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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

by 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.
    - dang 4y ago
      Would you please stop posting flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot lately. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for, so we have to ban such accounts. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - fourstar 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  Incentives don’t align for Russia (lose revenue) and Russia could just turn off the gas if it wanted to. Putin is a wildcard, but still, if he wanted to “teach Europe a lesson” he would just come out and say I’m turning the gas off, freeze to death. Also, Biden promised that they had the capability and desire to take out the pipelines if Russia invaded so there is that. Plus, the US would stand to profit from exporting LNG to Germany.
  - throwrqX 4y ago
    Russia would only be losing potential revenue if the pipelines would be getting used any time soon, which is highly unlikely. They already did turn off the gas, now this just confirms it for the long term, with the added bonus of lots of people immediately blaming the US for it. Middle Eastern nations would benefit far more than the US, which has basically sold all of its capacity for LNG already. The EU is looking to sign LNG deals with those nations, see for example Scholz touring the Gulf region recently.
arisAlexis 4y ago
Russia is looking for all shorts.of excuses to escalate
- gpderetta 4y ago
  I don't think Russia has any interest in escalating.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Putin seems to be taking the approach of sowing as much chaos as possible. A hot war with the west is useful to him to rally the country behind him. Escalation is just another tool.
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      Putin seem to be barely able to wage a war against Ukraine, wanting to drag NATO openly in it seems crazy. And no, I don't buy that Putin is crazy.
      - sidibe 4y ago
        I don't have any idea about who blew up the pipeline but it's clear that Putin sees his only way out of the mess he has put himself in is escalating to the point where western countries are worried enough about the consequences to let him have some kind of concessions in Ukraine. That's not crazy if you see it as your only option.
  - 1ris 4y ago
    They already do so non-stop. So far Putin has always won by escalating and it's his only option now.
  - throwrqX 4y ago
    Russia has every interest in escalating so that the EU backs off from supporting Ukraine. If you watch Russian state tv this is very obvious.
dmos62 4y ago
Goal of the sabotage is to keep Europe in the war. If opening up the gas pipeline were an option, Germany would be tempted to do it, once the heating season starts.
guerrilla 4y ago
The point would depend on who did it. If it was the US, then it was to keep their promise to shut down NS1/2 but after Germany had topped up[1][2]. If it was Russia, then the point is to increase prices by creating volatility through insecurity and to make a threat (they have other pipelines like Yamal that are still running.[3]) If it was some other gas-exporting country (seems unlikely), then likewise, to spike prices. 1. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 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... 3. https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/infographics/gas-pipelines-between-europe-russia-and-caucasia https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/infographics/gas-...
- cm2187 4y ago
  I would think the US would be more subtle than two simultaneous leaks. That looks like an actor who doesn’t care about being identified.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Why would the US care if they were seen as doing it when they already announced that they were going to do it[1]? 1. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662
    - rconti 4y ago
      This would probably be helped by some kind of citation, or at least an explanation of what is meant here.
      - krisoft 4y ago
        It is linked above. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 It is a tweet posted in February 7th by ABC News: Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?" Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that."
BitwiseFool 4y ago
The conspiracy theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.
- tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  Not every theory about conspiracy is a conspiracy theory. Fixed version: > The theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO conspired and sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I don't think Russia had interests in doing it, unless it is for some internal power play. edit: or plausible denial when they won't send gas to Europe this winter. But do they even need the deniability at this point?
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      This is a valid conspiracy.... when it gets cold, people will protest, and demand that their government sits down with putin and make a deal... with the pipes blown, the government can say that they can't do anything, and that it's not their fault.
    - tut-urut-utut 4y ago
      > Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I would prefer to assume governments are somewhat rational actors, who at least try to act in the interest of the own country. In this case, the biggest loser from destroying NS1 and NS2 is Germany, second-biggest Russia and the rest of the Europe, sorted descending by the dependency on Russian gas. As for the winners, we have the USA and Ukraine as biggest immediate winners, and indirectly and in the long-term India, China, Arab countries, ...
krisoft 4y ago
> I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point Pure speculation: A very hard winter is predicted with sky-high energy prices. If people, the economy and industry is suffering one can easily imagine that Germany wavers and opens up the taps. If the pipes are damaged and it will cost a lot to repair and restart the flow that supports those who want to keep the gas flow off and hinders those who wanted to restart it. > surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines I would agree with that. Hard to imagine what would be their point in doing that.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  That's a very Putin-esque thing to do. They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back. The question is whether they trigger article 5 here -- I suspect not, however.
  - krisoft 4y ago
    > They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back. Okay, but how would this particular act accomplish that? Those pipes are the means Russia would be serving the german market after "they come begging back". If Russia wants to starve Germany of gas they can just simply not pump it in the pipe. That simple. No need to blow up their own infra for that.
    - mmastrac 4y ago
      Pipes can be repaired. Russia has been slowing down supplies through the NS1 pipe -- down to 1/10th of Germany's normal supply before halting. [1] [2] Blowing up a pipe that can be repaired to cause friction between allies? That's priceless. The fact that it's cause for speculation on Facebook, Reddit, HN, Twitter, etc shows exactly how disruptive of a move it was. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/a-winter-of-privation-what-the-natural-gas-shortage-means-for-germany-a-0ff0fe91-e05c-4ba9-bd4b-03f00a0b3fdf https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/a-winter-of-pr... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hi... "Neither pipeline was pumping gas to Europe at the time the leaks were found..."
