6 ms·

This is a fascinating mystery. There's at least 4 parties that you can make arguments for/against: Russia For: Plunge Europe into an energy crisis to force c

by treis 4y ago

This is a fascinating mystery. There's at least 4 parties that you can make arguments for/against: Russia For: Plunge Europe into an energy crisis to force concessions in Ukraine Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy. USA For: They've been against the Nords from the beginning and could pull something like this off Against: Big escalation, huge potential blow back from Europe, and economic fallout is bad for the midterm elections Ukraine For: Removes a large source of Russian leverage over Europe Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off and it risks the support from Europe they do have Random European Country For: Lots of them don't like the dependence on Russian energy and many of them have the means Against: Huge escalation with Russia and risks discord amongst the EU

mikece 4y ago
Poland: they hate Russia and Germany and a job like this is well within the capabilities of GROM.
- 0x737368 4y ago
marcinzm 4y ago
The thing about motivations is that there's also the possibility of one party doing this just to have the blame put on another party.
- treis 4y ago
  Seems risky to think you'd be able to get away with this without someone developing some reasonable suspicions. Which makes me lean towards one of the Western parties. Don't think Russia would be able to pull this off without getting caught and if caught you'd think the US would be trumpeting the proof from the roof tops.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    It would be a high risk play but Russia is likely the one to lose the least from it if caught given their current position. Russia is also a nuclear power so even if the US had proof they may not want to escalate the conflict that much. There's also the question of the truth even mattering since in the age of constant online propaganda you can influence enough people to have an impact even if the documented truth is otherwise. Then again the current US administration may feel the risk is worth it for a better chance in the upcoming election.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  This is a classic FSB/KGB propaganda technique ("So you're saying there's a chance" --Kruschev). This is 99.9% the russians.
saiya-jin 4y ago
A speculation - why it couldn't be some private entity with strong political views? Either hired by state actor or not
- m000 4y ago
  Orchestrated by Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the SPECTRE. Why not?
AbrahamParangi 4y ago
My best guess is that it was Russia for internal political reasons aka to remove the ability of Russia to back out and resume business as usual after some concessions. The Russian government not being a monolith, there must be factions who’d like to stop fucking around in Ukraine and get back to printing money pumping gas to Europe. The peace incentive gets much weaker with the destruction of Nord Stream.
EarthIsHome 4y ago
Russia could just turn off the taps instead of blowing it up... Russia spent billions building these pipes to bypass transit fees through other countries. This is not a mystery. The US has the most to gain from this: increase Europe's energy dependence on the US by literally forcing Europe to not use cheap Russian energy
- 0x737368 4y ago
  People got so bought into the "Russia always bad, NATO always good" propaganda line that they have to perform Olympics level mental gymnastic to try and put the square peg into the round hole.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - 0x737368 4y ago
      "genocide" That word you're using, I don't think it means what you think it means.
      - rasz 4y ago
        Bucha Residents Describe 'Systematic' Killings By Russian Troops https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bucha-killings-russia-/31785129.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bucha-killings-russia-/31785... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukraine-bodies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukrain... https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/ https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/ https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/1094234731/possible-mass-graves-near-mariupol-shown-in-satellite-images https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/10942347...
        0x737368 4y ago
        And gronkels describe greckels as schlongusses. I will quote another poster's comment: """ 1) There really were mass graves in Bucha. This was known even before the departure of the Russians and there is a video with burials. But it's also not a secret that in Bucha the Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment that was driving through the streets from artillery. And just as many residential buildings were destroyed - an accompanying zherb. So all these victims are victims of Ukrainian artillery. They are silent about it. But this is a fact. 2) The corpses on the street, obviously defiantly laid out - to create the effect that the city is littered with corpses. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, just think with your head, how could this happen? People stood on the road in different places and the Russians shot them at the same time? That's bullshit. 3) The biggest puncture of propaganda and staging is the statement that there is a satellite image of where the bodies lie on March 11th. And so they had to lie until April 1, that is, 20 days. On the video of the Ukrainians on April 1, there is not even a hint that the bodies have been lying there for 20 days. This is complete nonsense. It turns out that the Russians could not allocate 5 minutes in 20 days to throw these bodies into the truck and take them out if they needed to hide these "terrible crimes" 4) We were shown video from the camera and from one drone. But we don't know when it was filmed. On the camera, two military men are leading people - the Ukrainians could have filmed this on April 1-2, at the same time that they were also staging a general staging with corpses. """ Make your conclusions from this as you will, or keep consuming the propaganda that the media fits you.
kadoban 4y ago
> [Russia] Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy. Europe was _already_ working about as hard as they could on removing their dependence on Russia though. Another way to see this would be that around now might be the last chance for something like this to hurt Europe and still have time to put political pressure on afterwards. If this had been done in the middle of winter, Europe would treat it as an attack and would be on their guard, but now Russia can play political games in the background to destabilize Europe or at least reduce Europe's will to help Ukraine.
Tuna-Fish 4y ago
> Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off This is very wrong. My brother is a technical diver, and after the blast I had a long chat with him about what it would do to achieve this. After going over the location, the estimated amount of explosives needed to break the pipes, and the depth, he came to the conclusion that he could have done it with 2 friends and a budget of ~10k€. This was before these new pictures that paint a picture of a more powerful blast than he assumed, but it is still well within the capability of a bunch of very determined activists. This absolutely didn't need to be a state actor. I came out of the discussion with a newfound appreciation just how fragile a lot of our billion-euro infrastructure is, and how easy it would be to disrupt.
- treis 4y ago
  How is Ukraine getting explosives and divers to Nord stream without being caught? That's the issue. You'd need a fairly sophisticated spy network with experience in covert operations. I don't think Ukraine has that.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    How did Ukraine pull off the truck bomb on the Kerch Bridge then? They clearly have some capability.
    - treis 4y ago
      Who says they did?
      - jcranmer 4y ago
        Both Russia and Ukraine.
        treis 4y ago
        Ukraine says it was a false flag operation: >But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russian forces planned the attack as a pretense to escalate the war in Ukraine. >"The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine," Podolyak told Ukraine's national broadcaster. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-attack-theories https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-atta...
latchkey 4y ago
This story sounded plausible as well... https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
- frenchman_in_ny 4y ago
  I want to believe this explanation (under Occam's Razor), but from the article: "Danish police believe 'powerful explosions' blew *four holes* in the pipe and its newer twin, Nord Stream 2. Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Multiple plugs?
  - latchkey 4y ago
    Just watched one of the videos. I'm not an expert on this at all, but it looks to me like the pipe was blown out from the inside. https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1582292909667516418 https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1582292909667516418
dtech 4y ago
Another thing for Russia, showing that they can and are not afraid to attack such infrastructure of EU countries. It's safe because it's "their" pipeline and cheap if they don't think they would've resumed operation in the future anyway.
poulpy123 4y ago
For Russia, in the against you should add that they mostly owned the pipeline, they could have switch it off without destroying it and destroying it means not being able to use it to sell oil to Western europe against. I can't see any way it would make sense to them, even accounting bad calculation like the Ukraine invasion.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  NS1 was already switched off for about a full month by the time the explosions happened, and NS2 was never put into production (and was unlikely to ever be put into production after Russia invaded Ukraine). One of the theories I've seen espoused is that Russia is basically going "nice pipeline, shame if something happened to it" to the new Norway-Poland pipeline which was inaugurated about the time of the explosion.
- rmu09 4y ago
  Switching it off might involve conractual penalties. Blowing it up and blaming it on whoever can be argued "force majeur".
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    Assuming that Russia aims (or aimed) to (re-)open the pipes one day blowing it up costs far more that those penalties.
- boardwaalk 4y ago
  Thinking of countries as singular, cohesive entities might be over simplified in this case.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stjohnswarts 4y ago
The only one who would do this are the Russians. The risk vs. reward for the other nations (getting caught) is simply too high.

