137 ms·

Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

505 points by chha 4y ago

guerrilla 4y ago
Another thread on the topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993521 And since you're going to speculate, it's worth knowing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
- draw_down 4y ago
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  >And since you're going to speculate, it's worth knowing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... Price signal and capitalism at work. Greedy bastards always find a way to move goods around efficiently while getting rich.
jefftk 4y ago
More details: Although neither was in operation, both pipelines [Nordstream 1 and 2] still contained gas under pressure. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warning-of-two-gas-leaks-on-nord-stream-1-pipeline https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warni...
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Sabotage makes sense, but by whom? Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter. Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive. They would benefit from having Russia as part of their gas supply once the war is over. Sure, having the option not to buy from them is nice, but why force that? Competition lowers prices after all. Ukraine has a motive to hurt Russia and prevent Russian gas exports, but that would also bite the hand that feeds them weapons. Not to mention they don't have a presence in the Baltic and are occupied on other fronts. That would leave Europe's non-Russian suppliers of natural gas: Norway and the US.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    Europe didn't need the gas [1] [2]. Russia has nothing to lose by sabotaging it. Don't forget that Russia had already slowed/slopped NS1 by this point. [1] https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1574754277268103170 https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/15747542772681031... "Those shipments are enough to cover a complete halt in Russian pipeline flows from Oct. 1." [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... (paywalled version of the original quote)
    - maltalex 4y ago
      Why link to a tweet that quotes Bloomberg and not the Bloomberg article directly? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
      - mmastrac 4y ago
        The article is paywalled for me but I'll update my comment.
    - dncornholio 4y ago
      Europe needs the gas. Not enough LNG stations to import this amount. Also prices are absurdly high. Saying Europe doesn't need Russian gas sounds almost like propoganda.
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        This sounds like politicians promising something, that they'll fail to deliver in a few weeks... as a european, i've heard this many, many times before. As someone from the balkans, i look at first signs of politicials lieing (they're moving their lips).
        dmichulke 4y ago
- keewee7 4y ago
  The reason Nord Stream 1 was not in operation is because of, according to Russia, maintenance and because gas demands have still not reached winter levels.
- dmix 4y ago
  Whose country was the territory on?
cm2187 4y ago
I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?
- baq 4y ago
  you think using western, market-centric logic. you can't use this mode of thinking to understand russia. this might as well be internal russian faction warfare.
- mech987 4y ago
  I've only thought about it for a minute- but I might speculate that it is a signal from Russia- "even if we decide we want to turn the gas back on, you might not be able to get it when you want it."
  - tomrod 4y ago
    Dear Russia Thanks for confirming so clearly that you are an untrustworthy and manipulative partner. Best, -The Rest of Europe.
    - nathanaldensr 4y ago
      - sudden_dystopia 4y ago
        Freeze to death cold. I get the feeling a lot of people here live in California or on the west coast and don’t quite fathom how cold it gets in some parts of the world.
        1ris 4y ago
        Might actually happen in Bulgaria. And yet, for the most part, people are overreacting. I for one have lived in a temporary unheated german apartment with horrible insulation (build around 1955, not upgraded). It sounds way worse than it is. The only actually unpleasant thing is washing your hair. Just keep an eye on the humidity. I won't heat my (different) apartment this winter. It will be ok.
themgt 4y ago
The resident hawk at National Review is already doing a touchdown dance. "Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Pipeline?" Three leaks in two days? Wow, that’s a shame! Sounds like the pipeline’s falling apart and just won’t be a reliable way to get natural gas from Russia to Germany. I guess hopes of Germany and Russia eventually putting aside their differences over the invasion of Ukraine, and reestablishing long-term German dependence on Russian energy, just won’t happen for the foreseeable future. Just terrible luck for Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, who clearly thought a cold winter with limited energy supplies would make Germany and other European countries come crawling back to the negotiating table. Just about anyone could have cut the pipeline, but whoever it was, they wanted to make sure the Nord Stream pipelines would not be an option for a long time. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-this-meddlesome-pipeline/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-thi...
- joshuajill 4y ago
  German people wanted talk with Putin. Guess it won't be happening now. https://www.rtl.de/cms/umfrage-mehrheit-will-verhandlungen-ueber-kriegsende-b05c7289-d576-583d-b247-8fa1aaa08d67.html https://www.rtl.de/cms/umfrage-mehrheit-will-verhandlungen-u...
- eternalban 4y ago
  I thought the Thomas Becket reference was brilliant and spot on. I wonder if it is an extra-governmental group like Gladio, taking matters into their own hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur... https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/cia-organized-secret-army-in-western-europe/e0305101-97b9-4494-bc18-d89f42497d85/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/c...
lysp 4y ago
I wonder who RUptured it?
- Sebb767 4y ago
  > RUptured Hard to believe, they have nothing to gain from this.
  - ecmascript 4y ago
    Of course they have, now they have a reason to escalate
    - krisoft 4y ago
      Do you think between getting pummeled by all the NATO weapons exported to Ukraine they were missing an excuse?
  - toopok4k3 4y ago
    Yeah, like they have much to gain in Ukraine either. It's not like they are a rational actor at this stage.
    - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
      Except maybe the Russian speaking ethnically Russian separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine? (from before the 2022 propaganda started): https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donbass/a-42597692 https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donba... Story from 2018: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/about-40000-ukrainians-granted-russian-citizenship-in-january-june.html https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/about-40000-ukrain... So many seem to have just swallowed anything and everything the US propaganda has put out this year and know absolutely nothing about the last 10 years of Ukrainian history. From last year, Drone strikes and violation of the Minks Agreements by Ukraine: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine%E2%80%99s-recent-drone-strike-reignites-tensions-donbass-195709 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine%E2%80%99s-recen... Russia's invasion does seem absolutely batshit unless you do even 10 minutes of digging on the subject: https://search.brave.com/search?q=ukraine+donbass&source=web&tf=2000-01-01to2021-12-31 https://search.brave.com/search?q=ukraine+donbass&source=web... There are Russians in Ukraine and Russia is fighting for them. How is that irrational? You can argue they're wrong to do it, or that they shouldn't. But irrational? Nonsense.
bskan 4y ago
Now realistically how much time would it take to fix something like this?
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  There is nobody to fix it, Nord Stream is bankrupt and there is no political incentive to fix it on either side.
- seren 4y ago
  If it is fixable, I am not sure how you can make sure it does not happen again. I am not sure how you are supposed to survey hundreds of kilometers of underwater pipeline.
  - 3guk 4y ago
    I mean it’s probably quite tricky to keep a constant eye on every KM of both pipelines - but given the number of surveys involved just to get NS2 to a state where it could originally be pressurised - before they went bankrupt. I would say you could at least do semi regular inspections using ROVs.
seydor 4y ago
Could it be because the line was underused because of russia lately and the pressure went down? It could be sabotage, but russia can always just turn the tap off. In fact, why would they want to sabotage their instrument of blackmail ?
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  They wouldn't. That doesn't mean that others wouldn't sabotage the line. This thing is spiraling out into a mess. With winter coming, things could get nasty in Europe.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Whatever the cause or the motivation behind this, the gas pipeline is no longer functional as an instrument of blackmail. It is useless to Russia now.
  - baq 4y ago
    yes. there is no blackmail possible and there is no flow of molecules. everyone is worse off except influencial people in russia who do not control gazprom and perhaps the US, but their LNG infrastructure was at max capacity anyway.
    - m000 4y ago
      > but their LNG infrastructure was at max capacity anyway Yes, they will definitely hate doubling their profits while selling the same amount of LNG. Money isn't everything. /s
tpmx 4y ago
The Swedish national seismic network picked up two explosions within kilometers of the reported gas leak locations yesterday. The time of the first explosion: Yesterday, Monday morning at 02:03 am, second one Monday evening at 7:04pm (local time, CEST). The reports of the gas leaks came at 1:52pm and 8:41pm, respectively - by means of ships reporting bubbling at the surface level. One of the two events registered at magnitude 2.3. They were picked up by stations all over the country. It's clear from the registered seismic waves that the events are not earthquakes. - You can clearly see how the waves bounce from the bottom to the surface. There is no doubt that it was a blast or explosion. We even had a station in Kalix [quite far up north, some 1300 km away] that picked this up, says Björn Lund, who is a lecturer in seismology and director of the Swedish national seismic network, which measures Swedish earthquakes and explosions. Translated and summarized from: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosioner-intill-nord-stream https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosio... (Sweden's national public service broadcaster, within the last hour)
- bobowzki 4y ago
  In a radio interview Björn Lund also says it was a relativly large explosion, equivalent to "a couple of hundred kg of dynamite".
- dongobongo 4y ago
  Act of war by USA? (equivalent if done through ally)
  - brightball 4y ago
    Why would the US do that?
    - bobowzki 4y ago
      To strengthen Europes resolve when it gets cold?
    - fuoqi 4y ago
      Because it cuts a huge temptation for Germans to find some compromise with Russia and allows them to sell LNG for huge profits?
itzprintz 4y ago
What a pity what happened to these pipelines for Russian gas. I mean, the west will not be buying Russian gas anytime soon anyway, Putin knows that. But what if such accident happened to some another pipeline? For example, the one that is being open just this week from Norway to Poland. The one that should help EU survive the winter. Interested timing of such unfortunate accident..
johndevor 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
segah 4y ago
Might be shocking to some, but not all of Russia is one people. There are multiple interests there among country's leaders. And one such interest: to get rid off Putin's regime quickly. One way of doing this is to prevent any notion of "restorable" economic relationships with Europe under Putin. Without Gas, who needs Putin's Russia... A prediction: we will see more of such actions in the coming months, leading to the winter
- int_19h 4y ago
  Without gas, Russia is in a worse position at the negotiating table, since it cannot promise to resume shipments in return for removal of sanctions. This is actually something that the pro-war faction (and Putin personally) would love. Conversely, the elites who want to revert back to status quo before the war would never do this.