detritus 4y ago
One reason I could imagine Russia herself would do this is because they might assume Nordstream is now an essentially obsolete asset, so has more value in their ability to demonstrate the fragility of OTHER gas pipelines, including the one inaugurated this very day between Norway and Poland. ed: https://twitter.com/ASabadus/status/1574729027570769920 https://twitter.com/ASabadus/status/1574729027570769920 Also, Apparently Norway has recently warned about drone activity near hydrocarbon rigs: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-oil-safety-regulator-warns-threats-unidentified-drones-2022-09-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-oil-safety-re...
- lastofthemojito 4y ago
  Yeah, I assume this is Russia gesturing to that new Norwegian pipeline and saying "nice pipeline, it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it".
- cm2187 4y ago
  Everyone knows they have the capability to do it. What prevents them from doing this is that if they do it, NATO will start sinking russian submarine in the north and baltic seas and we are in a shooting war. So I really don't see the point.
  - detritus 4y ago
    We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.
rufusroflpunch 4y ago
Russia doesn't really stand to gain here. Ukraine and the United States stand to gain the most by removing the option for Europe to capitulate to Russia this winter. Ukraine isn't on the Baltic Sea, but do they need to be? Honestly, I don't know the resources that would be required to accomplish this. Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough? Sections are shallow. (No clue about the blast sites.) With zero information on the extent of the damage beyond measured pressure drops, folks dropping weighted dry bags of dynamite from kayaks is in scope.
  - lastofthemojito 4y ago
    A supposed expert on Twitter claims it is divable: https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710 https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710
    - alecco 4y ago
      This should have its own submission or be at the top of the thread.
- krzyk 4y ago
  The biggest gain is for Russia, remember the long "repair" of NS1? Blocking the filling of gas reserves in Western Europe? Repair here, sabotage there and bam Germany has less gas for winter.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Russia can just close the valve. Germany has an option to talk with russia to make a deal, so russia reopens the valve... some other forces don't want that.
daneel_w 4y ago
> "...surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now." The EU, through von der Leyen, has more or less made it clear that no more gas will ever be bought from Russia, not even if the war would suddenly end today with Russia retreating entirely from Ukraine's territory. The pipelines have been forfeited. People with geopolitical expertise have offered the theory that it may be a "red flag" operation by Russia, granting them some sort of excuse to mobilize in international waters in the Baltic.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > granting them some sort of excuse to mobilize in international waters in the Baltic Russia already has Kaliningrad.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  If people get cold, and ursula doesn't want to negotiate, people will want to replace ursula... This makes it better for her (and many other eu governemnts) since negotiations wont bring back the gas.
belorn 4y ago
Since there is no direct effect (the pipelines has been out of use for a long time), the effect must be indirect. As such we can't know and will likely never know for sure why it happened or by whom. It could be Russia. Russia is the prime suspect in 99% of the cases when there is a hostile military operation on Swedish/Danish water. It isn't like Russia were using the pipelines, and it possible that spinning this as an attack on Russia will result in popularity gains for Putin.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Why would russia want that? People in most of eu are getting angry at their governments and demand some sort of negotiations so the pipes get reopened before people start freezing to death in their homes. With pipes destroyed, even if people get mad, most governments can now just say "there's nothing we can do".
  - trasz 4y ago
    “Freezing to death” is just Putin’s propaganda; even before war Russian gas was about 30% of imports, now it’s no longer necessary at all: 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...
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      So, why are the politicians telling people not to heat their houses above 19°C, to wear sweaters at home, to limit showers to a few minutes and why are eg. steel mills already shutting down in germany?
      - webshit2 4y ago
        Yeah, if a country doesn't have enough gas to keep everyone's house at a comfy 35C, that's like basically the same as everyone freezing to death
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Why don't you include the US and EU as the possible saboteurs? I mean we have the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident as precedence.
- RobinUS2 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Yep, many internal pressures in EU for talks with russia (due to energy prices), and people wanting their poltiicians replaced, because they're the only ones standing between the people and cheap gas. On the other hand, US now can sell overpriced gas to EU while still hurting russia... if the pipes reopen, russia gets money, eu gets gas, US loses overpriced exports. So yeah... us and eu would be my first suspects
- Paradigma11 4y ago
  How is that analogy supposed to work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second_alleged_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second... Yes, the US administration knowingly misrepresented the facts but in the end the only thing that happened was some US ships firing at shadows in the fog they believed to be enemies. Nothing that had not happened before in far more dramatic fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
sidibe 4y ago
The most convincing "Russia did it motive" I've seen so far (and I don't believe it but it's more plausible than other reasons I've seen that Russia would do it) is Putin doesn't want any of the elites around him thinking they can remove him and then get their money flowing quickly again.
hokkos 4y ago
Russia don't want Germany and others to sue Gazprom on international arbitrage for the missing gas volume contractualized on decades and using the frozen russian asset to pay the penalties, so is creating those force majeure using plausible deniability like leaking turbine and now NS1/2
elihu 4y ago
There's a theory I've seen that Russia could have sabotaged Nord Stream to evade breach-of-contract penalties for shutting off gas. I don't know how credible that theory is though, and there are plenty of alternative parties and potential motives. Practically anyone with a boat and a limpet mine could have done this. (Maybe we'll get more clarity as the damage is inspected.)
usrusr 4y ago
Who knows what inner factions are forming, or perhaps are just imagined to form by a paranoid inner inner circle. If the group that considers themselves too deeply invested in the war for reversal believes that there's another group forming around the idea of switching the gas billions back on, the former might very well want to remove that option. Russia has probably been in a civil war for quite a while now, a backroom civil war of the elites with the TV-controlled masses completely uninvolved. Think of all those mysterious hospital windows falls... gas pipeline sabotage fits right in.

