5 ms·

Finnish Government to Make Announcement on Gas Pipeline Leak in Gulf of Finland

72 points by jruohonen 3y ago

miohtama 3y ago
This is the pipe that connects Finland and Estonia. Russia is suspected. Wikipedia page on the pipe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  I wished people would have learned to be a bit more careful, after the false allegations against Russia in the NordStream bombings.
  - jusssi 3y ago
    > false allegations against Russia Only way to know they're false is if you know who actually did it. Do you?
    - dmichulke 3y ago
      There's also cui bono. How would Russia benefit from destroying pipelines that it can just turn off? It's like burning bridges for no reason, so game-theoretically speaking it doesn't make much sense.
      - SSLy 3y ago
        It also might have been a play by putin to weaken/put in line his gazprom cronies.
      - Pyramus 3y ago
        You are not wrong, but as always, reality is more nuanced than assigning utilities to a game. Russia would benefit in two ways: a) Sending a message about capabilities and willingness to attack infrastructure (in NATO countries!), b) Sowing distrust and misinformation (see e.g. Hersh article and US-Germany relations). If you believe (big if!) Hersh's single source was a Russian asset, then b) worked wonderfully. Overall I'm with you, current evidence doesn't point towards Russia.
      - mastax 3y ago
        - Panic in the gas market causing rising prices - Causes accusations between NATO members - An attempt to claim force majeure to get out of their gas contract with Germany so that Germany can't seize their frozen Russian funds for non delivery. Also, one shouldn't assume that an apparatus which blundered its way into this costly Ukraine quagmire for no benefit is acting 100% rationally.
      - T-A 3y ago
        A commonly missed detail is that only one of the two Nordstream 2 pipes was blown up. After the event, Putin reiterated that he was "ready" to resume gas deliveries, if only the EU would play ball: https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/12/president-putin-tells-europe-hes-ready-to-resume-gas-supplies https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/12/president-putin-tells-eu... This followed a crescendo of Russian shutdowns of Nordstream 1, all "explained" with blatant excuses, https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87837 https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87837 https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-nothing-stands-in-the-way-of-russia-delivering-gas-to-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-nothing-stands-i... Blowing up one of the Nordstream 2 pipes was the remaining way to put even more pressure on Germany ahead of the heating season. Germany had already decided not to certify Nordstream 2, so from Russia's point of view there was only economic upside to whacking it: a finite chance of Germany caving vs both pipelines remaining unused for the foreseeable future. On top of that, there was an obvious security-related upside. By demonstrating the vulnerability of Western energy and communications infrastructure, the event delivered a not-so-subtle threat. The choice of locations was also "interesting": in the economic zone of NATO candidate Sweden, close to its electric cable to Poland, and in the economic zone of Denmark, close to the new pipeline from Norway to Poland.
      - have_faith 3y ago
        Game theory goes out of the window when considering the actions of megalomaniacs.
  - brvsft 3y ago
    As far as I know, they never figured out who did that. Could have been Russia although the reasoning seems absurd, with excuses like, Putin is so crazy he would blow up his own pipeline. Anyway, the fact that they just threw an accusation like that, widely in the media, and never bothered to definitively conclude an investigation into the cause puts all "pipeline" news into boy-who-cried-wolf territory for me. (Enjoy that sentence.)
    - troyvit 3y ago
      Der Spiegel[1][2] and Washington Post would like a word with you ... I can't speak for the rest of "the media," but what I remember was a different narrative, more along the lines of, "This sounds like something that Russia would do, but it really only hurts Russia, so maybe they didn't. Hey look at that new shiny story over there ..."[3] Der Spiegel stuck with the story and is convinced it was "Ukraine," but it isn't clear to me if they mean Ukraine the state or Ukrainian citizens with a bunch of explosives and a yacht. Which, I'm sorry, I know natural gas is important, but what fun I want to see the movie. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th... [2] https://archive.ph/20230526120614/https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nord-stream-anschlaege-hinweise-auf-ukrainische-taeter-verdichten-sich-a-b176fd6b-1258-47dc-99bb-6e9db544908e https://archive.ph/20230526120614/https://www.spiegel.de/pol... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage#Speculations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...
- Etheryte 3y ago
  So far I haven't seen anything indicating Russian involvement, both seismologists and the navy have confirmed that they haven't detected anything that indicates sabotage. Has there been any additional information after those?
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Literally the article
    - Etheryte 3y ago