  - segah 4y ago
    This is not correct. Gas supplies are controlled by state-owned corporation. Putin and this corporation are one. There is no multi-factions within this organization. It is 100% under Putin's governance. If there was interest to cut supplies, they would have done this publicly. And they have the PR/Media to spin the story however they want. On the other hand, elites don't benefit from this gas supply. For example, it keeps Ruble unreasonably high for their own exports. And it keeps the government under Putin's control (Gas finances the war as well as his pockets). And undermining gas supplies, creates a consensus among elites that Putin will not be able to sustain the economy for very long. Once there is a consensus, it is much easier to move against Putin. In simple terms, like any Middle Eastern Dictator economy, Russian dictatorship is managed through government-controlled oil supplies, which elites don't have direct control over. If oil supplies are taken out of the equation, the economy collapses unless elites take over to manage it with alternative methods. Bottom line, if gas stops flowing from Russia, elites (technology ceos, aluminium exporters, bankers, etc) gain back control.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Gas already stopped flowing from Russia to Europe. The question now is if and when it'll be restarted. And yes, of course, for the peace faction to make use of it, they'd need to carry out a coup to remove Putin first, so that they are in control. That's precisely why it all adds up.
fuoqi 4y ago
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  - johndevor 4y ago
    Biden talking about it: https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1574758411392131078 https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1574758411392131078
  - nkingsy 4y ago
    Nice find! Was talking to a trumper who was blaming the invasion on the US having a weak president. Seems like the opposite if anything. Biden quarterbacked the maidan coup. Seeing him become president probably wasn’t a happy moment for Putin. Edit: these things are censored in google, Wikipedia etc by US state actors. We largely have to go on the words of people like Max Blumenthal and others who have been largely censored and scrubbed from easy access by these same state apparatuses or wait until foia requests reveal what they always reveal about our benevolent state.
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      > Edit: these things are censored in google, Wikipedia etc by US state actors. We largely have to go on the words of people like Max Blumenthal and others who have been largely censored and scrubbed from easy access by these same state apparatuses or wait until foia requests reveal what they always reveal about our benevolent state. Max Blumenthal is a Russian propagandist who is a regular guest on Russian state backed networks such RT and Sputnik. I wouldn't trust anything he has to say about anything.
      - nkingsy 4y ago
        I’m sure he takes the appearances he can get after having all his sources of funding cut. I hope you’re being paid well to call people propagandists who have devoted their lives and sacrificed everything to speak truth to power. I don’t take it at face value and it does seem he has an understandable bias at this point. The gray zone is super strange to read, but these are investigative journalists on the ground. Please point me to a source that has hard proof of ANY of this information being incorrect. Labeling people propagandists and conspiracy theorists is a new form of censorship and it is terrifying.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
I would be quite simple to put a bomb in the pipe and let it travel and then "boom". No need to go underwater for this.
- aizen89 4y ago
  3000 IQ move!
kstenerud 4y ago
If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first". Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of leverage against Germany. Poland opened a new pipeline to Norway on the same day as the leaks appeared, so there was lots of Polish activity in the waters. Poland doesn't receive gas via Nordstream, so damaging it doesn't hurt them in any way. Poland is Ukraine's most ardent supporter in Europe, often leading the vanguard of actions to support Ukraine. They'd have a strong motive to ensure that the rest of Europe doesn't waver in its commitment to keep the Russian taps off. It could be argued that since Europe has already decided to never turn on Nordstream again, the fallout from such an act of sabotage is minimal.
- jupp0r 4y ago
  > Russia wants the taps ON, not off. Russia unilaterally turned the taps OFF repeatedly in the last months to keep Germany from meaningfully supporting Ukraine.
  - kstenerud 4y ago
    Russia turned the taps off in order to raise pressure for European concessions in order to turn them back on again. Germany has been tepid in its Ukrainian support because they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Now they can't no matter what. With the pipes permanently broken (at least for this winter), Russia has lost that leverage.
    - cassepipe 4y ago
      Especially since gas prices have gone up so I don't think Russia suffered the price of rationing delivery
    - Tade0 4y ago
      > Russia turned the taps off in order to raise pressure for European concessions in order to turn them back on again. I don't want to sound dismissive, but that's a characteristically western take on things. Nord Stream 2 was largely redundant and Russia missed the window to use those pipelines against Germany by allowing it to fill it's storage. Russia is no stranger to causing damage to itself just to ensure that their enemies also suffer. Case in point: back in 2015, as retaliation to sanctions they banned some imports of food from the EU deeming it "unsafe for consumption"(a particularly funny reason for someone familiar with the respective food standards). Contraband was publicly destroyed, upsetting a considerable chunk of the Russian public.
Tade0 4y ago
What is the status of insurance of those pipelines? If there's still someone obliged to foot the bill in case of a catastrophic failure, it might create an incentive to just destroy everything. Of course proof of sabotage would get in the way of that, but the leaks are not particularly accessible at the moment.
dncornholio 4y ago
It could have been done by Russia, to raise energy prices even more and cripple EU so it cannot support Ukraine as much.
thehappypm 4y ago
I wonder what the effect of that much methane would be on climate change
- vdfs 4y ago
  Next to zero compared to what we pump in air all year long
  - thehappypm 4y ago
    Isn’t methane much, much more potent?
    - megous 4y ago
      Yeah, but amount is next to nothing compared to all the cow farts/burps.
parski 4y ago
Now do the LNG terminals.
- thehappypm 4y ago
  Why?
btbuilder 4y ago
The US is working hard to keep a coalition of NATO countries together (for instance, avoiding secondary sanctions that EU generally thinks are extra-judicial). I don’t believe Germany would agree with this course of action and if the US unilaterally did it it would severely risk the strategic goal of a Ukrainian victory.
thepasswordis 4y ago
Maybe the Ukrainians did it, or maybe it was terrorists, or actors trying to accelerate the beginning of WW3.
Roark66 4y ago
I don't see a mention that today is the day Poland officially opens up its pipeline to Denmark and Norway. The pipeline Russia (and to a much lesser extent Germany) put a lot of resources trying to jeopardize. Some of the things those two countries did include: Financing of various "grassroots ecology groups" that managed to find an extremely important field mouse (no joke!) habitat on the planned route which caused many months of delays in Denmark. Constant media pressure and a smear campaign of lies against PL in Europe and elsewhere. And many more including those we don't know about. No one is surprised at all that they would blow up their own pipeline to gain various PR points in sympathetic media.
- red_trumpet 4y ago
  Do you have any sources to back up your claims?
  - rossdavidh 4y ago
    If anyone on HN has sources to back up a claim as to who did this, I would like to suggest that HN might not be the most appropriate forum for delivering this information.
  - TrispusAttucks 4y ago
    Russia is known for using environmentalist groups as fronts for geopolitical strategy. One of Russia's greatest wins was hamstringing Keystone XL pipeline. Sure would be nice leverage for US. https://weber.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1208 https://weber.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=... https://fortune.com/2018/03/01/russia-social-media-energy-policy/ https://fortune.com/2018/03/01/russia-social-media-energy-po...
- axus 4y ago
  I liked the theory that Russia did it as a warning that they can blow up Poland's pipeline anytime.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
ed_balls 4y ago
This is really interesting. Russia knows (if we didn't do it then must be USA), USA knows (if we didn't do it then must be Russia). Germany would never know, but now they are fully dependent on Poland, Ukraine or US Navy for their energy needs.
- ed_balls 4y ago
  Argument for Russia: https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1574820287161384960 https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1574820287161384960
oever 4y ago
The author of 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' is from Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline
_kbh_ 4y ago
A plausible theory for why Russia has done this could be to avoid fines. It is likely that Russia has agreements with steep penalties for if they voluntarily don't provide gas like they agreed too (like what they are doing with Nord Stream 1). Blowing large holes in the pipelines could allow Russia to claim that they cannot provide gas because the pipelines are broken, effectively avoiding the fines.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  How would fines work? Russia has already had its assets seized.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    Russia hasn’t had all of its assets seized. Additionally it may not even be about asset seizure, but about not wanting to look like a unreliable business partner. But even as I say that the actions of Russia lately make them seem unreliable already.
- lm28469 4y ago
  So illgellay invading a country is no big deal but a fine for breach of contract would warrant what could be seen as an act of war on a nato country ?
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    I never said it was a rational action just that it’s a reason. There’s more evidence to support that this wasn’t someone like the US or Ukraine as well. One of the pipes of Nord Stream 2 remains intact and there’s only one country that benefits from forcing the certification and opening of Nord Stream 2 and that’s Russia.
  - adventured 4y ago
    Who said invading was not a big deal? Nobody said that. If they plan to ever sell gas to Europe again, they'd have to pay the fines most likely. This does avoid the fine issue by sabotaging their own pipelines in a way that can be fixed later, at a relatively trivial cost, and it adds confusion into the situation for the allies. Russia can now say: we can't turn the gas on even if we wanted to, we're not to blame, and we don't have to pay any breach of contract fines for it being off.
Torkel 4y ago
”Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”… Does anything happen to gas in a pipeline that makes pressure increase? Could it be a lack of or poor monitoring of pressure that caused it?
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Buffer overflow in pressure control plc because they didn’t use rust
- apexalpha 4y ago
  Sure it could. But on both NS1 and NS2? At the same time? Very unlikely.
  - Torkel 4y ago
    Yeah, I know. Seemes totally unlikely. I wrote comment before seeing that…
raphaelj 4y ago
What would be the reaction of the US population if this would have been done by some the US? As an European, I'd see that as an huge act of treachery from one of our ally, but I'm really wondering if the US public reaction would be positive or negative.
wooque 4y ago
- mempko 4y ago
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    It's a busy corridor. There were a lot of countries ships in the area.
- rmatt2000 4y ago
  > "I promise you: We will be able to do it." While the idea was almost certainly to warn Putin, it doesn't seem very smart to me to have said it out loud.
swamp40 4y ago
