> There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil ba

> There’s a very straightforward and plausible rationale for Russia (specifically, Putin) to do it: coup-proofing by forced commitment to not turning the oil back on, like breaking your own steering wheel in a game of chicken and throwing it out the window. And there is an even more straightforward debunking of that version: a) these pipelines have nothing to do with oil, they pipe gas b) these pipelines are only a fraction of all the gas transportation infrastructure: there is a huge pipeline in Ukraine that dwarfs NS1/2 combined (and Ukraine happily accepts Russian money as a transportation fee, they've even raised it recently), there is a pipeline in Belarus, there is Yamal, and there is TurkStream.