// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Nord Stream trial: How German police followed the evidence - to Ukraine
Three of the four Nord Stream pipelines were ruptured by explosions in September 2022
Serhii K appeared relaxed as he checked in to the glamping resort near Italy's Adriatic coast with his wife and young children.
Dressed in shorts, sandals and a dark baseball cap, the former Ukrainian Special Forces soldier strolled back and forth, chatting with the receptionist and dipping repeatedly into a bowl of free snacks.
After a painstaking investigation, they had concluded that Serhii K had commanded Europe's biggest act of sabotage in decades: a series of explosions in September 2022 deep beneath the Baltic Sea that ripped through the giant Nord Stream pipelines and ruptured the supply of Russian gas to Germany.
Next week, following his extradition to Germany and months in isolation in a high security prison, Serhii K will go on trial in Hamburg. He is charged with causing an explosion and a war crime – attacking civilian infrastructure – allegedly acting on behalf of "state agencies of Ukraine".
Both he and his country have denied any involvement.
Under Germany's privacy rules, he will be named during the trial only as Serhii K, but during extradition proceedings he was identified as Serhii Kuznetsov.
Police escort Serhii K to a helicopter following a hearing with the German Federal Public Prosecutor
It was 02:03 am on 26 September 2022 when the first blast severed part of the Nord Stream pipelines, sending vast quantities of gas gushing through the surface of the Baltic Sea.
There were two further explosions targeting both Nord Stream 2 – not yet in action, but already full – and the original Nord Stream 1 that had supplied around half of Germany's annual demand for natural gas.