Italy to extradite suspect in Nord Stream pipeline explosion to Germany

(Patria) - Italy's Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that a Ukrainian suspect involved in the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany should be extradited to Berlin, the BBC reported last night.

There, the former Ukrainian military officer Serhiy Kuznetsov will face charges of anti-constitutional sabotage. He is to be removed from Italy under escort by German police in the coming days.

Prosecutors believe Kuznetsov coordinated and led a group that planted explosives on the pipes deep beneath the Baltic Sea in 2022, although they have not released any evidence.

The case has serious implications for relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is the largest source of military aid to Kyiv in Europe.

The lawyer says his client "feels like a scapegoat" and is "very sad" that his government has not spoken out in his defense, nor even confirmed that he was a soldier at the time of the explosions.

"If he carried out the attack, then he did it because he was ordered to do so because he was certainly a captain in the Ukrainian army," lawyer Nicola Canestrini said after Wednesday's hearing.

The BBC saw a copy of Serhiy Kuznetsov's military ID among the court documents. He has not publicly commented on whether he was involved in the explosions.
"The Ukrainian government knows exactly where he was every day in September 2022," Canestrini said. "So, if he is innocent, why don't they say so? If he did it, why don't they say so? That is his question."

The BBC contacted government and security sources in Kyiv, but they did not comment.

Kuznetsov was arrested in northern Italy at the end of August, at a glamping site near the city of Rimini where he had booked a few nights with his wife and their two children.

His passport details were entered online during check-in, and in Italy, this information is automatically transmitted to the Carabinieri - the local police. Later that night, officers knocked on the door.

A month later, another suspect, a Ukrainian, was apprehended at his home near the Polish capital, Warsaw, on a separate arrest warrant issued by Germany.

Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, an amateur deep-sea diver, has been living in Poland with his family since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He was held in custody for seventeen days, but the court then refused to extradite him.
The judge gave a passionate speech, arguing that no Ukrainian could be prosecuted for what he characterized as a legitimate act of self-defense against Russia's "bloody and genocidal" invasion of Ukraine.

In Italy, far from Ukraine, the mood and politics are very different.

Canestrini described the Italian Court of Appeal's ruling as a "great disappointment," but said the fight for his client would now move to Germany - with the aim of being acquitted of the charges on the same grounds.

Many Ukrainians consider those who destroyed Nord Stream to be heroes for cutting off an important source of revenue for Russia, and they struggle to understand why Germany, a Ukrainian ally, is pursuing this prosecution.

On Wednesday, a man stood in front of the court building in Rome wrapped in a Ukrainian flag, holding a poster that read: "Serhiy Kuznjecov is a defender, not a criminal."