{"id":1336710,"date":"2025-12-24T20:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/ukrainian-kuznetsov-who-is-being-held-in-a-german-prison-in-connection-with-the-nord-stream-sabotage-case-needs-state-protection-lawyer-ilya-novikov\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T20:04:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T18:04:23","slug":"ukrainian-kuznetsov-who-is-being-held-in-a-german-prison-in-connection-with-the-nord-stream-sabotage-case-needs-state-protection-lawyer-ilya-novikov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/ukrainian-kuznetsov-who-is-being-held-in-a-german-prison-in-connection-with-the-nord-stream-sabotage-case-needs-state-protection-lawyer-ilya-novikov\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian Kuznetsov, who is being held in a German prison in connection with the Nord Stream sabotage case, needs state protection \u2013 lawyer Ilya Novikov"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian citizen Serhiy Kuznetsov, who was extradited from Italy to Germany this month, is being held in a detention center in Hamburg. Serhiy Kuznetsov is accused of allegedly participating in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in the fall of 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lawyer Ilya Novikov emphasizes that the sabotage of Nord Stream should not be prosecuted as a crime, since the Russian gas pipeline is a legitimate military target in the context of military aggression against Ukraine, and no one was injured when it was damaged.<\/span><\/p>\n

As is known, in October of this year, a Polish court refused to extradite another Ukrainian citizen to Germany, whom the German prosecutor’s office also accuses of sabotaging the gas pipeline, emphasizing that the undermining of the Russian gas pipeline is not a crime, because it is a legitimate target for destruction in conditions of military aggression. The Polish government agreed with the court’s decision and did not extradite the Ukrainian citizen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA man is being accused of something that is not a crime. The real crime was not the damage to Nord Stream, I am absolutely convinced of this. The real crime against Europe, as well as against Ukraine, was that this Nord Stream was built, that it was launched and that Russia used it for a certain time in fact as its energy weapon, as a source of influence on a European country, on Europe in general and to reduce effective support for Ukraine both before the full-scale invasion and after it began,\u201d says Ilya Novikov.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sergei Kuznetsov is currently being held in custody in Hamburg under strict isolation conditions reserved for terrorists and other dangerous criminals, despite the fact that he is formally charged only with damage to property.<\/span><\/p>\n

His wife, who was able to see Sergei Kuznetsov for the first time since his extradition, spoke about the conditions of his imprisonment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I talked to him today, it was the first time in a month, I wasn\u2019t even allowed to make phone calls. That is, they initially agreed, I was supposed to have a call with him a week ago, but on the last day they told me that there would be no call and it was banned. What the reasons are, I don\u2019t know. That is, this is the only hour a month that I managed to talk to him at a meeting. It was the first time I saw him since he was transferred to Germany. I can say that it feels like he was under a lot of pressure, psychological first of all, because, first of all, he is in complete information isolation. He is not allowed to watch the news or read the news in any format. He is completely closed off, isolated for 23 hours. He is only allowed to go outside for an hour a day, and at the same time, completely alone, without other people. That is, absolutely no communication. He is holding on, although it is clear that he is having a hard time. I think that it would be difficult for any person to hold on in such conditions,\u201d says the wife.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGermany is not Russia. We must understand that we can react to what is happening in Russia with prisoners of war. And there is absolute arbitrariness there. And yet this is not the situation. German lawyers work in the conditions of a European legal country,\u201d notes lawyer Novikov.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Ukrainian diplomat and former Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan, our embassy in Germany should do everything possible to release Kuznetsov from arrest.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Of course, this is a big challenge for the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. And this can be a criterion for assessing his professionalism. Because this is a complex political and legal case. And if he wisely builds a state strategy and recommends to the Ukrainian leadership what exactly needs to be done. And the Ukrainian embassy in the host country, the Ukrainian consulate, which is part of the embassy, must make every effort to have him released. Because in fact, Germany is our ally now. If the right accents are conveyed to the German leadership, I think this case can be resolved quickly. Yes, Germany is a state of law, but law is based on the understanding and completeness of the information that is available. Having revealed all this, I think that he should be released,” Volodymyr Omelyan believes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> , and Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian citizen Serhiy Kuznetsov, who was extradited from Italy to Germany this month, is being held in a detention center in Hamburg. Serhiy Kuznetsov is accused of allegedly participating in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in the fall of 2022. Lawyer Ilya Novikov emphasizes that the sabotage of Nord Stream should not be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":1257843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76873,76875,76871,76872],"class_list":["post-1336710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-other-news","category-news-2","category-news-feed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1336710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1257843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1336710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1336710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}