      The article states one unnamed policy source, whereas the navy and seismologists have made public, named, specific statements. That's why I'm asking if there's anything of substance beyond she-said-he-said.
  - T-A 3y ago
    They haven't detected an explosion. There are other ways to break a pipeline.
    - Etheryte 3y ago
      No one is arguing that. I've asked a question of whether there's more concrete, factual information and so far it seems the answer is no.
    - kledru 3y ago
      "NORSAR have detected a probable explosion along the Finnish coast of the Baltic Sea at 01:20 (local time in Finland) on 8th October 2023. /.../ The local magnitude of the event has been estimated at 1.0, which is much lower than the Nord Stream explosion detected in September 2022." https://www.jordskjelv.no/meldinger/seismic-signal-detected-in-vicinity-of-gas-pipelines-in-the-eastern-baltic-sea https://www.jordskjelv.no/meldinger/seismic-signal-detected-...
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  A newspaper is publishing that 'government sources' suspect Russia, there's a press conference at 17:30 Finnish time https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/07fa3666-2804-4d9a-98c1-91a3056e2995 https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/07fa3666-2804-4d9a-98c... (in Finnish) > "Although much is to be determined, in mid-Sep @gapinskimj wrote in our Kaliningrad Military Digest about the Russian Sibiryakov hydrographic survey vessel's movements near the Balticconnector. We're not pointing fingers, but it's highly likely that Russians surveyed the pipe" https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1711388016000827427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1711388016000827427%7Ctwgr%5E68c27c5ecafca0c9ffd60dcb31f33f3a3efde2ad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iltalehti.fi%2Fulkomaat%2Fa%2Fee5d736c-d584-4a2c-9aa2-f275936c1215 https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1711388016000827427...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ramesh31 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dralley 3y ago
    The Baltics are not that deep, plenty of actors could have the physical capability to do this. However I agree that Russia is most likely in this case.
  - chinathrow 3y ago
    Come again?
  - nabla9 3y ago
    Anyone could do it. Small fishing ship with a winch is only thing you need to target shallow water pipelines.
    - ramesh31 3y ago
      >Small fishing ship with a winch is only thing you need to target shallow water pipelines. This is absurd. The Baltic is the most heavily monitored body of water on earth. It would be captured plain as day on satellite, radar, and acoustic data if this was done from the surface. The only possibility is submarine sabotage, of which Russia maintains the most advanced known capabilities in the world, and is the only such entity with a possible motive.
kledru 3y ago
"In addition, there is damage to the communication cable between the countries." (same source)
desireco42 3y ago
You should check the comments after the article there... It seems that things are not quite as article makes it to be... there was no explosion nor there is any reason to point fingers... I get in the forums people would say all kinds of things, but for government officials, you would think they would know not to talk before they know for sure....
- kledru 3y ago
  Niinistö, president of Finland: "The damage to the underwater infrastructure has been taken seriously and its causes have been investigated since Sunday. The state administration has been closely informed about the situation. It is likely that the damage to both the gas pipe and the communication cable is the result of external activity. The cause of the damage is not yet clear, the investigation continues in cooperation between Finland and Estonia. We are also in constant contact with our allies and partners. I had a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today. NATO is ready to assist in investigations. Finland is prepared and our preparedness is good. These events have no effect on our security of service." https://twitter.com/niinisto/status/1711728052378480768 https://twitter.com/niinisto/status/1711728052378480768
Gravityloss 3y ago
There's so many angles. As we know, there's no Russian pipeline gas sales. Estonia and Finland were building floating LNG terminals, one in each country but also collaborating. It is expensive. A floating LNG terminal is basically a rented LNG tanker that has gasification equipment onboard. It's next to a pier with a natural gas pipe. In the end it was placed in Finland. The Estonian terminal construction was halted. Tanker is rented from USA. LNG is brought to the floating terminal, gasified, put to pipe network. There's this pipe between Finland and Estonia too. Finland actually buys and ships the LNG for the terminal from ... Russia! This is because of existing contracts that can't be breached because there's no EU wide sanction for LNG buying from Russia. Finland does not heat any houses with gas (There was a little bit in district heating). Also Finland has energy abundance since Olkiluoto 3 coming online and massive amounts of wind built in the last years. Also hydro and great grid connections to Sweden, Norway and Estonia. I think there has been very little use for the LNG in Finland. Estonia is still grid connected to Finland and grid and gas connected to Latvia. Closest LNG terminal in the pipeline network is in Klaipeda, Lithuania. There's also the aborted LNG terminal in Estonia's Paldiski that's relatively far along. So the real target of this attack could be Estonia and Baltic states in general.