Russia was at a crossroads, and now there is no return. The boats have been burned and they must march forward.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  My exact words to a friend earlier. Divide with Europe made manifestly clear. Burned the boats. Crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast.
  - euroderf 4y ago
    The gas has been expelled. Look innocent and pretend it wasn't you.
ancorevard 4y ago
The most plain explanation is that this was simply a warning message from Russia. These two pipelines have no longer any value to them, nor to EU. However, what does have value are the numerous pipelines from Norway and other countries to EU. And this is where the real treat is. Russia has now shown it is willing to blow up infrastructure outside Ukraine. Russia is known to have carefully mapped out the gas pipelines from Norway to UK. Remember how Russian oligark luxury ships carefully navigated close to gas pipelines, while the cover was that the oligark was attending Molde jazzfestival? Similar activity observed by Russian fishing ships.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Except now they’ve told everyone they’re coming, which would be stupid. If they were considering blowing up pipelines they wouldn’t tell anyone and ruin the element of surprise.
  - ancorevard 4y ago
    There is no element of surprise. A real threat is demonstrating your capability and willingness to take action, no use of words no surprise (if surprise then no threat). This is a warning to Norway and rest of Europe.
  - qqqwerty 4y ago
    The threat is more valuable than the the actual action. Russia's nuclear threats can only accomplish so much. They have so far kept NATO from getting directly involved but clearly have not worked to keep NATO weapons out of Ukraine or moderated sanctions. And with the EU getting closer to removing its dependence on Russian gas, the energy angle is quickly vanishing. This could be Russias way of subtly signaling that it can still play that card. An explicit verbal threat might not be taken seriously. But a demonstration of how easy it is to sabotage a pipeline has certainly gotten folks attention.
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      So you think they had to demonstrate they know how to blow up a pipe? Like Western intelligence officials didn't know that? Maybe you think the symbolism is important, but on the other hand, people might also just think it looks childish...
c2k 4y ago
I really hope I am wrong, but this looks like a "false flag" operation.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  "false flag" is when one actor makes it look like another did it. But in this event there is no apparent saboteur. So it's more like a covert sabotage than "false flag" sabotage.
rurp 4y ago
My theory is that Putin ordered it. He recently made two major escalations, mobilization and annexation, that greatly decrease the odds of a peaceful settlement and increase the odds of him being overthrown internally. This move undercuts the leverage a new leader would have after a coup, since it will be harder to get gas flowing again following a truce. Putin seems to be staking his entire regime on this war and likely feels that upping the stakes is to his benefit. His odds of winning a conventional military victory are looking more and more slim, but ratcheting up the risk might get the West to back down, at least in his mind.
- orloffm 4y ago
  Why doesn't he destroy the pipelines going through Ukraine then?
  - telcy 4y ago
    Because then it would be clear who did it. A sabotage in the baltic sea makes it more difficult to find the culprit and probably causes [intentional] blame of countries that might benefit from shut pipelines.
aizen89 4y ago
Meanwhile, the gas pipeline through Ukraine is quietly functioning.
bradgessler 4y ago
Does anybody know what this means in terms of bringing the pipeline back online? I'm assuming it's filling with seawater, which seems like it would cause all sorts of problems between the salt and debris. Is it a matter of repairing the breaches, removing the water, cleaning the pipeline out, and pressurizing it or is this pipeline effectively destroyed?
- some0x80070005 4y ago
  Due to the special inside coating to reduce friction, seawater ingress would mean the abandonment of the pipeline. It’s just not possible to fix the line without just replacing the entire thing. I theorize it’s possible to run at severely reduced flow rates if they were able to get the water out, but that seems unlikely since the receiving facilities are not designed to handle the tremendous amount of water that would be in the system.
  - bradgessler 4y ago
    So the pipeline is effectively destroyed. That’s kind of insane.
    - some0x80070005 4y ago
      You are not wrong. It’s a feat of engineering to have a roughly 1200 km pipeline operate smoothly with no safety or reliability issues over 10 years just to get blown up. Billions of dollars just down the drain.
      - mrtksn 4y ago
        So it’s like Yahoo?
  - postalrat 4y ago
    You would think they would have valves or whatever along the pipeline. In case they need to shut off section.
boringg 4y ago
Intense amount of conspiracy chatter is in this thread. Let the dust settle a bit and see what shakes out. To be fair - I do understand how fun it can be to play at conspiracy theories especially given the circumstances here.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  Honestly this one will probably always be conspiracy food. Nobody is going to tell the truth here for another 30-50 years. The truth would be too messy for the public to consume, this is state actors taking to each other in serous terms.
- seydor 4y ago
  It's speculation, not conspiracy. There is no legitimate course of events that leads to the blowing up of the pipe
LatteLazy 4y ago
I don't think it was the US but the CIA managed to blew up a Russian (USSR) pipeline using just software in 1982. Maybe this was hackers? Maybe state actors (could be anyone from the US to North Korea). Maybe Ecoterrorists. Maybe Ransom gangs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss
oldshatterhand 4y ago
Was the pipeline insured? Who will benefit from an incident? :)
- bagels 4y ago
  As my neighbor said, baselessly inventing a conspiracy theory on the spot while we watched a nearby apartment building burn, "follow the money".
secondcoming 4y ago
My bet would be Poland, then Ukraine. There's this: https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan...
squarefoot 4y ago
I recall of an old story, say from 3-5 years ago, of some non military (geomagnetism?) sensors in that area that seemed to be damaged on purpose by an unknown actor, and one of the speculations was that they could be used to detect alterations to the (edit: measured) Earth magnetic field by submarines passing by.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  Might be this one, although years have passed and I can't be sure 100%. https://www.science.org/content/article/suspect-surfaces-mysterious-case-underwater-research-station-vanished https://www.science.org/content/article/suspect-surfaces-mys...
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
To me, the most fascinating thing about this is the complete and utter uncertainty. Who is responsible, USA? Russia? Ukraine? Poland? Terrorists? No one? You'd think that in the 21st century, a piece of infrastructure getting blown up during a war, between two clearly defined sides, there wouldn't be nearly as much mystery surrounding the events.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  It just happened. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  I agree that is the most important angle, to consider the consequences for other infrastructure. However, it should be said, pipelines are intrinsically difficult infrastructure to monitor due to their great length, and a pipeline at the bottom of the sea even more so.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  > between two clearly defined sides One should note: "between two clearly defined sides" but also with a few dozen other factions supporting one side or the other as a proxy war and negotiating with one side or the other to attempt to manipulate food and energy supply chains on a global scale.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    It's not a proxy war, it's just a war, and like many other wars in history there are people supporting either side.
    - mazdacx5 4y ago
      Yes. Thank you. It is important to be strict about this. Nations supporting and possibly benefiting from a war does not mean it has to be a proxy war.
- 4y ago
everybodyknows 4y ago
It's in large part a warning -- there's no other explanation for the timing: > The turmoil came on the same day of the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland, which used to rely heavily on Russia for supplies. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-gas-baltic-pipelines-leaks/32054130.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-gas-baltic-pipelines-leaks/32... A single torpedo could sever the Pole's new energy supply.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  So just take on the whole of Europe for fun ?
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Gotta say since the British Petroleum scandal last decade, Big Oil has done a bang-up job of not having oil spills. And you know that's ecological, it was one of Standard Oil's priorities, to reduce waste. First to use burn gasoline to power their trains stedda dumping it in rivers. That sounds like it's not ecological but think it through it's got words that don't sound ecological like the word gasoline and the word burn, but think it through, it's very ecological. Oil spills are bad for the environment right? They now have cleanup costs. The companies ought to be more careful. And now they are! They are careful! In addition to all that it's oil they can sell, meaning for somebody to burn, carbon dioxide is pretty innocuous compared to all other oil derivatives. It's profits too! And then they do it, and then! Nobody says anything. Nobody thanks them. Nobody says "hey you did a pretty gosh darn good fucking job at selling oil." Nobody says that. I'm nobody, so I can say that.
TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
Do we know yet if the leak has been flared? Or has the damaged pipe bee shut off and the leak stopped?
- some0x80070005 4y ago
  Leak has not be flared, and the Russian side has been shut in for weeks already. However, there’s 1200km or so of pipe that had gas somewhere around 107 bar average inside, and that must now leak.
beginning_end 4y ago
Really sad to see the state of Hacker News comments — ultra right wing conspiracy theories are now the norm :(
cloudyday 4y ago
Maybe sabotage with something like this?: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgy4q7/mysterious-sea-drone-surfaces-in-crimea https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgy4q7/mysterious-sea-drone-...
dusted 4y ago
I guess the Russians never really got over having to leave Bornholm, cue the bad excuses for having to get close to it again :P
tomashm 4y ago
Somewhat related; recently, unidentified drones have been observed at several oil installations in the North Sea, including Johan Sverdrup and Gullfaks C. https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/rogaland/uidentifiserte-droner-i-nordsjoen_-_-vaer-pa-vakt-1.16113256?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=no&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/rogaland/uidentifiserte-dr...
- tomashm 4y ago
  And yesterday, the Norwegian government sent a warning to oil rig operators regarding these drone observations. https://www-ptil-no.translate.goog/tilsyn/viktige-meldinger/2022/observasjoner-av-uidentifiserte-dronerluftfartoy-offshore/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=no&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-ptil-no.translate.goog/tilsyn/viktige-meldinger/...
yurish 4y ago
NS1 and NS2 may be not the last pipelines blown up this year. Somebody may want retaliation. Just a thought.
rixrax 4y ago
If you're reading the news, and wondering why russia might blow up the gas pipeline they own, Telegraph has a pretty decent discussion on the matter[0]. [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/27/putins-nord-stream-2-sabotage-sends-warning-will-blow-pipes/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/27/putins-nor...
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  Paywalled...
  - dernett 4y ago
  - enlyth 4y ago
    https://archive.ph/YCQ1d https://archive.ph/YCQ1d
seydor 4y ago
I dont know who did it but this is a good thing for europe. Enough with the schizophrenic approach. Either we accept that russia is invaluable and ask ukraine to negotiate peace, or we cut off russia completely. A cut off was bound to happen anyway sooner or later
maydup-nem 4y ago
The shilling is immense on this one. The botfarms must be working overtime tonight.
