeline was blown up, he said. The “problem is that it was built.”
The bombings, in September 2022, rendered the debate moot. As vast amounts of methane fizzed into the Baltic, the single largest man-made release of greenhouse gas on record, some U.S. and German officials accused Russia of engineering the blasts. The Kremlin claimed that the U.S. and U.K. were behind the attack.
German police, prosecutors and other people familiar with the intricacies of the case instead developed what they said is a clear picture of how an elite Ukrainian military unit carried out the attacks under the direct supervision of Ukraine’s then-supreme commander, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy.
The Ukrainian diver the team traced to Poland was subsequently taken to Ukraine in a black BMW with diplomatic plates, driven by the Ukrainian military attaché in Warsaw.
Ukraine’s government refused to comment.
Privately, a senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv acted after a warning from the Polish government.
WSJ 10 november 2025
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