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Baltic states are trying to decouple from Russia's electrical grid [1]. Latvia wants to move fast, Estonia is asking for more time. Concerningly, Estonia signed an agreement recently with Finland for a new submarine cable ("Estlink 3") to import more power (as Finland has an excess due to their new nuclear generator recently coming online, current interconnector runs maxed out most of the time at ~1GW). This infra may be at go forward risk from Russia, making the investment questionable at this time (unless the route and burial depth can sufficiently defend against a nation state threat actor). [1] https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-from-russia/a-66423868 https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-fr...
  - argulane 3y ago
    The Russian electrical grid decoupling is mostly standing behind in building enought Synchronous condensers to keep the Baltic grid stable. Estonias first SysCon was turned on this summer https://news.err.ee/1608976037/elering-launches-estonia-s-first-synchronous-condenser https://news.err.ee/1608976037/elering-launches-estonia-s-fi...
sourcegrift 3y ago
Whoever sabotaged Nordstream really opened a can of worms. Now there is nothing safe sadly. There was no need to sabotage it, it's actually an attack on Germany's sovereignty. Germany could have just not taken delivery.
- didgeoridoo 3y ago
  Germany probably could not refuse delivery without political fallout from increased gas prices, right? It could have been a “Cortés burning the ships” moment, with elements inside NATO (maybe even within the German government) cutting off Russian gas irrevocably in order to prevent domestic considerations from influencing German decision makers. The story of “Russians so crazy they blew up their own pipeline that gave them huge cash flows plus undue influence on European politics” just makes absolutely no sense to me.
  - themgt 3y ago
    It's widely forgotten but the Nord Stream attackers actually messed up and missed the Nord Stream 2B pipe, so in fact to this day Germany is refusing gas delivery. The B pipe of Nord Stream 2, meanwhile, wasn't harmed at all – and could easily be put into use even today. But why did the perpetrators leave one of the four pipes undamaged? There are some indications that the saboteurs confused the A and B pipes of Nord Stream 2 in the darkness and unintentionally attacked the same pipe twice. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th...
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    It makes sense if Russians were contractually required to deliver the gas, but couldn't benefit from it due to sanctions.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    At the time of the explosion, the pipeline was not delivering any gas; Russia never turned the pipeline back on after they shutdown for summer maintenance.
boringg 3y ago
Ahh the pre-announcement to the announcement. Generate maximum amount of attention
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  In general I agree. But if you're going to hold a news conference, if you want anyone to show up, you have to tell people when the news conference will be.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bemmu 3y ago
Here's what was said at the official press conference. Prime minister says it is considered not possible to be a normal fault, but that it is "because of external influence". No effect on Finnish needs for gas or communication. The Finnish Border Guard said that the damage was clearly not just a normal leak. National Bureau of Investigation is suggesting one might call it "aggravated vandalism". Finnish Transport and Communications Agency says communication cable cut has no impact whatsoever as they have failovers. Reporter questions: Q: Was it Russia? A: Will not speculate. Q: What will you do next? A: Gather evidence at the scene, see if there is a connection between the two connections being cut. Q: How far are the damaged spots from each other? A: The cables are not right next to each other, but in the overall same area. Q: How large is the damage? A: Large enough that it is clearly intentional damage. Q: Did you see any ships or quakes? A: No explosion-like quakes. There is always a lot of traffic in the area. Q: Heard there was a Russian research vessel called Sibiryakov in that area in September? A: Will not comment, there are always many ships of different origin in the area. Q: Is there a growing military threat near the Finnish border after the incident? A: No. Q: Is it clearly an explosion or could it be something else? A: It looks like it was not an explosion. It is currently difficult to investigate because of the conditions at sea. Q: What does it mean that your "current responsiveness is elevated"? A: No we are operating as normal, but we are just paying some extra attention to these connections. Will not give details in what way. The press conference is now over.
- miohtama 3y ago
  > Was it Russia? Who else it would be? Germany? It's retaliation for Finland joining NATO.
dsab 3y ago
[flagged]
leke 3y ago
There's talk of Russia wanting to start conflicts with the northern NATO members. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-prepares-for-possible-conflicts-with-nato-countries-in-the-north-isw/ar-AA1hUH6K https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-prepares-for-poss... I hope this isn't the start of some campaign.

