Germany puts Ukrainian ex-officer in the dock over Nord Stream sabotage

{"text":[[{"start":8,"text":"A former Ukrainian army officer accused by German authorities of leading the group of saboteurs that blew up Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines is due to go on trial in Hamburg on Wednesday."}],[{"start":18.78,"text":"Serhii Kuznietsov will appear before judges in the north German city on charges of causing an explosion, damaging property and being an accomplice to war crimes."}],[{"start":28.28,"text":"The 50-year-old former intelligence officer was a captain in Ukraine’s military at the time of the explosions, which ruptured the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas pipelines in one of the most daring acts of sabotage in Europe since the second world war. Kuznietsov has denied involvement in the plot."}],[{"start":46.28,"text":"The attack laid bare Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, above all Germany’s: both Nord Stream pipelines landed there, and Berlin’s pivot away from Russian imports after the invasion left it reliant on costlier alternatives."}],[{"start":59.72,"text":"Initial suspicion over the attack fell on the Kremlin, despite the incident’s economic damage to the pipelines’ largest shareholder and principal beneficiary, Gazprom."}],[{"start":69.68,"text":"Evidence has since steadily mounted that Ukrainian intelligence services may have been involved, however, in what German police say was a highly professional and dangerous operation."}],[{"start":80.36,"text":"Investigators believe that a team of divers worked through the night from a small rented yacht to place military explosives on the pipes at a depth of 80 metres under the Baltic Sea close to the Danish island of Bornholm."}],[{"start":92.36,"text":"Three of the four pipes in the two pipelines were blown open."}],[{"start":95.92,"text":"The ensuing explosions released gases with an impact on the climate equivalent to 15mn tonnes of carbon dioxide, scientists have estimated — around one-third of Denmark’s annual emissions. Marine animals within 4km of the blast site were likely killed by the explosions, the journal Nature estimates."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":114.12,"text":"Kuznietsov is so far the only one of seven suspects wanted by German police to face justice."}],[{"start":120.08,"text":"Prosecutors continue to refer to him only as “Serhii K”, in keeping with German court reporting conventions, but his full name was revealed during extradition proceedings in Italy last year, where he was arrested by police while holidaying with his family."}],[{"start":134.08,"text":"A second Ukrainian, Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, a trained scuba diver, is due to be extradited from Croatia to Germany shortly. A Polish court ruled last year that Zhuravlyov could not be sent to Germany due to a lack of evidence against him."}],[{"start":150.48,"text":"In an impassioned ruling, the judge in that case said that even if there had been evidence, Ukraine had the right to strike against Russian targets, including the pipelines, according to the rules of war after Moscow’s “bloody and genocidal” attack against it."}],[{"start":166.46,"text":"Poland has been among the most critical voices of German legal action against the Ukrainian suspects. Berlin, which is otherwise Ukraine’s biggest supporter in Europe, has sometimes found itself in an awkward situation as a result of the case. The government has repeatedly had to stress that it has no control over prosecutors and the judicial process."}],[{"start":187.66,"text":"For many Russia hawks, the Nord Stream pipelines were a crowning symbol of European folly when it came to relations with the Kremlin. The pipelines carried cheap Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing Ukraine and Poland, and were championed by former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, an ally of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who later joined the board of Russian oil group Rosneft."}],[{"start":211.04,"text":"Nord Stream 1 — majority owned by Gazprom with four European energy companies as minority shareholders — began operation in 2011. By 2022 it accounted for more than 15 per cent of Europe’s annual natural gas imports."}],[{"start":227.68,"text":"Schröder’s successor, Angela Merkel, did not oppose the expansion of two additional pipes, even after Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. European dependence on cheap Russian gas increased while Ukraine was left more vulnerable to Russian energy blackmail."}],[{"start":244.72,"text":"Nord Stream 2, which is fully owned by Gazprom, never came online. Despite being fully operational, its certification process was paused after Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine began."}],[{"start":261.52,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1791959098_3767.mp3"}