The Ukrainian law firm Katerynchuk, Moor & Partners said on July 15 that a court of appeals in the Kirovohrad region had granted bail of 9 million hryvnyas ($218,000) to Special Forces Colonel Roman Chervinskiy, who was described by The Washington Post in November as a "coordinator" in the 2022 attack on the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines.
Chervinskiy was arrested in April last year on a charge of abuse of power. The charge was linked to the failed hijacking of a Russian plane, which, according to the investigation, led to a Russian missile attack on the Kanatove airfield in the Kirovohrad region in July 2022 that killed one Ukrainian military serviceman and wounded 17 others.
Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
Chervinskiy is accused of planning and implementing the hijacking without the permission of his supervisors, which Chervinskiy denies. He calls the case against him "political retaliation" for criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In November last year, The Washington Post described Chervinskiy as a decorated officer in the Ukrainian military with "deep ties" to the country's intelligence services, saying that he "played a central role" and was the "coordinator" of the attack on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipelines.
The report alleged that Chervinskiy "took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to General Valeriy Zaluzhniy," who was Ukraine's top-ranking officer at the time.
It quoted Ukrainian and European officials and "other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation."
The Washington Post said that, through an attorney, Chervinskiy had rejected accusations that he was involved in sabotage.
The explosive charges that were detonated on the pipelines in September 2022 caused massive leaks and were seen as a dangerous attack on European infrastructure half a year into Russia's full-scale invasion.
Western officials initially blamed Russia for the blasts, which all but destroyed the twin pipelines. Moscow blamed the United States and its allies saying it had no reason for blowing up an energy link vital to bringing its supplies westward.
Nord Stream is majority-owned by Russia's Gazprom and had supplied millions of Europeans with gas.
It was seen as a major effort by Moscow to bypass Ukraine in the transit of Russian gas westward.
The United States had warned for years that the pipelines were a security risk for Germany and other European nations, making the countries’ beholden to Russian energy exports.
With reporting by The Washington Post