HAMBURG, Germany (AP) A lawyer for a Ukrainian accused of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines that carry Russian gas to western Europe said Moscow used the network to apply political and economic pressure Wednesday as the trial of the former military officer commenced in Germany.
Sergiy Kuznietsov is the first person to be put on trial over the 2022 sabotage. The 50-year-old is accused of heading a team of Ukrainian divers and an expert in explosives that blew up Nord Stream, seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Prosecutor Stefan Schmidt told the Hamburg court that Kuznietsov, acting for the Ukrainian state, had committed a war crime by hitting civilian targets with “military means”.
Defence lawyer Nicola Canestrini told the court there was no concrete evidence linking the ex-special forces officer to the sabotage. He also accused Russia of exploiting the pipelines as a political and economic weapon. Russia had put great pressure on Germany at the time, and gas markets went wild before Moscow turned off the faucet.
In September 2022, the pipelines were not giving anybody heat,” Canestrini stated. They were a means of putting pressure in a war,” stated Canestrini, who also argued Russia was responsible for war crimes, not his client.
Explosions under the Baltic Sea destroyed three of the four pipes in September 2022. Russia had been easing back on gas flows across the pipelines to Europe prior to the sabotage, which made them unusable, in apparent revenge for penalties imposed for its invasion.
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