- maydup-nem 4y ago
  The fact that I am getting downvoted proves this.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    I bet we could figure it out based on bot activity we see across social media. Same explanations given with similar language. Given this is HN, I imagine it is straightforward to train an AI to figure this out.
dependsontheq 4y ago
Putin no longer sees this as an economic conflict, all decisions they have taken are against their economic interests, as is the war itself. They are currently killing the rest of their economy with mobilization for some south Ukrainian fields and destroyed towns. They stopped supplying gas and are running deficits at the same time. So assuming an economic motive is just wrong this has become a classic political conflict, the only use the Russian leadership has for an “economy” is as a political tool. So this attack makes perfect sense, distrust in the West, confusion, no way back.
- layer8 4y ago
  This was never an economic conflict.
driggs 4y ago
Does anyone know the rate at which these leaks are spewing methane into the atmosphere, and how quickly this pipeline can be shut off (if it isn't already)?
- some0x80070005 4y ago
  I’ve heard somewhere between 300-400 kilograms gas per second. The pipeline has already been shut off for weeks, but it’ll take days for all the gas that’s already in the line at elevated pressures to leak out. It’s an enormous amount of gas.
  - driggs 4y ago
    That's an insane amount of a very potent greenhouse gas. Seems like it'd be better to strike a match and flare it off as CO2 instead of methane, which has 80 times the greenhouse warming effect of CO2. Thanks!
    - euroderf 4y ago
      Yes please. Why HAVEN'T they lit it yet ?
grbty_ciul 4y ago
It happened on the same date as opening of the new Poland - Norway pipeline. It could be a warning as well as a demonstration of capabilities. Plausible deniability. https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan...
cabirum 4y ago
riversflow 4y ago
Could this be to vent gas to keep Russian pipelines from bursting during the winter due to a lack of flow from the sanctions? I’ve only recently heard about this phenomenon from a talk with Peter Zeihan[1], but have been unable to find more information about oil pipelines freezing and bursting. Time stamped to where he brings it up: [1] https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=984 https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=984
aizen89 4y ago
Why Ukraine does not block the gas pipeline that runs through their territory? This is the profit that Putin receives and spends on the needs of the army?
bilsbie 4y ago
Isn’t this really bad for the climate?
antonymy 4y ago
- spiffistan 4y ago
  The fallout from that scenario being discovered alone would make it absolutely not worth it, so I leave that for the conspiracy bin.
- tpmx 4y ago
  I'm leaning: 40% Russia - Putin's weird mind games. 60% Poland - making sure Germany doesn't go soft when it gets cold. And if they did it, I think I actually support them...
xnx 4y ago
This would've been an interesting test for MethaneSAT.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I have a very hard time believing Russia is behind it. Russia controls the flow of gas, they can simply turn it off whenever they wish - they have no need to blow up their own pipeline. Russia has spent many years and many billions of dollars constructing these pipelines. They want the power to use their control over the supply of natural gas as leverage and negotiation power over EU countries. Destroying this pipeline removes this leverage and lessens the capability of Russia to pressure the EU with gas restrictions. On the other hand, NATO/US officials have been openly stating their opposition to the Nordstream pipeline even before the recent invasion of Ukraine. It is entirely consistent with the desires of NATO/US officials who seek to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia to destroy the pipeline and eliminate any chance of some sort of negotiated settlement between Germany and Russia as the cold of winter sets in. Unfortunately, barring the emergence of a whistleblower, we will likely never know the truth, as whoever is responsible for this bombing will never openly admit it. Even more unfortunately, mindless partisans will reflexively point their finger at whoever their chosen propaganda outlets claim (without any evidence whatsoever) is responsible for this bombing, and use those accusations to further escalate hostilities.
dmingod666 4y ago
Just last week Putin was saying "we want to keep selling gas", like in quite a desperate tone, "just lift the sanctions on NS2, we want to keep seeling gas." Watch his press conference at the SCO summit it's 10-15 mis long. Now is the time to use his bargaining chip when Germany will be desperate, why will someone make their own position weaker at the time when they can extract the most leverage, that too for no reason - destroy their own property and that too go all the way up to an area where NATO was doing naval exercises a few months ago and risk confrontation with NATO..
margarina72 4y ago
Gas was providing Russia a strong leverage in its relationship with Europe. This leverage is now gone. It will only make the whole region more unstable, more dependent on other international powers. Friendly backstabbing from your allies is not something unheard of. This winter people will die of cold, because somebody needed to make a point and get everyone on board. Politics can be harsh sometime, but you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
- knodi123 4y ago
  > but you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs. That's such a benign metaphor that it barely even fits. Saying "you can't make an international peace treaty without murdering a bunch of random vulnerable innocents", and it sounds properly gruesome, although I admit it doesn't roll as trippingly off the tongue.
- csomar 4y ago
  Are they really your allies? The US has blocked flights from Europe during the coronavirus for a long time. At some point, it was possible to go from North Africa, through Turkey to the USA. But people from Europe could not do that; and that's after the coronavirus pandemic was worse in the US. I think people are delusional if they think the US is Europe best ally. It's not. And they (the US) clearly see Europe as a threat to their rule-based world order.
politician 4y ago
It’s highly probable that this is a strategic response to Putin’s increasing rhetoric about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  Yes. I think it’s the USA. They were furious about this pipeline and angry at Germany for their dependence on Russian gas. This turns Europe away from Russia and sends a strong signal. It removes a carrot Russia would wave to Europe. It’s under the cover of a messy situation. It sends a warning sign to Russia about nuclear weapons. The US could wipe out all energy exports and destroy the Russian economy without deploying a single nuke.
  - euroderf 4y ago
    A rogue CIA unit teaching Europe AND Russia a lesson.
eternalban 4y ago
hackerlight 4y ago
It's so easy to spin a just so story around incentives to think anyone is responsible. US did it because their gas industry want to sell to Europe, and also Biden was clipped saying he can stop NS2. Russia did it because the repair costs are low and hence the distrust propaganda value is worth that cost, and because EU is going to stop buying their gas anyway so may as well capitalize on the sunk cost. Forgetting incentives for a minute and instead looking at recent patterns of behavior and reckless disregard for both others as well as self-preservation, my default assumption is that Russia did it. This is the best lens to use when the incentive picture is murky, because it clearly is murky here.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  What about aliens and illuminati? Pretty sure one of those did it. Also, why is everyone assuming a sabotage and not an accident? The article is short in details...
jprd 4y ago
Prologue: Putina out-maneuvered the Oligarchs that helped re-elect Yeltsin, and once decreed Pres, started to take them off the board when convenient or when inconvenienced. #### Clearly not coincidence, probably not an accident, and aligns rather boringly with earlier KGB inspired, and FSB implemented, Putina tactics to remind Russians of FEAR™ and that he can be Strong for Them (see almost any "Chechen" terrorist attack). Putina (being the current Russian state) isn't going to personally profit from those pipelines short term, so use them as a weapon (all his other ones are evidently shite, or phantom spreadsheet entries). Now EU citizens can see Gas just pissing away in the sea AND at its transmission point (flaring) nightly on TV (TV has special power for him). While they stare directly into the face of a Ned Stark worthy Winter, cold, hungry and dumbfounded as tons of long reliable jobs are furloughed because its too expensive to make things on account of Energy decisions made decades ago. So, now an easily forgotten, mediocre KGB operative, dulled by Dresden and steeled by the hard realities of life in Leningrad (changed back to Saint Petersburg by the time he skulked back from Dresden) put all his chips on the table, didn't know they were counterfeit, and now is doing whatever he can to change the outcome. Just like a former KGB flame-out with heavy gangster influence would. I can't see a path of sane negotiation or de-escalation here while he's in play. Any weakening of EU/NATO stance is going to allow cash infusion that quiets Oligarchs (any left alive) and everyone else in the gov't line of embezzlement, while emboldening Putina. The most tragic (and thusly, Russian) aspect is that he's trying to channel Stalin (in a positive way?) and be that Man of Steel - even using Nazi's as a prop - and just becoming the very boogie man he heard in every story as a wee lad from a nation of people traumatized by the deaths of TWENTY MILLON Soviet citizens. This of course follows not only after, but because of, the un-hinged purging they both initiated on their own, for completely and yet complimentary, paranoid delusions.
Circle1917 4y ago
It's probably too early, but has anyone heard any estimates for how long it should take to repair these pipelines? A credible estimate might help cut through some of the murkiness. * new account by the way
foverzar 4y ago
Trans-Siberian pipeline explosion of 1982, anyone?
zoomablemind 4y ago
For very long decades USSR maintained reputation of a reliable supplier of gas and oil. Russia "inherited" this status after the breakup. However, the first gas war against Ukraine in 2009 already showed that the russian political leadership was ready to trade that status over for the geopolitical gains by using gas supply as a tool of war against Ukraine, against Europe. It worked then to some extent. Sure, why should russia stop? What works should be used again, right? Here it is, now russia is playing the gas supply card again. However, at this time it is clear that by its hostile and deliberate actions russia further damaged its reliable supplier reputation on the European market. Does russia want to give up its influence on that market? Of course, not. It again needs a way to maintain the political pressure yet shift the blame for the reputation damage. Thus, blowing up already non-functioning pipelines serves these purposes. By painting this incident as a mystery, russia will suggest that the supply disruption was beyond its control and not a deliberate choice. Force majeure. Just as it has been making up "technical" reasons for reducing then shuttering the flow via NS-1. Dishonest and obvious, but can still be claimed in court. If anything, the recent arbitrage vs Ukraine's Naftogaz demonstrated such approach in action. Additionally, now only the Ukrainian pipeline still remains however vulnerable. This allows russia to advance the blackmailing should there be more hardships during the winter. Whichever the real reasons are, one thing is fully proven is that russia has consistently used the energy supply as weapons and thus cannot be considered as a reliable and trustworthy member of the market. Whichever country to agree to deal with it will have to bear the longterm consequences of any adverse outcomes on its own (Hungary?).
greyhair 4y ago
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125401980/nord-stream-leaks-explosions-russia-natural-gas-sabotage https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125401980/nord-stream-leaks-... ""leaks""
niklasbuschmann 4y ago
The methane released by this equals roughly 25% of Denmarks annual greenhouse gas emissions, and could be more or less completely avoided by burning. Is there any reason why it is not set on fire?

