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Comment by yznovyak | Hacker News Reader

Common theme I've heard here (Kyiv, Ukraine) is that this sabotage is in Putin's direct interest. There are rumours of political infighting among Russia's leaders and that there are several factions trying to seize power, however since there is no clear winner, those guys need powerful allies, EU being a very important one. The idea is that Europe really wants to buy Russian gas, but not from Putin, so if Russia somehow gets a successor, he (or she) would stop the war, blame everything on Putin, beg for lifting of sanction and resuming the trade. Since Europe needs gas they'll gladly agree to this. But if there is no gas, then the potential successor would have much less of a value to offer. Basically with gas on the table the upside is high enough to warrant an attempt of an extremely risky coup, but without the gas it's a much less interesting proposition.

An alternative POV is that somebody (USA?) does not trust Europe/Germany/... to not "relapse" to the "gas needle" when the things get dire.

View on HN

Why is Putin direct interest destroy a source of income and leverage to the country!?!? Now Germany can buy gas from 2 sources: Ukraine and USA. This explanation makes no sense to me.

Just because doing something has a negative outcome it doesn't mean not doing it can't have a worse outcome.

i.e. if a car jacker threatens to shoot you if you don't hand over your car that doesn't mean handing over your car was a great outcome.

In this hypothetical Putin had the choice between having a higher chance of accidentally falling down the stairs/out a window, or weakening his country economically. Putin doesn't mind watching Russia suffer more if it means a better personal outcome for him so the hypothetical choice is easy.

How do you know that Putin is suffering? I think this is really outlandish to say so. Putin is still selling its energy to the largest economies in the world while Europe is stocking up on wood so they dont freeze this winter. I will leave it to your own device to determine whose economy sounds more fragile.

It should be extremely clear that the health of Russia as a country isn't Putin's primary goal. If (and it's a big "if") destroying a source of income or leverage to the country can make Putin safer against assassination and coup attempts, I don't see why he wouldn't do it.

Absolutely. This line of thought actually best explains a lot of things he was doing in the last months and maybe years.

Winning the war in Ukraine, however, is a primary objective. Wasn't his whole plan to energy-starve Europe over the winter until they came crawling back?

The only way Putin has a remote chance of winning the war at this point is if western support stops, destroying the one mechanism that might actually do that seems counterproductive.

Staying alive, and staying in charge, are probably even more primary than winning the war.

I'm not saying I believe this is the cause, mind you. I'm firmly undecided on that one.

This is how I see these events. It's all the product of someone that wants to survive and keep the perks until his death - at all costs.

If there was a greater interest at play Russia would be a very different place, and Ukraine would willingly join their sphere of influence.

“The Dictator’s Handbook” is a great book that argues (convincingly) that countries “act” not in their “own” self-interest but in the self-interest of their leader.

Which is always to stay in power (and maximize their power).

So I agree as short-sighted and bad it would be for Russia to do this, if it helps Putin stay in power right now, it makes sense.

And honestly, who else would do it?

At the scale of countries, the world is anarchy. - Some random Reddit comment that stuck with me

But couldn't he have kept his perks by, you know, not invading Ukraine in the first place?

Emperor has no clothes scenario. Everyone is telling him his army is strong and can steam roll Ukraine. Meanwhile his army consists of untrained men in rain boots whose leadership has no idea how to fight but is really good at stealing everything not nailed down.

Doesn't have a time machine, or else I'm sure by now he would've taken the option of "not invading Ukraine in the first place".

Helps to stay alive and in charge when your economy is still benefiting from the massive revenues the pipleline brings. It's amazing the lengths some people will go to distort reality to fit their preconceptions.

Wow, you really took the Putin Bad Guy theme way out on a limb! Completely devoid of any logic or historical context.

And you didn't add logic and the historical context you feel it's missing, what exactly is the point of your comment then?

I mean, we could also start with basic logic: Who gains from disabling the pipeline? This absurd theory that Putin doesn't benefit from the revenue isn't even worth addressing. On the other hand, Pompeo explicitly stated the US would do "anything" to prevent Nordstream 2 from coming online, Biden alluded to the same: Biden in Feb 2022: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

Q: "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."

Add to that the Polish FM (husband of The Atlantic hack Anne Applebaum) thanking the US for destroying the pipeline on Twitter. Maybe you could try doing your own research-- outside of the security state stenographers like WaPo and Wikipedia.

Like on any crime scene, who profits from the crime?

Well, a few things first:

1- NS1 along NS2 are (were) shutdown and clearly these were not going to re-open, not before the end of the war - not politically acceptable for Putin, even less for Germany

2- The war is going to last for many more months (best case scenario) or a year or two or ... No matter how long it will really last, Europe, after having survived Winter 2022 will not be reliant to Russian gas anymore. It's clear to everyone that NS1 / NS2 will likely never re-open again.