by cm2187 4y ago

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.
  - dang 4y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot lately. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for, so we have to ban such accounts. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- fourstar 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
sudden_dystopia 4y ago
Incentives don’t align for Russia (lose revenue) and Russia could just turn off the gas if it wanted to. Putin is a wildcard, but still, if he wanted to “teach Europe a lesson” he would just come out and say I’m turning the gas off, freeze to death. Also, Biden promised that they had the capability and desire to take out the pipelines if Russia invaded so there is that. Plus, the US would stand to profit from exporting LNG to Germany.
- throwrqX 4y ago
  Russia would only be losing potential revenue if the pipelines would be getting used any time soon, which is highly unlikely. They already did turn off the gas, now this just confirms it for the long term, with the added bonus of lots of people immediately blaming the US for it. Middle Eastern nations would benefit far more than the US, which has basically sold all of its capacity for LNG already. The EU is looking to sign LNG deals with those nations, see for example Scholz touring the Gulf region recently.

arisAlexis 4y ago

Russia is looking for all shorts.of excuses to escalate

gpderetta 4y ago
I don't think Russia has any interest in escalating.
- macintux 4y ago
  Putin seems to be taking the approach of sowing as much chaos as possible. A hot war with the west is useful to him to rally the country behind him. Escalation is just another tool.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    Putin seem to be barely able to wage a war against Ukraine, wanting to drag NATO openly in it seems crazy. And no, I don't buy that Putin is crazy.
    - sidibe 4y ago
      I don't have any idea about who blew up the pipeline but it's clear that Putin sees his only way out of the mess he has put himself in is escalating to the point where western countries are worried enough about the consequences to let him have some kind of concessions in Ukraine. That's not crazy if you see it as your only option.
- 1ris 4y ago
  They already do so non-stop. So far Putin has always won by escalating and it's his only option now.
- throwrqX 4y ago
  Russia has every interest in escalating so that the EU backs off from supporting Ukraine. If you watch Russian state tv this is very obvious.

dmos62 4y ago

Goal of the sabotage is to keep Europe in the war. If opening up the gas pipeline were an option, Germany would be tempted to do it, once the heating season starts.