505 points by chha 4y ago

Another thread on the topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993521 And since you're going to speculate, it's worth knowing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...

draw_down 4y ago
kspacewalk2 4y ago
>And since you're going to speculate, it's worth knowing: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... Price signal and capitalism at work. Greedy bastards always find a way to move goods around efficiently while getting rich.

jefftk 4y ago

More details: Although neither was in operation, both pipelines [Nordstream 1 and 2] still contained gas under pressure. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warning-of-two-gas-leaks-on-nord-stream-1-pipeline https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warni...

wongarsu 4y ago
Sabotage makes sense, but by whom? Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter. Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive. They would benefit from having Russia as part of their gas supply once the war is over. Sure, having the option not to buy from them is nice, but why force that? Competition lowers prices after all. Ukraine has a motive to hurt Russia and prevent Russian gas exports, but that would also bite the hand that feeds them weapons. Not to mention they don't have a presence in the Baltic and are occupied on other fronts. That would leave Europe's non-Russian suppliers of natural gas: Norway and the US.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  Europe didn't need the gas [1] [2]. Russia has nothing to lose by sabotaging it. Don't forget that Russia had already slowed/slopped NS1 by this point. [1] https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1574754277268103170 https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/15747542772681031... "Those shipments are enough to cover a complete halt in Russian pipeline flows from Oct. 1." [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... (paywalled version of the original quote)
  - maltalex 4y ago
    Why link to a tweet that quotes Bloomberg and not the Bloomberg article directly? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is-ready-for-a-winter-without-russian-gas-bnef-says https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
    - mmastrac 4y ago
      The article is paywalled for me but I'll update my comment.
  - dncornholio 4y ago
    Europe needs the gas. Not enough LNG stations to import this amount. Also prices are absurdly high. Saying Europe doesn't need Russian gas sounds almost like propoganda.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      This sounds like politicians promising something, that they'll fail to deliver in a few weeks... as a european, i've heard this many, many times before. As someone from the balkans, i look at first signs of politicials lieing (they're moving their lips).
      - dmichulke 4y ago
keewee7 4y ago
The reason Nord Stream 1 was not in operation is because of, according to Russia, maintenance and because gas demands have still not reached winter levels.
dmix 4y ago
Whose country was the territory on?

cm2187 4y ago

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

baq 4y ago
you think using western, market-centric logic. you can't use this mode of thinking to understand russia. this might as well be internal russian faction warfare.
mech987 4y ago
I've only thought about it for a minute- but I might speculate that it is a signal from Russia- "even if we decide we want to turn the gas back on, you might not be able to get it when you want it."
- tomrod 4y ago
  Dear Russia Thanks for confirming so clearly that you are an untrustworthy and manipulative partner. Best, -The Rest of Europe.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    - sudden_dystopia 4y ago
      Freeze to death cold. I get the feeling a lot of people here live in California or on the west coast and don’t quite fathom how cold it gets in some parts of the world.
      - 1ris 4y ago
        Might actually happen in Bulgaria. And yet, for the most part, people are overreacting. I for one have lived in a temporary unheated german apartment with horrible insulation (build around 1955, not upgraded). It sounds way worse than it is. The only actually unpleasant thing is washing your hair. Just keep an eye on the humidity. I won't heat my (different) apartment this winter. It will be ok.

themgt 4y ago

The resident hawk at National Review is already doing a touchdown dance. "Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Pipeline?" Three leaks in two days? Wow, that’s a shame! Sounds like the pipeline’s falling apart and just won’t be a reliable way to get natural gas from Russia to Germany. I guess hopes of Germany and Russia eventually putting aside their differences over the invasion of Ukraine, and reestablishing long-term German dependence on Russian energy, just won’t happen for the foreseeable future. Just terrible luck for Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, who clearly thought a cold winter with limited energy supplies would make Germany and other European countries come crawling back to the negotiating table. Just about anyone could have cut the pipeline, but whoever it was, they wanted to make sure the Nord Stream pipelines would not be an option for a long time. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-this-meddlesome-pipeline/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-thi...

joshuajill 4y ago
German people wanted talk with Putin. Guess it won't be happening now. https://www.rtl.de/cms/umfrage-mehrheit-will-verhandlungen-ueber-kriegsende-b05c7289-d576-583d-b247-8fa1aaa08d67.html https://www.rtl.de/cms/umfrage-mehrheit-will-verhandlungen-u...
eternalban 4y ago
I thought the Thomas Becket reference was brilliant and spot on. I wonder if it is an extra-governmental group like Gladio, taking matters into their own hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_turbulent_priest%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur... https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/cia-organized-secret-army-in-western-europe/e0305101-97b9-4494-bc18-d89f42497d85/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/14/c...

lysp 4y ago

I wonder who RUptured it?

Sebb767 4y ago
> RUptured Hard to believe, they have nothing to gain from this.
- ecmascript 4y ago
  Of course they have, now they have a reason to escalate
  - krisoft 4y ago
    Do you think between getting pummeled by all the NATO weapons exported to Ukraine they were missing an excuse?
- toopok4k3 4y ago
  Yeah, like they have much to gain in Ukraine either. It's not like they are a rational actor at this stage.
  - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    Except maybe the Russian speaking ethnically Russian separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine? (from before the 2022 propaganda started): https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donbass/a-42597692 https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donba... Story from 2018: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/about-40000-ukrainians-granted-russian-citizenship-in-january-june.html https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/about-40000-ukrain... So many seem to have just swallowed anything and everything the US propaganda has put out this year and know absolutely nothing about the last 10 years of Ukrainian history. From last year, Drone strikes and violation of the Minks Agreements by Ukraine: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine%E2%80%99s-recent-drone-strike-reignites-tensions-donbass-195709 https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine%E2%80%99s-recen... Russia's invasion does seem absolutely batshit unless you do even 10 minutes of digging on the subject: https://search.brave.com/search?q=ukraine+donbass&source=web&tf=2000-01-01to2021-12-31 https://search.brave.com/search?q=ukraine+donbass&source=web... There are Russians in Ukraine and Russia is fighting for them. How is that irrational? You can argue they're wrong to do it, or that they shouldn't. But irrational? Nonsense.

bskan 4y ago

Now realistically how much time would it take to fix something like this?

pantalaimon 4y ago
There is nobody to fix it, Nord Stream is bankrupt and there is no political incentive to fix it on either side.
seren 4y ago
If it is fixable, I am not sure how you can make sure it does not happen again. I am not sure how you are supposed to survey hundreds of kilometers of underwater pipeline.
- 3guk 4y ago
  I mean it’s probably quite tricky to keep a constant eye on every KM of both pipelines - but given the number of surveys involved just to get NS2 to a state where it could originally be pressurised - before they went bankrupt. I would say you could at least do semi regular inspections using ROVs.

seydor 4y ago

Could it be because the line was underused because of russia lately and the pressure went down? It could be sabotage, but russia can always just turn the tap off. In fact, why would they want to sabotage their instrument of blackmail ?

bilbo0s 4y ago
They wouldn't. That doesn't mean that others wouldn't sabotage the line. This thing is spiraling out into a mess. With winter coming, things could get nasty in Europe.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
Whatever the cause or the motivation behind this, the gas pipeline is no longer functional as an instrument of blackmail. It is useless to Russia now.
- baq 4y ago
  yes. there is no blackmail possible and there is no flow of molecules. everyone is worse off except influencial people in russia who do not control gazprom and perhaps the US, but their LNG infrastructure was at max capacity anyway.
  - m000 4y ago
    > but their LNG infrastructure was at max capacity anyway Yes, they will definitely hate doubling their profits while selling the same amount of LNG. Money isn't everything. /s

tpmx 4y ago

The Swedish national seismic network picked up two explosions within kilometers of the reported gas leak locations yesterday. The time of the first explosion: Yesterday, Monday morning at 02:03 am, second one Monday evening at 7:04pm (local time, CEST). The reports of the gas leaks came at 1:52pm and 8:41pm, respectively - by means of ships reporting bubbling at the surface level. One of the two events registered at magnitude 2.3. They were picked up by stations all over the country. It's clear from the registered seismic waves that the events are not earthquakes. - You can clearly see how the waves bounce from the bottom to the surface. There is no doubt that it was a blast or explosion. We even had a station in Kalix [quite far up north, some 1300 km away] that picked this up, says Björn Lund, who is a lecturer in seismology and director of the Swedish national seismic network, which measures Swedish earthquakes and explosions. Translated and summarized from: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosioner-intill-nord-stream https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosio... (Sweden's national public service broadcaster, within the last hour)

bobowzki 4y ago
In a radio interview Björn Lund also says it was a relativly large explosion, equivalent to "a couple of hundred kg of dynamite".
dongobongo 4y ago
Act of war by USA? (equivalent if done through ally)
- brightball 4y ago
  Why would the US do that?
  - bobowzki 4y ago
    To strengthen Europes resolve when it gets cold?
  - fuoqi 4y ago
    Because it cuts a huge temptation for Germans to find some compromise with Russia and allows them to sell LNG for huge profits?

itzprintz 4y ago

What a pity what happened to these pipelines for Russian gas. I mean, the west will not be buying Russian gas anytime soon anyway, Putin knows that. But what if such accident happened to some another pipeline? For example, the one that is being open just this week from Norway to Poland. The one that should help EU survive the winter. Interested timing of such unfortunate accident..

