Nord Stream Sabotage Suspect Goes on Hunger Strike in Italy
A Ukrainian national who has been detained in Italy in connection with the Nord Stream pipeline attack has gone on hunger strike, according to his attorney.
In August, Italian police detained Ukrainian military veteran Serhii Kuznietsov in Rimini, a resort destination on the Adriatic coast. German authorities had issued an EU warrant for his arrest on charges of contributing to the complex attack on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 in 2022. The subsea sabotage operation ruptured three out of four lines of the Nord Stream network, creating an impediment to any effort to restart the Russian-controlled pipeline system. For Ukraine, this outcome was advantageous, inflicting material damage on Russia's future prospects for rebooting EU gas sales.
A local court and an appeals court have approved Kuznietsov's extradition, and he has appealed to Italy's supreme court. If transferred to German custody, he faces charges of anti-constitutional sabotagel destroying infrastructure and causing an explosion.
According to his attorney, Kuznietsov believes that his accommodations are below standard, and he began a hunger strike on October 31 to protest "dignified detention conditions." Among other demands, he has requested better food; equal rights for family visits; and "conditions consistent with constitutional and international standards."
Kuznietsov is one of two Nord Stream suspects who have been arrested on Germany's request. The other, identified in police documents as Volodymyr Z., was detained in Poland but has since been released. A district court in Warsaw determined that Germany had provided insufficient evidence to justify his arrest and rejected the extradition request. The judge also concluded that Germany had no jurisdiction over an incident in international waters, and that in any event, the attack was a military operation rather than a criminal endeavor - putting any involved personnel outside the reach of the law. "Only the Ukrainian state can bear responsibility for this act," judge Dariusz Lubowski ruled in October.
Polish Prime MInister Donald Tusk had previously stated that his government did not support the German extradition request, emphasizing that it was a matter for the courts.
"It is certainly not in Poland's interest to charge or hand over this citizen to another state," Tusk told Polsat News in the weeks before the ruling. "The problem of Europe, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built."