German prosecutors allege that the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines was conducted on the orders of Ukrainian state authorities. Prosecutors said the accused Ukrainian suspect—an officer in the Ukrainian army at the time—acted with six accomplices who were also military personnel.

In the prosecutors’ account, the group travelled from Ukraine to Germany using fake Ukrainian passports and hired a yacht, the Andromeda, from a German company in Rostock. Investigators reportedly found traces of military explosives, including HMX and RDX, on board. The explosives were attached to the underwater pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm using timers and detonated on September 26, 2022, damaging the infrastructure. Prosecutors said the pipelines were not operating when the blast occurred.

The case is diplomatically sensitive because Germany is among Ukraine’s biggest military supporters and previously relied on Russian gas routed through Nord Stream before the full-scale war. Ukrainian authorities said they lacked enough information to respond in detail to the allegations