HAMBURG, October 14. /TASS/. The first trial on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines’ explosions is beginning in Germany four years after the terrorist attack. Ukrainian national Sergey K. will appear before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Hamburg.

The court has scheduled 24 hearings, continuing through late January. Additional hearings are scheduled for February, but the dates have yet to be finalized.

The German Federal Prosecutor General’s Office believes that Sergey K., whom German media have identified as the head of the sabotage group, and his accomplices planned the pipeline blasts on orders from Ukrainian government agencies. Another Ukrainian national was recently detained in Croatia and is expected to be extradited to Germany. Investigators believe the saboteurs used forged documents to rent a sailing yacht from a German company and transported explosives to the Nord Stream pipelines aboard the vessel.

On September 26, 2022, unprecedented damage was recorded on three strings of the Nord Stream pipelines and the never-commissioned Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case over an act of international terrorism.