72 points by jruohonen 3y ago

This is the pipe that connects Finland and Estonia. Russia is suspected. Wikipedia page on the pipe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
I wished people would have learned to be a bit more careful, after the false allegations against Russia in the NordStream bombings.
- jusssi 3y ago
  > false allegations against Russia Only way to know they're false is if you know who actually did it. Do you?
  - dmichulke 3y ago
    There's also cui bono. How would Russia benefit from destroying pipelines that it can just turn off? It's like burning bridges for no reason, so game-theoretically speaking it doesn't make much sense.
    - SSLy 3y ago
      It also might have been a play by putin to weaken/put in line his gazprom cronies.
    - Pyramus 3y ago
      You are not wrong, but as always, reality is more nuanced than assigning utilities to a game. Russia would benefit in two ways: a) Sending a message about capabilities and willingness to attack infrastructure (in NATO countries!), b) Sowing distrust and misinformation (see e.g. Hersh article and US-Germany relations). If you believe (big if!) Hersh's single source was a Russian asset, then b) worked wonderfully. Overall I'm with you, current evidence doesn't point towards Russia.
    - mastax 3y ago
      - Panic in the gas market causing rising prices - Causes accusations between NATO members - An attempt to claim force majeure to get out of their gas contract with Germany so that Germany can't seize their frozen Russian funds for non delivery. Also, one shouldn't assume that an apparatus which blundered its way into this costly Ukraine quagmire for no benefit is acting 100% rationally.
    - T-A 3y ago
      A commonly missed detail is that only one of the two Nordstream 2 pipes was blown up. After the event, Putin reiterated that he was "ready" to resume gas deliveries, if only the EU would play ball: https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/12/president-putin-tells-europe-hes-ready-to-resume-gas-supplies https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/12/president-putin-tells-eu... This followed a crescendo of Russian shutdowns of Nordstream 1, all "explained" with blatant excuses, https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87837 https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/87837 https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-nothing-stands-in-the-way-of-russia-delivering-gas-to-europe/ https://www.politico.eu/article/olaf-scholz-nothing-stands-i... Blowing up one of the Nordstream 2 pipes was the remaining way to put even more pressure on Germany ahead of the heating season. Germany had already decided not to certify Nordstream 2, so from Russia's point of view there was only economic upside to whacking it: a finite chance of Germany caving vs both pipelines remaining unused for the foreseeable future. On top of that, there was an obvious security-related upside. By demonstrating the vulnerability of Western energy and communications infrastructure, the event delivered a not-so-subtle threat. The choice of locations was also "interesting": in the economic zone of NATO candidate Sweden, close to its electric cable to Poland, and in the economic zone of Denmark, close to the new pipeline from Norway to Poland.
    - have_faith 3y ago
      Game theory goes out of the window when considering the actions of megalomaniacs.
- brvsft 3y ago
  As far as I know, they never figured out who did that. Could have been Russia although the reasoning seems absurd, with excuses like, Putin is so crazy he would blow up his own pipeline. Anyway, the fact that they just threw an accusation like that, widely in the media, and never bothered to definitively conclude an investigation into the cause puts all "pipeline" news into boy-who-cried-wolf territory for me. (Enjoy that sentence.)
  - troyvit 3y ago
    Der Spiegel[1][2] and Washington Post would like a word with you ... I can't speak for the rest of "the media," but what I remember was a different narrative, more along the lines of, "This sounds like something that Russia would do, but it really only hurts Russia, so maybe they didn't. Hey look at that new shiny story over there ..."[3] Der Spiegel stuck with the story and is convinced it was "Ukraine," but it isn't clear to me if they mean Ukraine the state or Ukrainian citizens with a bunch of explosives and a yacht. Which, I'm sorry, I know natural gas is important, but what fun I want to see the movie. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th... [2] https://archive.ph/20230526120614/https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nord-stream-anschlaege-hinweise-auf-ukrainische-taeter-verdichten-sich-a-b176fd6b-1258-47dc-99bb-6e9db544908e https://archive.ph/20230526120614/https://www.spiegel.de/pol... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabotage#Speculations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...
Etheryte 3y ago
So far I haven't seen anything indicating Russian involvement, both seismologists and the navy have confirmed that they haven't detected anything that indicates sabotage. Has there been any additional information after those?
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Literally the article
  - Etheryte 3y ago
    The article states one unnamed policy source, whereas the navy and seismologists have made public, named, specific statements. That's why I'm asking if there's anything of substance beyond she-said-he-said.
- T-A 3y ago
  They haven't detected an explosion. There are other ways to break a pipeline.
  - Etheryte 3y ago
    No one is arguing that. I've asked a question of whether there's more concrete, factual information and so far it seems the answer is no.
  - kledru 3y ago
    "NORSAR have detected a probable explosion along the Finnish coast of the Baltic Sea at 01:20 (local time in Finland) on 8th October 2023. /.../ The local magnitude of the event has been estimated at 1.0, which is much lower than the Nord Stream explosion detected in September 2022." https://www.jordskjelv.no/meldinger/seismic-signal-detected-in-vicinity-of-gas-pipelines-in-the-eastern-baltic-sea https://www.jordskjelv.no/meldinger/seismic-signal-detected-...
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
A newspaper is publishing that 'government sources' suspect Russia, there's a press conference at 17:30 Finnish time https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/07fa3666-2804-4d9a-98c1-91a3056e2995 https://www.iltalehti.fi/politiikka/a/07fa3666-2804-4d9a-98c... (in Finnish) > "Although much is to be determined, in mid-Sep @gapinskimj wrote in our Kaliningrad Military Digest about the Russian Sibiryakov hydrographic survey vessel's movements near the Balticconnector. We're not pointing fingers, but it's highly likely that Russians surveyed the pipe" https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1711388016000827427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1711388016000827427%7Ctwgr%5E68c27c5ecafca0c9ffd60dcb31f33f3a3efde2ad%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iltalehti.fi%2Fulkomaat%2Fa%2Fee5d736c-d584-4a2c-9aa2-f275936c1215 https://twitter.com/konrad_muzyka/status/1711388016000827427...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ramesh31 3y ago
[flagged]
- dralley 3y ago
  The Baltics are not that deep, plenty of actors could have the physical capability to do this. However I agree that Russia is most likely in this case.
- chinathrow 3y ago
  Come again?
- nabla9 3y ago
  Anyone could do it. Small fishing ship with a winch is only thing you need to target shallow water pipelines.
  - ramesh31 3y ago
    >Small fishing ship with a winch is only thing you need to target shallow water pipelines. This is absurd. The Baltic is the most heavily monitored body of water on earth. It would be captured plain as day on satellite, radar, and acoustic data if this was done from the surface. The only possibility is submarine sabotage, of which Russia maintains the most advanced known capabilities in the world, and is the only such entity with a possible motive.