3- Based on #2, you can assume that NS2 like NS1 are just dead ...

So again, who profits from the crime?

1- USA: why would they take the risk to destroy the pipeline knowing Germans won't buy Russian gas in the foreseeable future? Their utmost priority is that Ukraine defeats Russia to send a strong message to China. They can't care less about NS2 at the moment, but they care most about unity among western countries, that's how Russia will lose and that's how they will win. Of course, Germany becoming dependent on US gas is a good thing for them, but it's not really a strategic objective, at most tactical ...

2- Russia: they are losing the war and now throwing conscripts with not a day of training on the front. That's pretty desperate move to say the least. Whenever they escalate, they see that as a chance to break unity among the west. Blowing up their (now useless) pipeline is in line with another desperate move: at least try to make something useful out of it. If Russia loses the war, Putin is just dead (at least politically). He can't care less about Russia economy at the moment.

3- Eastern Europe: their hate for Russia is very strong and they obviously welcome such a move. But like for the US, they want very hard Ukraine to win, and blowing up such a pipeline is not clear the immediate benefit. Besides, it's still a risky operation and it's not clear whether they just have the capacity to carry out such an operation without taking the risk of being detected.

1. NS1 and/or NS2 were ready to reopen according to Putin if Europe were to lift sanctions.

2. EU is trying to stop being reliant on Russian gas, so far it isn't fait accompli.

3. Based on 1+2 we could assume someone wants to push EU as far away from Russia as possible as fast as possible(regarding gas supplying, to be clear)

So again, who profits and has the means to do accomplish such feat: 1. USA: very vocal against NS2, wouldn't be affected by such destruction of foreign infrastructure, stands to gain when adversaries lose. Germany becoming dependent on US gas is a massive bonus. Imagine being able to control EU's largest economy on a whim.

2. Russia: assuming they would want to destroy the pipes, and not the much easier land infrastructure, why not let the world know about it ASAP?

3. Eastern Europe: only Poland has the means and maybe motivation to do so.

China benefits greatly, Russian oil and gas now have only one reliable buyer for the foreseeable future. Invading Taiwan is now easier since blockading the shipping lanes from the ME will have little impact on the Chinese war machine if they get reliable oil from Russia.

Except Russia has no east west gas or oil transmission infrastructure. Whatever they extract from the west they need to export west, and whatever they extract in the east must go east

How long does it take to build a West to east pipeline

You forgot about all the other pipelines from Russia to Europe.

> has the means and maybe motivation to do so.

How hard is it to destroy a pipeline? Do you actually need an underwater UAV, or might lowering explosives on a rope and a timer from a small boat do the job?

Remember - water transmits compression waves really well, and the pipe is the only compressible thing around. The sea there is only 200 meters deep, so lowering it on a rope at slack tide and with a good GPS on the boat, I'd imagine you'd be able to get explosives landing within 10 meters or so of the pipe.

Relatively hard to get right. You have to deploy a ship (maybe merchant ship) and a specialized crew to the actual location, undetected, at the right time. A lot can go wrong.

I suppose Austria, Hungary, Romania, Czechia, et al do not have the resources to pull this off. Remember, it's only been a couple of months that this gas stand-off is this tense. The only countries in Europe who have the means to act fast on this are the UK, France, Italy, Spain, maybe Greece (I don't think any of them would do it - there's no reason for it whatsoever), and Poland.

Plus the Scandinavian countries.

What about the Baltic countries

> Their [US] utmost priority is that Ukraine defeats Russia to send a strong message to China

Not exactly, as it's a serious double payoff. We want to break Russia too - that's what the Middle East wars have been about (including Syria, Libya and Iraq). We just expected their military to be considerably more potent than it actually is.

> 2- Russia: they are losing the war and now throwing conscripts with not a day of training on the front. That's pretty desperate move to say the least. Whenever they escalate, they see that as a chance to break unity among the west. Blowing up their (now useless) pipeline is in line with another desperate move: at least try to make something useful out of it. If Russia loses the war, Putin is just dead (at least politically). He can't care less about Russia economy at the moment.

Russia isn't losing the war; they have a temporary setback. They have completely won the south but only have ~80k troops total in the country which limits their ability to organizationally maneuver and defensively hold territory simultaneously in the North. The HIMARS introductions has damaged Russia's logistical ability to resupply the large number of arty rounds needed to prosecute an arty heavy war.

Some of the Russian mobilization impacts those with previous military experience, and their reserve forces.