guerrilla 4y ago

The point would depend on who did it. If it was the US, then it was to keep their promise to shut down NS1/2 but after Germany had topped up[1][2]. If it was Russia, then the point is to increase prices by creating volatility through insecurity and to make a threat (they have other pipelines like Yamal that are still running.[3]) If it was some other gas-exporting country (seems unlikely), then likewise, to spike prices. 1. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 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... 3. https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/infographics/gas-pipelines-between-europe-russia-and-caucasia https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/infographics/gas-...

cm2187 4y ago
I would think the US would be more subtle than two simultaneous leaks. That looks like an actor who doesn’t care about being identified.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Why would the US care if they were seen as doing it when they already announced that they were going to do it[1]? 1. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662
  - rconti 4y ago
    This would probably be helped by some kind of citation, or at least an explanation of what is meant here.
    - krisoft 4y ago
      It is linked above. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662 It is a tweet posted in February 7th by ABC News: Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?" Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that."

BitwiseFool 4y ago

The conspiracy theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.

tut-urut-utut 4y ago
Not every theory about conspiracy is a conspiracy theory. Fixed version: > The theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO conspired and sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I don't think Russia had interests in doing it, unless it is for some internal power play. edit: or plausible denial when they won't send gas to Europe this winter. But do they even need the deniability at this point?
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    This is a valid conspiracy.... when it gets cold, people will protest, and demand that their government sits down with putin and make a deal... with the pipes blown, the government can say that they can't do anything, and that it's not their fault.
  - tut-urut-utut 4y ago
    > Even the German government might have done it in a "burn the boats" strategy. I would prefer to assume governments are somewhat rational actors, who at least try to act in the interest of the own country. In this case, the biggest loser from destroying NS1 and NS2 is Germany, second-biggest Russia and the rest of the Europe, sorted descending by the dependency on Russian gas. As for the winners, we have the USA and Ukraine as biggest immediate winners, and indirectly and in the long-term India, China, Arab countries, ...

krisoft 4y ago

> I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point Pure speculation: A very hard winter is predicted with sky-high energy prices. If people, the economy and industry is suffering one can easily imagine that Germany wavers and opens up the taps. If the pipes are damaged and it will cost a lot to repair and restart the flow that supports those who want to keep the gas flow off and hinders those who wanted to restart it. > surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines I would agree with that. Hard to imagine what would be their point in doing that.

mmastrac 4y ago
That's a very Putin-esque thing to do. They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back. The question is whether they trigger article 5 here -- I suspect not, however.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back. Okay, but how would this particular act accomplish that? Those pipes are the means Russia would be serving the german market after "they come begging back". If Russia wants to starve Germany of gas they can just simply not pump it in the pipe. That simple. No need to blow up their own infra for that.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    Pipes can be repaired. Russia has been slowing down supplies through the NS1 pipe -- down to 1/10th of Germany's normal supply before halting. [1] [2] Blowing up a pipe that can be repaired to cause friction between allies? That's priceless. The fact that it's cause for speculation on Facebook, Reddit, HN, Twitter, etc shows exactly how disruptive of a move it was. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/a-winter-of-privation-what-the-natural-gas-shortage-means-for-germany-a-0ff0fe91-e05c-4ba9-bd4b-03f00a0b3fdf https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/a-winter-of-pr... [2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hi... "Neither pipeline was pumping gas to Europe at the time the leaks were found..."

detritus 4y ago

One reason I could imagine Russia herself would do this is because they might assume Nordstream is now an essentially obsolete asset, so has more value in their ability to demonstrate the fragility of OTHER gas pipelines, including the one inaugurated this very day between Norway and Poland. ed: https://twitter.com/ASabadus/status/1574729027570769920 https://twitter.com/ASabadus/status/1574729027570769920 Also, Apparently Norway has recently warned about drone activity near hydrocarbon rigs: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-oil-safety-regulator-warns-threats-unidentified-drones-2022-09-26/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-oil-safety-re...

lastofthemojito 4y ago
Yeah, I assume this is Russia gesturing to that new Norwegian pipeline and saying "nice pipeline, it'd be a shame if something were to happen to it".
cm2187 4y ago
Everyone knows they have the capability to do it. What prevents them from doing this is that if they do it, NATO will start sinking russian submarine in the north and baltic seas and we are in a shooting war. So I really don't see the point.
- detritus 4y ago
  We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.