johndevor 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

segah 4y ago

Might be shocking to some, but not all of Russia is one people. There are multiple interests there among country's leaders. And one such interest: to get rid off Putin's regime quickly. One way of doing this is to prevent any notion of "restorable" economic relationships with Europe under Putin. Without Gas, who needs Putin's Russia... A prediction: we will see more of such actions in the coming months, leading to the winter

int_19h 4y ago
Without gas, Russia is in a worse position at the negotiating table, since it cannot promise to resume shipments in return for removal of sanctions. This is actually something that the pro-war faction (and Putin personally) would love. Conversely, the elites who want to revert back to status quo before the war would never do this.
- segah 4y ago
  This is not correct. Gas supplies are controlled by state-owned corporation. Putin and this corporation are one. There is no multi-factions within this organization. It is 100% under Putin's governance. If there was interest to cut supplies, they would have done this publicly. And they have the PR/Media to spin the story however they want. On the other hand, elites don't benefit from this gas supply. For example, it keeps Ruble unreasonably high for their own exports. And it keeps the government under Putin's control (Gas finances the war as well as his pockets). And undermining gas supplies, creates a consensus among elites that Putin will not be able to sustain the economy for very long. Once there is a consensus, it is much easier to move against Putin. In simple terms, like any Middle Eastern Dictator economy, Russian dictatorship is managed through government-controlled oil supplies, which elites don't have direct control over. If oil supplies are taken out of the equation, the economy collapses unless elites take over to manage it with alternative methods. Bottom line, if gas stops flowing from Russia, elites (technology ceos, aluminium exporters, bankers, etc) gain back control.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Gas already stopped flowing from Russia to Europe. The question now is if and when it'll be restarted. And yes, of course, for the peace faction to make use of it, they'd need to carry out a coup to remove Putin first, so that they are in control. That's precisely why it all adds up.

fuoqi 4y ago

vbezhenar 4y ago
- johndevor 4y ago
  Biden talking about it: https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1574758411392131078 https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1574758411392131078
- nkingsy 4y ago
  Nice find! Was talking to a trumper who was blaming the invasion on the US having a weak president. Seems like the opposite if anything. Biden quarterbacked the maidan coup. Seeing him become president probably wasn’t a happy moment for Putin. Edit: these things are censored in google, Wikipedia etc by US state actors. We largely have to go on the words of people like Max Blumenthal and others who have been largely censored and scrubbed from easy access by these same state apparatuses or wait until foia requests reveal what they always reveal about our benevolent state.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > Edit: these things are censored in google, Wikipedia etc by US state actors. We largely have to go on the words of people like Max Blumenthal and others who have been largely censored and scrubbed from easy access by these same state apparatuses or wait until foia requests reveal what they always reveal about our benevolent state. Max Blumenthal is a Russian propagandist who is a regular guest on Russian state backed networks such RT and Sputnik. I wouldn't trust anything he has to say about anything.
    - nkingsy 4y ago
      I’m sure he takes the appearances he can get after having all his sources of funding cut. I hope you’re being paid well to call people propagandists who have devoted their lives and sacrificed everything to speak truth to power. I don’t take it at face value and it does seem he has an understandable bias at this point. The gray zone is super strange to read, but these are investigative journalists on the ground. Please point me to a source that has hard proof of ANY of this information being incorrect. Labeling people propagandists and conspiracy theorists is a new form of censorship and it is terrifying.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

I would be quite simple to put a bomb in the pipe and let it travel and then "boom". No need to go underwater for this.

aizen89 4y ago
3000 IQ move!

kstenerud 4y ago

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first". Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of leverage against Germany. Poland opened a new pipeline to Norway on the same day as the leaks appeared, so there was lots of Polish activity in the waters. Poland doesn't receive gas via Nordstream, so damaging it doesn't hurt them in any way. Poland is Ukraine's most ardent supporter in Europe, often leading the vanguard of actions to support Ukraine. They'd have a strong motive to ensure that the rest of Europe doesn't waver in its commitment to keep the Russian taps off. It could be argued that since Europe has already decided to never turn on Nordstream again, the fallout from such an act of sabotage is minimal.

jupp0r 4y ago
> Russia wants the taps ON, not off. Russia unilaterally turned the taps OFF repeatedly in the last months to keep Germany from meaningfully supporting Ukraine.
- kstenerud 4y ago
  Russia turned the taps off in order to raise pressure for European concessions in order to turn them back on again. Germany has been tepid in its Ukrainian support because they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Now they can't no matter what. With the pipes permanently broken (at least for this winter), Russia has lost that leverage.
  - cassepipe 4y ago
    Especially since gas prices have gone up so I don't think Russia suffered the price of rationing delivery
  - Tade0 4y ago
    > Russia turned the taps off in order to raise pressure for European concessions in order to turn them back on again. I don't want to sound dismissive, but that's a characteristically western take on things. Nord Stream 2 was largely redundant and Russia missed the window to use those pipelines against Germany by allowing it to fill it's storage. Russia is no stranger to causing damage to itself just to ensure that their enemies also suffer. Case in point: back in 2015, as retaliation to sanctions they banned some imports of food from the EU deeming it "unsafe for consumption"(a particularly funny reason for someone familiar with the respective food standards). Contraband was publicly destroyed, upsetting a considerable chunk of the Russian public.

Tade0 4y ago

What is the status of insurance of those pipelines? If there's still someone obliged to foot the bill in case of a catastrophic failure, it might create an incentive to just destroy everything. Of course proof of sabotage would get in the way of that, but the leaks are not particularly accessible at the moment.

dncornholio 4y ago

It could have been done by Russia, to raise energy prices even more and cripple EU so it cannot support Ukraine as much.

thehappypm 4y ago

I wonder what the effect of that much methane would be on climate change

vdfs 4y ago
Next to zero compared to what we pump in air all year long
- thehappypm 4y ago
  Isn’t methane much, much more potent?
  - megous 4y ago
    Yeah, but amount is next to nothing compared to all the cow farts/burps.

parski 4y ago

Now do the LNG terminals.

thehappypm 4y ago
Why?

btbuilder 4y ago

The US is working hard to keep a coalition of NATO countries together (for instance, avoiding secondary sanctions that EU generally thinks are extra-judicial). I don’t believe Germany would agree with this course of action and if the US unilaterally did it it would severely risk the strategic goal of a Ukrainian victory.

thepasswordis 4y ago

Maybe the Ukrainians did it, or maybe it was terrorists, or actors trying to accelerate the beginning of WW3.

Roark66 4y ago

I don't see a mention that today is the day Poland officially opens up its pipeline to Denmark and Norway. The pipeline Russia (and to a much lesser extent Germany) put a lot of resources trying to jeopardize. Some of the things those two countries did include: Financing of various "grassroots ecology groups" that managed to find an extremely important field mouse (no joke!) habitat on the planned route which caused many months of delays in Denmark. Constant media pressure and a smear campaign of lies against PL in Europe and elsewhere. And many more including those we don't know about. No one is surprised at all that they would blow up their own pipeline to gain various PR points in sympathetic media.

red_trumpet 4y ago
Do you have any sources to back up your claims?
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  If anyone on HN has sources to back up a claim as to who did this, I would like to suggest that HN might not be the most appropriate forum for delivering this information.
- TrispusAttucks 4y ago
  Russia is known for using environmentalist groups as fronts for geopolitical strategy. One of Russia's greatest wins was hamstringing Keystone XL pipeline. Sure would be nice leverage for US. https://weber.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1208 https://weber.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=... https://fortune.com/2018/03/01/russia-social-media-energy-policy/ https://fortune.com/2018/03/01/russia-social-media-energy-po...
axus 4y ago
I liked the theory that Russia did it as a warning that they can blow up Poland's pipeline anytime.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

ed_balls 4y ago

This is really interesting. Russia knows (if we didn't do it then must be USA), USA knows (if we didn't do it then must be Russia). Germany would never know, but now they are fully dependent on Poland, Ukraine or US Navy for their energy needs.

ed_balls 4y ago
Argument for Russia: https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1574820287161384960 https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1574820287161384960

oever 4y ago

The author of 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' is from Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Blow_Up_a_Pipeline

_kbh_ 4y ago

A plausible theory for why Russia has done this could be to avoid fines. It is likely that Russia has agreements with steep penalties for if they voluntarily don't provide gas like they agreed too (like what they are doing with Nord Stream 1). Blowing large holes in the pipelines could allow Russia to claim that they cannot provide gas because the pipelines are broken, effectively avoiding the fines.

colinmhayes 4y ago
How would fines work? Russia has already had its assets seized.
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  Russia hasn’t had all of its assets seized. Additionally it may not even be about asset seizure, but about not wanting to look like a unreliable business partner. But even as I say that the actions of Russia lately make them seem unreliable already.
lm28469 4y ago
So illgellay invading a country is no big deal but a fine for breach of contract would warrant what could be seen as an act of war on a nato country ?
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  I never said it was a rational action just that it’s a reason. There’s more evidence to support that this wasn’t someone like the US or Ukraine as well. One of the pipes of Nord Stream 2 remains intact and there’s only one country that benefits from forcing the certification and opening of Nord Stream 2 and that’s Russia.
- adventured 4y ago
  Who said invading was not a big deal? Nobody said that. If they plan to ever sell gas to Europe again, they'd have to pay the fines most likely. This does avoid the fine issue by sabotaging their own pipelines in a way that can be fixed later, at a relatively trivial cost, and it adds confusion into the situation for the allies. Russia can now say: we can't turn the gas on even if we wanted to, we're not to blame, and we don't have to pay any breach of contract fines for it being off.

