Italy's top appeals court has ruled that a Ukrainian man suspected of involvement in blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany should be extradited to Berlin.
There, former Ukrainian military officer Serhiy Kuznetsov will face a charge of anti-constitutional sabotage. He is due to be removed from Italy under German police escort in the next few days.
Prosecutors believe Mr. Kuznetsov coordinated and led a group that planted explosives on the pipes deep beneath the Baltic Sea in 2022, though they have not disclosed any evidence.
The case has serious implications for relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is the biggest source of military aid for Kyiv in Europe.
Mr. Kuznetsov's lawyer said his client feels like a scapegoat and is very sad that his government has not spoken out in his defense, or confirmed that he was a serving soldier at the time of the blasts.
If he carried out the attack, then he did so because he was ordered to do so because he was for sure a captain of the Ukrainian army, Nicola Canestrini said after Wednesday's hearing.
The BBC has seen a copy of Mr. Kuznetsov's military ID among the court papers. He has not commented publicly on whether he was involved in the explosions.
Mr. Kuznetsov was arrested in northern Italy in late August, at a glamping site near the city of Rimini where he had booked in for a few nights with his wife and two of their children.
A month later, a second Ukrainian suspect was detained at his home close to Poland's capital Warsaw on another arrest warrant issued by Germany. Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, an amateur deep-sea diver, has lived in Poland with his family since just before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
This ruling raises questions not only about accountability for the Nord Stream incident but also about the ongoing precarious balance in Ukraine-Germany relations amidst the Russian invasion.
