Italy extradites pipeline explosion suspect to Germany

Italy’s top appeals court has ruled that a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany should be extradited to Berlin.

There, former Ukrainian military officer Sergei Kuznetsov will face charges of anti-constitutional sabotage. He will be taken out of Italy under German police escort in the coming days.

Prosecutors believe Kuznetsov coordinated and led a gang that planted explosives on pipelines deep in the Baltic Sea in 2022, although they have disclosed no evidence.

The case has serious consequences for relations between Ukraine and Germany, Kyiv’s largest source of military aid in Europe.

Kuznetsov’s lawyer said his client “felt like a scapegoat” and was “very upset” that his government had failed to defend him or even confirm that he was an active-duty soldier at the time of the bombing.

“If he carried out the attack, he did it because he was ordered to do so because he was certainly a captain in the Ukrainian army,” Nikolai Canestrini said after Wednesday’s hearing.

The BBC has seen a copy of Mr Kuznetsov’s military ID card in court documents. He has not publicly commented on his involvement in the bombing.

“The Ukrainian government knew exactly where he was every day in September 2022,” his lawyer said. “So if he was innocent, why didn’t they speak out? If he did it, why didn’t they speak out? That’s his problem.”

The BBC has contacted government and security sources in Kiev but they are yet to comment.

Mr Kuznetsov was arrested in late August at a luxury camping site near the northern Italian city of Rimini, where he had booked a few nights with his wife and two children.

His passport details were entered online during check-in and in Italy the information is automatically transmitted to the local police station.

Later that night, police knocked on the family’s door.

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

Amateur deep-sea diver Volodymyr Zhuravlyov has lived in Poland with his family since before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He was detained for 17 days, but a court subsequently refused to extradite him.

In an impassioned speech, the judge held that no Ukrainian could be prosecuted for what he said was a legitimate act of self-defense against Russia’s “bloody and genocidal” invasion of Ukraine.

In Italy, further away from Ukraine, the mood and political situation are very different.

Canestrini called the Italian appeals court ruling “very disappointing” but said the fight to defend his client would now move to Germany with the aim of having Kuznetsov acquitted on the same grounds.

Many Ukrainians view those who destroyed Nord Stream as heroes because they took away a vital source of revenue for Russia, and find it difficult to understand why Germany – a key ally of Ukraine – is seeking this prosecution.

On Wednesday, a man stood outside Rome’s stately courthouse, wrapped in a Ukrainian flag and holding a poster that read: “Sergey Kuznetsov is a defender, not a criminal.”