Torkel 4y ago

”Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”… Does anything happen to gas in a pipeline that makes pressure increase? Could it be a lack of or poor monitoring of pressure that caused it?

dilyevsky 4y ago
Buffer overflow in pressure control plc because they didn’t use rust
apexalpha 4y ago
Sure it could. But on both NS1 and NS2? At the same time? Very unlikely.
- Torkel 4y ago
  Yeah, I know. Seemes totally unlikely. I wrote comment before seeing that…

raphaelj 4y ago

What would be the reaction of the US population if this would have been done by some the US? As an European, I'd see that as an huge act of treachery from one of our ally, but I'm really wondering if the US public reaction would be positive or negative.

wooque 4y ago

mempko 4y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  It's a busy corridor. There were a lot of countries ships in the area.
rmatt2000 4y ago
> "I promise you: We will be able to do it." While the idea was almost certainly to warn Putin, it doesn't seem very smart to me to have said it out loud.

swamp40 4y ago

Russia was at a crossroads, and now there is no return. The boats have been burned and they must march forward.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
My exact words to a friend earlier. Divide with Europe made manifestly clear. Burned the boats. Crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast.
- euroderf 4y ago
  The gas has been expelled. Look innocent and pretend it wasn't you.

ancorevard 4y ago

The most plain explanation is that this was simply a warning message from Russia. These two pipelines have no longer any value to them, nor to EU. However, what does have value are the numerous pipelines from Norway and other countries to EU. And this is where the real treat is. Russia has now shown it is willing to blow up infrastructure outside Ukraine. Russia is known to have carefully mapped out the gas pipelines from Norway to UK. Remember how Russian oligark luxury ships carefully navigated close to gas pipelines, while the cover was that the oligark was attending Molde jazzfestival? Similar activity observed by Russian fishing ships.

bamboozled 4y ago
Except now they’ve told everyone they’re coming, which would be stupid. If they were considering blowing up pipelines they wouldn’t tell anyone and ruin the element of surprise.
- ancorevard 4y ago
  There is no element of surprise. A real threat is demonstrating your capability and willingness to take action, no use of words no surprise (if surprise then no threat). This is a warning to Norway and rest of Europe.
- qqqwerty 4y ago
  The threat is more valuable than the the actual action. Russia's nuclear threats can only accomplish so much. They have so far kept NATO from getting directly involved but clearly have not worked to keep NATO weapons out of Ukraine or moderated sanctions. And with the EU getting closer to removing its dependence on Russian gas, the energy angle is quickly vanishing. This could be Russias way of subtly signaling that it can still play that card. An explicit verbal threat might not be taken seriously. But a demonstration of how easy it is to sabotage a pipeline has certainly gotten folks attention.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    So you think they had to demonstrate they know how to blow up a pipe? Like Western intelligence officials didn't know that? Maybe you think the symbolism is important, but on the other hand, people might also just think it looks childish...

c2k 4y ago

I really hope I am wrong, but this looks like a "false flag" operation.

advisedwang 4y ago
"false flag" is when one actor makes it look like another did it. But in this event there is no apparent saboteur. So it's more like a covert sabotage than "false flag" sabotage.

rurp 4y ago

My theory is that Putin ordered it. He recently made two major escalations, mobilization and annexation, that greatly decrease the odds of a peaceful settlement and increase the odds of him being overthrown internally. This move undercuts the leverage a new leader would have after a coup, since it will be harder to get gas flowing again following a truce. Putin seems to be staking his entire regime on this war and likely feels that upping the stakes is to his benefit. His odds of winning a conventional military victory are looking more and more slim, but ratcheting up the risk might get the West to back down, at least in his mind.

orloffm 4y ago
Why doesn't he destroy the pipelines going through Ukraine then?
- telcy 4y ago
  Because then it would be clear who did it. A sabotage in the baltic sea makes it more difficult to find the culprit and probably causes [intentional] blame of countries that might benefit from shut pipelines.

aizen89 4y ago

Meanwhile, the gas pipeline through Ukraine is quietly functioning.

bradgessler 4y ago

Does anybody know what this means in terms of bringing the pipeline back online? I'm assuming it's filling with seawater, which seems like it would cause all sorts of problems between the salt and debris. Is it a matter of repairing the breaches, removing the water, cleaning the pipeline out, and pressurizing it or is this pipeline effectively destroyed?

some0x80070005 4y ago
Due to the special inside coating to reduce friction, seawater ingress would mean the abandonment of the pipeline. It’s just not possible to fix the line without just replacing the entire thing. I theorize it’s possible to run at severely reduced flow rates if they were able to get the water out, but that seems unlikely since the receiving facilities are not designed to handle the tremendous amount of water that would be in the system.
- bradgessler 4y ago
  So the pipeline is effectively destroyed. That’s kind of insane.
  - some0x80070005 4y ago
    You are not wrong. It’s a feat of engineering to have a roughly 1200 km pipeline operate smoothly with no safety or reliability issues over 10 years just to get blown up. Billions of dollars just down the drain.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      So it’s like Yahoo?
- postalrat 4y ago
  You would think they would have valves or whatever along the pipeline. In case they need to shut off section.

boringg 4y ago

Intense amount of conspiracy chatter is in this thread. Let the dust settle a bit and see what shakes out. To be fair - I do understand how fun it can be to play at conspiracy theories especially given the circumstances here.

rdtwo 4y ago
Honestly this one will probably always be conspiracy food. Nobody is going to tell the truth here for another 30-50 years. The truth would be too messy for the public to consume, this is state actors taking to each other in serous terms.
seydor 4y ago
It's speculation, not conspiracy. There is no legitimate course of events that leads to the blowing up of the pipe

LatteLazy 4y ago

I don't think it was the US but the CIA managed to blew up a Russian (USSR) pipeline using just software in 1982. Maybe this was hackers? Maybe state actors (could be anyone from the US to North Korea). Maybe Ecoterrorists. Maybe Ransom gangs? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss

oldshatterhand 4y ago

Was the pipeline insured? Who will benefit from an incident? :)

bagels 4y ago
As my neighbor said, baselessly inventing a conspiracy theory on the spot while we watched a nearby apartment building burn, "follow the money".

secondcoming 4y ago

My bet would be Poland, then Ukraine. There's this: https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan...

squarefoot 4y ago

I recall of an old story, say from 3-5 years ago, of some non military (geomagnetism?) sensors in that area that seemed to be damaged on purpose by an unknown actor, and one of the speculations was that they could be used to detect alterations to the (edit: measured) Earth magnetic field by submarines passing by.

squarefoot 4y ago
Might be this one, although years have passed and I can't be sure 100%. https://www.science.org/content/article/suspect-surfaces-mysterious-case-underwater-research-station-vanished https://www.science.org/content/article/suspect-surfaces-mys...

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

To me, the most fascinating thing about this is the complete and utter uncertainty. Who is responsible, USA? Russia? Ukraine? Poland? Terrorists? No one? You'd think that in the 21st century, a piece of infrastructure getting blown up during a war, between two clearly defined sides, there wouldn't be nearly as much mystery surrounding the events.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
It just happened. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rossdavidh 4y ago
I agree that is the most important angle, to consider the consequences for other infrastructure. However, it should be said, pipelines are intrinsically difficult infrastructure to monitor due to their great length, and a pipeline at the bottom of the sea even more so.
InitialLastName 4y ago
> between two clearly defined sides One should note: "between two clearly defined sides" but also with a few dozen other factions supporting one side or the other as a proxy war and negotiating with one side or the other to attempt to manipulate food and energy supply chains on a global scale.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It's not a proxy war, it's just a war, and like many other wars in history there are people supporting either side.
  - mazdacx5 4y ago
    Yes. Thank you. It is important to be strict about this. Nations supporting and possibly benefiting from a war does not mean it has to be a proxy war.
4y ago

everybodyknows 4y ago

It's in large part a warning -- there's no other explanation for the timing: > The turmoil came on the same day of the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland, which used to rely heavily on Russia for supplies. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-gas-baltic-pipelines-leaks/32054130.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-gas-baltic-pipelines-leaks/32... A single torpedo could sever the Pole's new energy supply.

bamboozled 4y ago
So just take on the whole of Europe for fun ?

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Gotta say since the British Petroleum scandal last decade, Big Oil has done a bang-up job of not having oil spills. And you know that's ecological, it was one of Standard Oil's priorities, to reduce waste. First to use burn gasoline to power their trains stedda dumping it in rivers. That sounds like it's not ecological but think it through it's got words that don't sound ecological like the word gasoline and the word burn, but think it through, it's very ecological. Oil spills are bad for the environment right? They now have cleanup costs. The companies ought to be more careful. And now they are! They are careful! In addition to all that it's oil they can sell, meaning for somebody to burn, carbon dioxide is pretty innocuous compared to all other oil derivatives. It's profits too! And then they do it, and then! Nobody says anything. Nobody thanks them. Nobody says "hey you did a pretty gosh darn good fucking job at selling oil." Nobody says that. I'm nobody, so I can say that.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago

Do we know yet if the leak has been flared? Or has the damaged pipe bee shut off and the leak stopped?

some0x80070005 4y ago
Leak has not be flared, and the Russian side has been shut in for weeks already. However, there’s 1200km or so of pipe that had gas somewhere around 107 bar average inside, and that must now leak.

beginning_end 4y ago

Really sad to see the state of Hacker News comments — ultra right wing conspiracy theories are now the norm :(

cloudyday 4y ago

Maybe sabotage with something like this?: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgy4q7/mysterious-sea-drone-surfaces-in-crimea https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgy4q7/mysterious-sea-drone-...

dusted 4y ago

I guess the Russians never really got over having to leave Bornholm, cue the bad excuses for having to get close to it again :P

tomashm 4y ago

Somewhat related; recently, unidentified drones have been observed at several oil installations in the North Sea, including Johan Sverdrup and Gullfaks C. https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/rogaland/uidentifiserte-droner-i-nordsjoen_-_-vaer-pa-vakt-1.16113256?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=no&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/rogaland/uidentifiserte-dr...

tomashm 4y ago
And yesterday, the Norwegian government sent a warning to oil rig operators regarding these drone observations. https://www-ptil-no.translate.goog/tilsyn/viktige-meldinger/2022/observasjoner-av-uidentifiserte-dronerluftfartoy-offshore/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=no&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-ptil-no.translate.goog/tilsyn/viktige-meldinger/...

yurish 4y ago

NS1 and NS2 may be not the last pipelines blown up this year. Somebody may want retaliation. Just a thought.

rixrax 4y ago

If you're reading the news, and wondering why russia might blow up the gas pipeline they own, Telegraph has a pretty decent discussion on the matter[0]. [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/27/putins-nord-stream-2-sabotage-sends-warning-will-blow-pipes/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/27/putins-nor...