kledru 3y ago

"In addition, there is damage to the communication cable between the countries." (same source)

desireco42 3y ago

You should check the comments after the article there... It seems that things are not quite as article makes it to be... there was no explosion nor there is any reason to point fingers... I get in the forums people would say all kinds of things, but for government officials, you would think they would know not to talk before they know for sure....

kledru 3y ago
Niinistö, president of Finland: "The damage to the underwater infrastructure has been taken seriously and its causes have been investigated since Sunday. The state administration has been closely informed about the situation. It is likely that the damage to both the gas pipe and the communication cable is the result of external activity. The cause of the damage is not yet clear, the investigation continues in cooperation between Finland and Estonia. We are also in constant contact with our allies and partners. I had a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today. NATO is ready to assist in investigations. Finland is prepared and our preparedness is good. These events have no effect on our security of service." https://twitter.com/niinisto/status/1711728052378480768 https://twitter.com/niinisto/status/1711728052378480768

Gravityloss 3y ago

There's so many angles. As we know, there's no Russian pipeline gas sales. Estonia and Finland were building floating LNG terminals, one in each country but also collaborating. It is expensive. A floating LNG terminal is basically a rented LNG tanker that has gasification equipment onboard. It's next to a pier with a natural gas pipe. In the end it was placed in Finland. The Estonian terminal construction was halted. Tanker is rented from USA. LNG is brought to the floating terminal, gasified, put to pipe network. There's this pipe between Finland and Estonia too. Finland actually buys and ships the LNG for the terminal from ... Russia! This is because of existing contracts that can't be breached because there's no EU wide sanction for LNG buying from Russia. Finland does not heat any houses with gas (There was a little bit in district heating). Also Finland has energy abundance since Olkiluoto 3 coming online and massive amounts of wind built in the last years. Also hydro and great grid connections to Sweden, Norway and Estonia. I think there has been very little use for the LNG in Finland. Estonia is still grid connected to Finland and grid and gas connected to Latvia. Closest LNG terminal in the pipeline network is in Klaipeda, Lithuania. There's also the aborted LNG terminal in Estonia's Paldiski that's relatively far along. So the real target of this attack could be Estonia and Baltic states in general.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Baltic states are trying to decouple from Russia's electrical grid [1]. Latvia wants to move fast, Estonia is asking for more time. Concerningly, Estonia signed an agreement recently with Finland for a new submarine cable ("Estlink 3") to import more power (as Finland has an excess due to their new nuclear generator recently coming online, current interconnector runs maxed out most of the time at ~1GW). This infra may be at go forward risk from Russia, making the investment questionable at this time (unless the route and burial depth can sufficiently defend against a nation state threat actor). [1] https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-from-russia/a-66423868 https://www.dw.com/en/baltic-states-seek-to-decouple-grid-fr...
- argulane 3y ago
  The Russian electrical grid decoupling is mostly standing behind in building enought Synchronous condensers to keep the Baltic grid stable. Estonias first SysCon was turned on this summer https://news.err.ee/1608976037/elering-launches-estonia-s-first-synchronous-condenser https://news.err.ee/1608976037/elering-launches-estonia-s-fi...

