Germany’s ongoing effort to pursue Ukrainian citizens it suspects of being behind explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines faces its next battle in the high-security bunker courtroom at Bologna prison in northern Italy on October 23, following a series of recent legal and political setbacks.
The suspect identified by German prosecutors as Serhii K. won an appeal court ruling on October 15, preventing his extradition to Germany following his arrest on a European arrest warrant while on holiday in Rimini in August.
That was followed two days later by a verdict in Poland releasing another Ukrainian man, Volodymyr Z., whose extradition Germany was also seeking.
German prosecutors say the men were part of a group of divers who used a hired yacht to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, seven months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Serhii K.’s extradition was blocked largely on procedural grounds. His legal team believe the ruling in Warsaw will strengthen his case.
'The Polish Precedent'
“The novelty lies in the Polish precedent concerning an alleged co-offender in the same facts of crime, which I consider binding,” said Serhii K.’s lawyer, Nicola Canestrini, in written comments to RFE/RL.
Nord Stream, majority-owned by Russia's state-controlled Gazprom corporation and co-financed by major European energy companies, was constructed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing transit states such as Ukraine and Poland, which had strained their relations with Moscow.
The suspected sabotage and subsequent gas leaks caused the pipelines to become inoperable.
German prosecutors have not said that the group was operating under orders from the Ukrainian government or other state authorities, and Kyiv has denied involvement.
However, the Polish court ruling said that "the person being prosecuted, if he was the perpetrator, is entitled to functional immunity, which covers an act committed in connection with his activities for the Ukrainian state."
Senior Polish officials have gone out of their way to voice opposition to extraditing the suspect.
“When a foreign aggressor is bombing your country, you may legitimately strike back by sabotaging the aggressor’s ability to finance the war. It is called self-defense,” wrote Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski on social media on October 17.
'Acts Of War'
Canestrini’s defense is couched in similar terms.
“The defense will recall the context of martial law in Ukraine and of the international armed conflict in which the events are alleged to have occurred, arguing that they should be considered acts of war carried out under superior orders, covered by functional immunity,” he said.
The alleged offences, he added, should be considered “political offences” that precluded extradition.
Nord Stream has been a longstanding source of friction in Germany’s relations with Poland and Ukraine, which have seen it as a bilateral deal between Berlin and Moscow that ignores their interests.
In the past, Sikorski has even compared it to the secret Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, under which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Poland in 1939.
German officials have reacted cautiously to the extradition rulings, emphasizing that they do not seek to interfere in court proceedings.
But the legal and political blowback has also led to questions in Germany. Commentators in the German media have suggested the cases are embarrassing for the German government.
Roderich Kiesewetter, a legislator from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU party, said it was possible that prosecutors would abandon the extradition efforts -- and that he “quite understood” the Italian and Polish rulings.
“Germany should show more dignity towards our partners, especially Poland, and focus more on clarifying the misguided and fatal Russia policy of (previous) German governments. The mistake was that Nord Stream was built in the first place,” he tweeted.
His words echoed earlier comments by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who said the problem “is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built.”
By coincidence, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who sealed the deal to begin construction with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2005, was giving evidence about it to a regional German legislature on the same day that Volodymyr Z. was freed.
The 81-year-old insisted he had no regrets about the project. “Russia wanted to sell gas. Germany wanted to buy gas,” he said.
Western governments originally accused Russia of carrying out the blasts on the pipelines, while Moscow rejected the allegations and instead blamed the United States, Britain, and Ukraine.