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Paywalled...
- dernett 4y ago
- enlyth 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/YCQ1d https://archive.ph/YCQ1d

seydor 4y ago

I dont know who did it but this is a good thing for europe. Enough with the schizophrenic approach. Either we accept that russia is invaluable and ask ukraine to negotiate peace, or we cut off russia completely. A cut off was bound to happen anyway sooner or later

maydup-nem 4y ago

The shilling is immense on this one. The botfarms must be working overtime tonight.

maydup-nem 4y ago
The fact that I am getting downvoted proves this.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  I bet we could figure it out based on bot activity we see across social media. Same explanations given with similar language. Given this is HN, I imagine it is straightforward to train an AI to figure this out.

dependsontheq 4y ago

Putin no longer sees this as an economic conflict, all decisions they have taken are against their economic interests, as is the war itself. They are currently killing the rest of their economy with mobilization for some south Ukrainian fields and destroyed towns. They stopped supplying gas and are running deficits at the same time. So assuming an economic motive is just wrong this has become a classic political conflict, the only use the Russian leadership has for an “economy” is as a political tool. So this attack makes perfect sense, distrust in the West, confusion, no way back.

layer8 4y ago
This was never an economic conflict.

driggs 4y ago

Does anyone know the rate at which these leaks are spewing methane into the atmosphere, and how quickly this pipeline can be shut off (if it isn't already)?

some0x80070005 4y ago
I’ve heard somewhere between 300-400 kilograms gas per second. The pipeline has already been shut off for weeks, but it’ll take days for all the gas that’s already in the line at elevated pressures to leak out. It’s an enormous amount of gas.
- driggs 4y ago
  That's an insane amount of a very potent greenhouse gas. Seems like it'd be better to strike a match and flare it off as CO2 instead of methane, which has 80 times the greenhouse warming effect of CO2. Thanks!
  - euroderf 4y ago
    Yes please. Why HAVEN'T they lit it yet ?

grbty_ciul 4y ago

It happened on the same date as opening of the new Poland - Norway pipeline. It could be a warning as well as a demonstration of capabilities. Plausible deniability. https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan...

cabirum 4y ago

riversflow 4y ago

Could this be to vent gas to keep Russian pipelines from bursting during the winter due to a lack of flow from the sanctions? I’ve only recently heard about this phenomenon from a talk with Peter Zeihan[1], but have been unable to find more information about oil pipelines freezing and bursting. Time stamped to where he brings it up: [1] https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=984 https://youtu.be/Wi_nFz1CJSI?t=984

aizen89 4y ago

Why Ukraine does not block the gas pipeline that runs through their territory? This is the profit that Putin receives and spends on the needs of the army?

bilsbie 4y ago

Isn’t this really bad for the climate?

antonymy 4y ago

spiffistan 4y ago
The fallout from that scenario being discovered alone would make it absolutely not worth it, so I leave that for the conspiracy bin.
tpmx 4y ago
I'm leaning: 40% Russia - Putin's weird mind games. 60% Poland - making sure Germany doesn't go soft when it gets cold. And if they did it, I think I actually support them...

xnx 4y ago

This would've been an interesting test for MethaneSAT.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I have a very hard time believing Russia is behind it. Russia controls the flow of gas, they can simply turn it off whenever they wish - they have no need to blow up their own pipeline. Russia has spent many years and many billions of dollars constructing these pipelines. They want the power to use their control over the supply of natural gas as leverage and negotiation power over EU countries. Destroying this pipeline removes this leverage and lessens the capability of Russia to pressure the EU with gas restrictions. On the other hand, NATO/US officials have been openly stating their opposition to the Nordstream pipeline even before the recent invasion of Ukraine. It is entirely consistent with the desires of NATO/US officials who seek to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia to destroy the pipeline and eliminate any chance of some sort of negotiated settlement between Germany and Russia as the cold of winter sets in. Unfortunately, barring the emergence of a whistleblower, we will likely never know the truth, as whoever is responsible for this bombing will never openly admit it. Even more unfortunately, mindless partisans will reflexively point their finger at whoever their chosen propaganda outlets claim (without any evidence whatsoever) is responsible for this bombing, and use those accusations to further escalate hostilities.

dmingod666 4y ago

Just last week Putin was saying "we want to keep selling gas", like in quite a desperate tone, "just lift the sanctions on NS2, we want to keep seeling gas." Watch his press conference at the SCO summit it's 10-15 mis long. Now is the time to use his bargaining chip when Germany will be desperate, why will someone make their own position weaker at the time when they can extract the most leverage, that too for no reason - destroy their own property and that too go all the way up to an area where NATO was doing naval exercises a few months ago and risk confrontation with NATO..

margarina72 4y ago

Gas was providing Russia a strong leverage in its relationship with Europe. This leverage is now gone. It will only make the whole region more unstable, more dependent on other international powers. Friendly backstabbing from your allies is not something unheard of. This winter people will die of cold, because somebody needed to make a point and get everyone on board. Politics can be harsh sometime, but you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

knodi123 4y ago
> but you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs. That's such a benign metaphor that it barely even fits. Saying "you can't make an international peace treaty without murdering a bunch of random vulnerable innocents", and it sounds properly gruesome, although I admit it doesn't roll as trippingly off the tongue.
csomar 4y ago
Are they really your allies? The US has blocked flights from Europe during the coronavirus for a long time. At some point, it was possible to go from North Africa, through Turkey to the USA. But people from Europe could not do that; and that's after the coronavirus pandemic was worse in the US. I think people are delusional if they think the US is Europe best ally. It's not. And they (the US) clearly see Europe as a threat to their rule-based world order.

politician 4y ago

It’s highly probable that this is a strategic response to Putin’s increasing rhetoric about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

randomsearch 4y ago
Yes. I think it’s the USA. They were furious about this pipeline and angry at Germany for their dependence on Russian gas. This turns Europe away from Russia and sends a strong signal. It removes a carrot Russia would wave to Europe. It’s under the cover of a messy situation. It sends a warning sign to Russia about nuclear weapons. The US could wipe out all energy exports and destroy the Russian economy without deploying a single nuke.
- euroderf 4y ago
  A rogue CIA unit teaching Europe AND Russia a lesson.

eternalban 4y ago

hackerlight 4y ago

It's so easy to spin a just so story around incentives to think anyone is responsible. US did it because their gas industry want to sell to Europe, and also Biden was clipped saying he can stop NS2. Russia did it because the repair costs are low and hence the distrust propaganda value is worth that cost, and because EU is going to stop buying their gas anyway so may as well capitalize on the sunk cost. Forgetting incentives for a minute and instead looking at recent patterns of behavior and reckless disregard for both others as well as self-preservation, my default assumption is that Russia did it. This is the best lens to use when the incentive picture is murky, because it clearly is murky here.

iLoveOncall 4y ago
What about aliens and illuminati? Pretty sure one of those did it. Also, why is everyone assuming a sabotage and not an accident? The article is short in details...

jprd 4y ago

Prologue: Putina out-maneuvered the Oligarchs that helped re-elect Yeltsin, and once decreed Pres, started to take them off the board when convenient or when inconvenienced. #### Clearly not coincidence, probably not an accident, and aligns rather boringly with earlier KGB inspired, and FSB implemented, Putina tactics to remind Russians of FEAR™ and that he can be Strong for Them (see almost any "Chechen" terrorist attack). Putina (being the current Russian state) isn't going to personally profit from those pipelines short term, so use them as a weapon (all his other ones are evidently shite, or phantom spreadsheet entries). Now EU citizens can see Gas just pissing away in the sea AND at its transmission point (flaring) nightly on TV (TV has special power for him). While they stare directly into the face of a Ned Stark worthy Winter, cold, hungry and dumbfounded as tons of long reliable jobs are furloughed because its too expensive to make things on account of Energy decisions made decades ago. So, now an easily forgotten, mediocre KGB operative, dulled by Dresden and steeled by the hard realities of life in Leningrad (changed back to Saint Petersburg by the time he skulked back from Dresden) put all his chips on the table, didn't know they were counterfeit, and now is doing whatever he can to change the outcome. Just like a former KGB flame-out with heavy gangster influence would. I can't see a path of sane negotiation or de-escalation here while he's in play. Any weakening of EU/NATO stance is going to allow cash infusion that quiets Oligarchs (any left alive) and everyone else in the gov't line of embezzlement, while emboldening Putina. The most tragic (and thusly, Russian) aspect is that he's trying to channel Stalin (in a positive way?) and be that Man of Steel - even using Nazi's as a prop - and just becoming the very boogie man he heard in every story as a wee lad from a nation of people traumatized by the deaths of TWENTY MILLON Soviet citizens. This of course follows not only after, but because of, the un-hinged purging they both initiated on their own, for completely and yet complimentary, paranoid delusions.

Circle1917 4y ago

It's probably too early, but has anyone heard any estimates for how long it should take to repair these pipelines? A credible estimate might help cut through some of the murkiness. * new account by the way

foverzar 4y ago

Trans-Siberian pipeline explosion of 1982, anyone?

zoomablemind 4y ago

For very long decades USSR maintained reputation of a reliable supplier of gas and oil. Russia "inherited" this status after the breakup. However, the first gas war against Ukraine in 2009 already showed that the russian political leadership was ready to trade that status over for the geopolitical gains by using gas supply as a tool of war against Ukraine, against Europe. It worked then to some extent. Sure, why should russia stop? What works should be used again, right? Here it is, now russia is playing the gas supply card again. However, at this time it is clear that by its hostile and deliberate actions russia further damaged its reliable supplier reputation on the European market. Does russia want to give up its influence on that market? Of course, not. It again needs a way to maintain the political pressure yet shift the blame for the reputation damage. Thus, blowing up already non-functioning pipelines serves these purposes. By painting this incident as a mystery, russia will suggest that the supply disruption was beyond its control and not a deliberate choice. Force majeure. Just as it has been making up "technical" reasons for reducing then shuttering the flow via NS-1. Dishonest and obvious, but can still be claimed in court. If anything, the recent arbitrage vs Ukraine's Naftogaz demonstrated such approach in action. Additionally, now only the Ukrainian pipeline still remains however vulnerable. This allows russia to advance the blackmailing should there be more hardships during the winter. Whichever the real reasons are, one thing is fully proven is that russia has consistently used the energy supply as weapons and thus cannot be considered as a reliable and trustworthy member of the market. Whichever country to agree to deal with it will have to bear the longterm consequences of any adverse outcomes on its own (Hungary?).

greyhair 4y ago

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125401980/nord-stream-leaks-explosions-russia-natural-gas-sabotage https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125401980/nord-stream-leaks-... ""leaks""

niklasbuschmann 4y ago

The methane released by this equals roughly 25% of Denmarks annual greenhouse gas emissions, and could be more or less completely avoided by burning. Is there any reason why it is not set on fire?