sourcegrift 3y ago

Whoever sabotaged Nordstream really opened a can of worms. Now there is nothing safe sadly. There was no need to sabotage it, it's actually an attack on Germany's sovereignty. Germany could have just not taken delivery.

didgeoridoo 3y ago
Germany probably could not refuse delivery without political fallout from increased gas prices, right? It could have been a “Cortés burning the ships” moment, with elements inside NATO (maybe even within the German government) cutting off Russian gas irrevocably in order to prevent domestic considerations from influencing German decision makers. The story of “Russians so crazy they blew up their own pipeline that gave them huge cash flows plus undue influence on European politics” just makes absolutely no sense to me.
- themgt 3y ago
  It's widely forgotten but the Nord Stream attackers actually messed up and missed the Nord Stream 2B pipe, so in fact to this day Germany is refusing gas delivery. The B pipe of Nord Stream 2, meanwhile, wasn't harmed at all – and could easily be put into use even today. But why did the perpetrators leave one of the four pipes undamaged? There are some indications that the saboteurs confused the A and B pipes of Nord Stream 2 in the darkness and unintentionally attacked the same pipe twice. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778 https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-th...
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  It makes sense if Russians were contractually required to deliver the gas, but couldn't benefit from it due to sanctions.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  At the time of the explosion, the pipeline was not delivering any gas; Russia never turned the pipeline back on after they shutdown for summer maintenance.

boringg 3y ago

Ahh the pre-announcement to the announcement. Generate maximum amount of attention

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
In general I agree. But if you're going to hold a news conference, if you want anyone to show up, you have to tell people when the news conference will be.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bemmu 3y ago

Here's what was said at the official press conference. Prime minister says it is considered not possible to be a normal fault, but that it is "because of external influence". No effect on Finnish needs for gas or communication. The Finnish Border Guard said that the damage was clearly not just a normal leak. National Bureau of Investigation is suggesting one might call it "aggravated vandalism". Finnish Transport and Communications Agency says communication cable cut has no impact whatsoever as they have failovers. Reporter questions: Q: Was it Russia? A: Will not speculate. Q: What will you do next? A: Gather evidence at the scene, see if there is a connection between the two connections being cut. Q: How far are the damaged spots from each other? A: The cables are not right next to each other, but in the overall same area. Q: How large is the damage? A: Large enough that it is clearly intentional damage. Q: Did you see any ships or quakes? A: No explosion-like quakes. There is always a lot of traffic in the area. Q: Heard there was a Russian research vessel called Sibiryakov in that area in September? A: Will not comment, there are always many ships of different origin in the area. Q: Is there a growing military threat near the Finnish border after the incident? A: No. Q: Is it clearly an explosion or could it be something else? A: It looks like it was not an explosion. It is currently difficult to investigate because of the conditions at sea. Q: What does it mean that your "current responsiveness is elevated"? A: No we are operating as normal, but we are just paying some extra attention to these connections. Will not give details in what way. The press conference is now over.

miohtama 3y ago
> Was it Russia? Who else it would be? Germany? It's retaliation for Finland joining NATO.

dsab 3y ago

[flagged]

leke 3y ago

There's talk of Russia wanting to start conflicts with the northern NATO members. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-prepares-for-possible-conflicts-with-nato-countries-in-the-north-isw/ar-AA1hUH6K https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-prepares-for-poss... I hope this isn't the start of some campaign.