by treis 4y ago

mikece 4y ago

Poland: they hate Russia and Germany and a job like this is well within the capabilities of GROM.

0x737368 4y ago

marcinzm 4y ago

The thing about motivations is that there's also the possibility of one party doing this just to have the blame put on another party.

treis 4y ago
Seems risky to think you'd be able to get away with this without someone developing some reasonable suspicions. Which makes me lean towards one of the Western parties. Don't think Russia would be able to pull this off without getting caught and if caught you'd think the US would be trumpeting the proof from the roof tops.
- marcinzm 4y ago
  It would be a high risk play but Russia is likely the one to lose the least from it if caught given their current position. Russia is also a nuclear power so even if the US had proof they may not want to escalate the conflict that much. There's also the question of the truth even mattering since in the age of constant online propaganda you can influence enough people to have an impact even if the documented truth is otherwise. Then again the current US administration may feel the risk is worth it for a better chance in the upcoming election.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
This is a classic FSB/KGB propaganda technique ("So you're saying there's a chance" --Kruschev). This is 99.9% the russians.

saiya-jin 4y ago

A speculation - why it couldn't be some private entity with strong political views? Either hired by state actor or not

m000 4y ago
Orchestrated by Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the SPECTRE. Why not?

AbrahamParangi 4y ago

My best guess is that it was Russia for internal political reasons aka to remove the ability of Russia to back out and resume business as usual after some concessions. The Russian government not being a monolith, there must be factions who’d like to stop fucking around in Ukraine and get back to printing money pumping gas to Europe. The peace incentive gets much weaker with the destruction of Nord Stream.

