Sarah RainsfordCorrespondent for Southern and Eastern Europe, Rome
Danish defense handoutItaly’s top appeals court has ruled that a Ukrainian suspected of being involved in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany should be extradited to Berlin.
There, former Ukrainian military officer Serhiy Kuznetsov is charged with unconstitutional sabotage. He is to be transported from Italy under German police escort in the next few days.
Prosecutors believe Mr. Kuznetsov coordinated and led a group that planted explosives on pipes deep under the Baltic Sea in 2022, although they have provided no evidence.
The case has serious implications for relations between Ukraine and Germany, the largest military aid donor to Kiev in Europe.
Mr Kuznetsov’s lawyer said his client felt “like a scapegoat” and was “very sad” that his government had not spoken out in his defense or even confirmed that he was a soldier at the time of the explosions.
“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,” Nicola Canestrini said after Wednesday’s hearing.
The BBC has seen a copy of Mr Kuznetsov’s military ID card in the court files. He has not commented publicly on whether he was involved in the explosions.
“The Ukrainian government knows exactly where he was every day in September 2022,” his lawyer said. “So if he’s innocent, why aren’t they saying it? If he did it, then why aren’t they saying it? That’s his question.”
The BBC has contacted government and security sources in Kiev, but they have not commented.
Mr. Kuznetsov was arrested in northern Italy in late August at a glamping site near the city of Rimini, where he had booked for a few nights with his wife and two of their children.
His passport details were entered online at check-in and in Italy this information is automatically sent to the Carabinieri, the local police.
Later that night, officers knocked on the family’s door.
A month later, a second Ukrainian suspect was arrested at his home near the Polish capital Warsaw on another arrest warrant issued by Germany.
Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, an amateur deep-sea diver, has lived in Poland with his family since shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
He was held in custody for 17 days, but a court then refused to extradite him.
The judge gave an impassioned speech, arguing 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 politics are very different.
Mr Canestrini described the Italian appeals court ruling as a “huge disappointment” but said the fight for his client would now move to Germany – with the aim of acquitting Mr Kuznetsov on the same grounds.
Many Ukrainians view the man who destroyed Nord Stream as a hero who deprived Russia of an important source of income and have difficulty understanding why Germany – a key ally of Ukraine – is pursuing this prosecution.
On Wednesday, a man draped in a Ukrainian flag stood outside Rome’s palatial courthouse holding a placard that read: “Serhiy Kuznetsov is a defense attorney, not a criminal.”