rufusroflpunch 4y ago

Russia doesn't really stand to gain here. Ukraine and the United States stand to gain the most by removing the option for Europe to capitulate to Russia this winter. Ukraine isn't on the Baltic Sea, but do they need to be? Honestly, I don't know the resources that would be required to accomplish this. Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough? Sections are shallow. (No clue about the blast sites.) With zero information on the extent of the damage beyond measured pressure drops, folks dropping weighted dry bags of dynamite from kayaks is in scope.
- lastofthemojito 4y ago
  A supposed expert on Twitter claims it is divable: https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710 https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710
  - alecco 4y ago
    This should have its own submission or be at the top of the thread.
krzyk 4y ago
The biggest gain is for Russia, remember the long "repair" of NS1? Blocking the filling of gas reserves in Western Europe? Repair here, sabotage there and bam Germany has less gas for winter.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Russia can just close the valve. Germany has an option to talk with russia to make a deal, so russia reopens the valve... some other forces don't want that.

daneel_w 4y ago

> "...surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now." The EU, through von der Leyen, has more or less made it clear that no more gas will ever be bought from Russia, not even if the war would suddenly end today with Russia retreating entirely from Ukraine's territory. The pipelines have been forfeited. People with geopolitical expertise have offered the theory that it may be a "red flag" operation by Russia, granting them some sort of excuse to mobilize in international waters in the Baltic.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> granting them some sort of excuse to mobilize in international waters in the Baltic Russia already has Kaliningrad.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
If people get cold, and ursula doesn't want to negotiate, people will want to replace ursula... This makes it better for her (and many other eu governemnts) since negotiations wont bring back the gas.

belorn 4y ago

Since there is no direct effect (the pipelines has been out of use for a long time), the effect must be indirect. As such we can't know and will likely never know for sure why it happened or by whom. It could be Russia. Russia is the prime suspect in 99% of the cases when there is a hostile military operation on Swedish/Danish water. It isn't like Russia were using the pipelines, and it possible that spinning this as an attack on Russia will result in popularity gains for Putin.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Why would russia want that? People in most of eu are getting angry at their governments and demand some sort of negotiations so the pipes get reopened before people start freezing to death in their homes. With pipes destroyed, even if people get mad, most governments can now just say "there's nothing we can do".
- trasz 4y ago
  “Freezing to death” is just Putin’s propaganda; even before war Russian gas was about 30% of imports, now it’s no longer necessary at all: 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...
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    So, why are the politicians telling people not to heat their houses above 19°C, to wear sweaters at home, to limit showers to a few minutes and why are eg. steel mills already shutting down in germany?
    - webshit2 4y ago
      Yeah, if a country doesn't have enough gas to keep everyone's house at a comfy 35C, that's like basically the same as everyone freezing to death

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FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Why don't you include the US and EU as the possible saboteurs? I mean we have the whole Gulf of Tonkin incident as precedence.

RobinUS2 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Yep, many internal pressures in EU for talks with russia (due to energy prices), and people wanting their poltiicians replaced, because they're the only ones standing between the people and cheap gas. On the other hand, US now can sell overpriced gas to EU while still hurting russia... if the pipes reopen, russia gets money, eu gets gas, US loses overpriced exports. So yeah... us and eu would be my first suspects
Paradigma11 4y ago
How is that analogy supposed to work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second_alleged_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second... Yes, the US administration knowingly misrepresented the facts but in the end the only thing that happened was some US ships firing at shadows in the fog they believed to be enemies. Nothing that had not happened before in far more dramatic fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident

sidibe 4y ago

The most convincing "Russia did it motive" I've seen so far (and I don't believe it but it's more plausible than other reasons I've seen that Russia would do it) is Putin doesn't want any of the elites around him thinking they can remove him and then get their money flowing quickly again.

hokkos 4y ago

Russia don't want Germany and others to sue Gazprom on international arbitrage for the missing gas volume contractualized on decades and using the frozen russian asset to pay the penalties, so is creating those force majeure using plausible deniability like leaking turbine and now NS1/2

elihu 4y ago

There's a theory I've seen that Russia could have sabotaged Nord Stream to evade breach-of-contract penalties for shutting off gas. I don't know how credible that theory is though, and there are plenty of alternative parties and potential motives. Practically anyone with a boat and a limpet mine could have done this. (Maybe we'll get more clarity as the damage is inspected.)

usrusr 4y ago

Who knows what inner factions are forming, or perhaps are just imagined to form by a paranoid inner inner circle. If the group that considers themselves too deeply invested in the war for reversal believes that there's another group forming around the idea of switching the gas billions back on, the former might very well want to remove that option. Russia has probably been in a civil war for quite a while now, a backroom civil war of the elites with the TV-controlled masses completely uninvolved. Think of all those mysterious hospital windows falls... gas pipeline sabotage fits right in.