EarthIsHome 4y ago

Russia could just turn off the taps instead of blowing it up... Russia spent billions building these pipes to bypass transit fees through other countries. This is not a mystery. The US has the most to gain from this: increase Europe's energy dependence on the US by literally forcing Europe to not use cheap Russian energy

0x737368 4y ago
People got so bought into the "Russia always bad, NATO always good" propaganda line that they have to perform Olympics level mental gymnastic to try and put the square peg into the round hole.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - 0x737368 4y ago
    "genocide" That word you're using, I don't think it means what you think it means.
    - rasz 4y ago
      Bucha Residents Describe 'Systematic' Killings By Russian Troops https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bucha-killings-russia-/31785129.html https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-bucha-killings-russia-/31785... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukraine-bodies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukrain... https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/ https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/ https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/1094234731/possible-mass-graves-near-mariupol-shown-in-satellite-images https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/10942347...
      - 0x737368 4y ago
        And gronkels describe greckels as schlongusses. I will quote another poster's comment: """ 1) There really were mass graves in Bucha. This was known even before the departure of the Russians and there is a video with burials. But it's also not a secret that in Bucha the Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment that was driving through the streets from artillery. And just as many residential buildings were destroyed - an accompanying zherb. So all these victims are victims of Ukrainian artillery. They are silent about it. But this is a fact. 2) The corpses on the street, obviously defiantly laid out - to create the effect that the city is littered with corpses. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, just think with your head, how could this happen? People stood on the road in different places and the Russians shot them at the same time? That's bullshit. 3) The biggest puncture of propaganda and staging is the statement that there is a satellite image of where the bodies lie on March 11th. And so they had to lie until April 1, that is, 20 days. On the video of the Ukrainians on April 1, there is not even a hint that the bodies have been lying there for 20 days. This is complete nonsense. It turns out that the Russians could not allocate 5 minutes in 20 days to throw these bodies into the truck and take them out if they needed to hide these "terrible crimes" 4) We were shown video from the camera and from one drone. But we don't know when it was filmed. On the camera, two military men are leading people - the Ukrainians could have filmed this on April 1-2, at the same time that they were also staging a general staging with corpses. """ Make your conclusions from this as you will, or keep consuming the propaganda that the media fits you.

kadoban 4y ago

> [Russia] Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy. Europe was _already_ working about as hard as they could on removing their dependence on Russia though. Another way to see this would be that around now might be the last chance for something like this to hurt Europe and still have time to put political pressure on afterwards. If this had been done in the middle of winter, Europe would treat it as an attack and would be on their guard, but now Russia can play political games in the background to destabilize Europe or at least reduce Europe's will to help Ukraine.

Tuna-Fish 4y ago

> Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off This is very wrong. My brother is a technical diver, and after the blast I had a long chat with him about what it would do to achieve this. After going over the location, the estimated amount of explosives needed to break the pipes, and the depth, he came to the conclusion that he could have done it with 2 friends and a budget of ~10k€. This was before these new pictures that paint a picture of a more powerful blast than he assumed, but it is still well within the capability of a bunch of very determined activists. This absolutely didn't need to be a state actor. I came out of the discussion with a newfound appreciation just how fragile a lot of our billion-euro infrastructure is, and how easy it would be to disrupt.

treis 4y ago
How is Ukraine getting explosives and divers to Nord stream without being caught? That's the issue. You'd need a fairly sophisticated spy network with experience in covert operations. I don't think Ukraine has that.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  How did Ukraine pull off the truck bomb on the Kerch Bridge then? They clearly have some capability.
  - treis 4y ago
    Who says they did?
    - jcranmer 4y ago
      Both Russia and Ukraine.
      - treis 4y ago
        Ukraine says it was a false flag operation: >But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russian forces planned the attack as a pretense to escalate the war in Ukraine. >"The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine," Podolyak told Ukraine's national broadcaster. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-attack-theories https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-atta...

latchkey 4y ago

This story sounded plausible as well... https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html

frenchman_in_ny 4y ago
I want to believe this explanation (under Occam's Razor), but from the article: "Danish police believe 'powerful explosions' blew *four holes* in the pipe and its newer twin, Nord Stream 2. Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
- latchkey 4y ago
  Multiple plugs?
- latchkey 4y ago
  Just watched one of the videos. I'm not an expert on this at all, but it looks to me like the pipe was blown out from the inside. https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1582292909667516418 https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1582292909667516418

dtech 4y ago

Another thing for Russia, showing that they can and are not afraid to attack such infrastructure of EU countries. It's safe because it's "their" pipeline and cheap if they don't think they would've resumed operation in the future anyway.

poulpy123 4y ago

For Russia, in the against you should add that they mostly owned the pipeline, they could have switch it off without destroying it and destroying it means not being able to use it to sell oil to Western europe against. I can't see any way it would make sense to them, even accounting bad calculation like the Ukraine invasion.

jcranmer 4y ago
NS1 was already switched off for about a full month by the time the explosions happened, and NS2 was never put into production (and was unlikely to ever be put into production after Russia invaded Ukraine). One of the theories I've seen espoused is that Russia is basically going "nice pipeline, shame if something happened to it" to the new Norway-Poland pipeline which was inaugurated about the time of the explosion.
rmu09 4y ago
Switching it off might involve conractual penalties. Blowing it up and blaming it on whoever can be argued "force majeur".
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  Assuming that Russia aims (or aimed) to (re-)open the pipes one day blowing it up costs far more that those penalties.
boardwaalk 4y ago
Thinking of countries as singular, cohesive entities might be over simplified in this case.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stjohnswarts 4y ago

The only one who would do this are the Russians. The risk vs. reward for the other nations (getting caught) is simply too high.