{"id":1433675,"date":"2026-08-29T21:53:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/the-case-of-the-sabotage-of-the-nord-stream-pipeline-germany-doubts-the-ukrainian-trace\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T21:53:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T18:53:53","slug":"the-case-of-the-sabotage-of-the-nord-stream-pipeline-germany-doubts-the-ukrainian-trace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/the-case-of-the-sabotage-of-the-nord-stream-pipeline-germany-doubts-the-ukrainian-trace\/","title":{"rendered":"The case of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline: Germany doubts the \u201cUkrainian trace\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

German investigators have questioned the investigation’s version of Ukraine’s involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The journalists drew attention to circumstances that, in their opinion, may indicate that Russia may have created a false “Ukrainian trail.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung<\/a> .<\/p>\n

The material notes that the Danish military has photographs of Russian ships with mini-submarines near the site of the explosions.<\/p>\n

At the same time, journalists drew attention to a number of details that may cast doubt on the version about a Ukrainian sabotage group. In particular, it concerns the crew of the yacht “Andromeda”, which allegedly left traces at the site in the form of fingerprints and explosive remnants.<\/p>\n

“Some of the traces leading to Ukraine look artificial – the Andromeda crew allegedly left fingerprints and explosive remnants; these are extremely stupid mistakes. The negligence reached the point that, according to witnesses, the Andromeda crew even decorated their ship with a Ukrainian flag,” the material says.<\/p>\n

Former Danish intelligence officer Jacob Kaarsbo told the publication that he believed the Andromeda’s flight could have been a diversionary maneuver under a foreign flag. He suggested that the sabotage could have been carried out directly by the Russian flotilla, which was in the area of the explosions at the time.<\/p>\n

The article also mentions the case of Ukrainian Serhiy Kuznetsov, whom the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses of organizing the explosion of gas pipelines. His defense has appealed to the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg not to open criminal proceedings. Kuznetsov’s trial is scheduled for autumn 2026.<\/p>\n

Kuznetsov’s lawyer, Ilya Novikov, stated that even if the version of the German investigation is confirmed, the explosion of gas pipelines cannot be considered a crime.<\/p>\n

“If this attack was carried out as the Federal Prosecutor’s Office claims, then it was not a crime, but a legitimate act of military self-defense. The only correct interpretation is that there was no crime. Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 were not just commercial objects: they were very directly part of the Russian military machine,” Novikov said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the article emphasizes that, according to international humanitarian law, civilian objects cannot be the targets of attacks if they do not provide a direct military advantage. The Federal Supreme Court of Germany previously rejected Kuznetsov’s complaints and holds the position that the mere fact of a facility’s connection to the economy does not make it a military target.<\/p>\n

According to Novikov, by the time of the September 2022 explosions, the gas pipelines had already lost their commercial value, as Russia had cut off gas supplies weeks before the sabotage. The lawyer claims that Moscow was using the supply cuts as a tool to pressure Germany over its support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Novikov also stated the connection of Nord Stream with Russian military infrastructure. According to him, Gazprom created and supported the Fakel and Potok military units, which the European Union had previously included in the sanctions lists as private military companies contributing to the Russian aggression against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

According to the lawyer, this may indicate that Gazprom subsidiaries associated with Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 could be part of the Russian military infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Ukraine denies involvement in the gas pipeline blast. On August 23, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had never participated in operations related to the Nord Stream 2 blast and was ready to assist partners in the investigation.<\/p>\n

On August 21, Danish broadcaster DR reported that Denmark had refused Germany assistance in investigating the 2022 gas pipeline bombing. Copenhagen has not joined the separate investigative actions in this case.<\/p>\n

We will remind you that the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office has published the text of the indictment against Ukrainian citizen Serhiy Kuznetsov, who is suspected of involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in 2022<\/a> .<\/p>\n

It was previously reported that former Nord Stream 2 CEO and Putin’s friend Matthias Warnig is developing a plan to restart the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the support of American investors<\/a> .<\/p>\n

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

German investigators have questioned the investigation’s version of Ukraine’s involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The journalists drew attention to circumstances that, in their opinion, may indicate that Russia may have created a false “Ukrainian trail.” This is reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . The material […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":892004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76870,76871,76872,76875],"class_list":["post-1433675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433675","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\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}