Remember, until this recent collapse in the North, they were rototilling the Ukrainian Army into the ground with Arty each day.

300k conscripts gives them the defensive force they need to hold space, freeing up their Army and Wagner to handle the offensive side of the campaigns.

With new Iranian drones entering the fray, and North Korea potentially entering the campaign to gain combat experience, this is likely to continue a great deal. Because North Korea uses Russian style artillery tactics, they are an instant fold-in to Russia's conventional arty dominant war.

The real question from a combat perspective is whether or not the mobilization of forces will enable the Russian supply lines to better hold.

The biggest gamechanger still on the table is that we haven't seen yet the introduction of true strategic (non-nuclear) weaponry on the Russian side, or, the targetting of Ukrainian infrastructure. The latter is likely to happen soon because the West is exploiting the Russian's soft touch towards seizing Ukrainian territory by sending a nonstop stream of heavy weaponry and resupply.

Uh you might want to look around Lyman and Kherson…

If Russia were supplied with precision weaponry they would be trading casualties more evenly with Ukraine, but they aren't getting anything like HIMARS or Javelins. Most of it falls under sanctions and there's little reason for erstwhile allies and trading partners to help, because they recognize that a Russian loss here is an invitation to plunder what's left of the country. The ability of the world to shrug off loss of Russian energy is directly correlated to Russia's bargaining position here, and now that a major pipeline is down, the issue has been forced.

What the battlefield figures point to is that while Russia can hold a line, it's using much more ammo to do it, and this strains their supply logistics, which are further pressured by long-range missle systems. Adding more troops when you're already supply-constrained means falling back on a Soviet-era strategy of throwing bodies at every problem and, most likely, letting some freeze to death stranded without even entering combat.

However, modern Russia doesn't have the demographics necessary to hold out in a meatgrinder. The Red Army was able to do that successfully because they were drawing from a younger and more agrarian population that could be "born to die". As soon as your draft starts eating into older urbanites with skills, careers, and families, unrest is going to get out of control and put national sovereignty at threat.

There's a reason why modern armies have moved towards a professionalized approach since the mid-20th century: it's a lower-footprint method that sustains high tech industries, and therefore is easier to gain support for. The entire narrative changed when it stopped being a "special military operation" and they announced mobilization: there's no more illusion of it being a professional war.

Russia has over 50k KIA and have lost many thousands of heavy vehicles, aircraft and even battleships. Hundreds of these vehicles are now being used against them by the Ukrainians. Russia may get support from Iran or N. Korea but so what? The support is in the form of equipment generations behind what is being delivered to Ukraine by the US and on tap to arrive from Europe. They are about to send 300k untrained men in as cannon fodder. These men will just be chewed up. Ukraine will definitely experience setbacks but Russia is going to be set back as a regional power for at least a generation. Thousands of men are fleeing Russia to avoid being drafted. Ukraine has reclaimed thousands of square KM of terrain in the last few weeks.

The Russian gas pipelines were just destroyed; meaning that for Europe, yielding to Putin's energy blackmail is not even an option anymore, he has nothing to offer now. They will support Ukraine as they find other energy partners. Italy just secured a source from N. Africa. The US will now become a major energy supplier to Europe, costing the Russians long term. The Russian economy is flailing and they cannot even replace parts required to keep their vehicles running.

Most importantly on a global scale, the illusion that they are a near US military peer has been destroyed. Sweden and Finland shrugged at Russian threats and joined NATO. Russia has been exposed as a weak, poorly led military that would get steam rolled by Europe even without US boots on the ground. The united states would obliterate them. The only card they have is nukes, besides that they are weak. Russia likely becomes a vassal state to China.

If this is Russia winning then yes, you are correct.

I stopped reading at "battleships".

Cool, appreciate you letting me know.

> Sweden [...] shrugged at Russian threats and joined NATO.

Alternate take: Russia is behaving so irrationally and dangerously, their actions persuaded the Swedes to break two centuries of neutrality to cozy up with a defensive pact. They could have joined NATO in the 90s when the threat was nil, but instead they maintained their neutrality until things got dicey.

Have you read that book?

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Against-Sweden-Submarine/d...

Some counterpoints: The Ukrainians were fighting with "the army they had", and only recently are new units with new weapons and new training being brought to bear.

The West has near-infinite appetite to provide arms to the Ukraine. Why?

- the military industrial complex gets profit - Putin is a ghoul and disliked throughout all levels of Western governments - there is strong popular support for Ukraine - strategically a strong buffer state of Ukraine neutralizes Russia long term - once Ukraine wins, Belarus will be surrounded by NATO or just-as-good-as-NATO nations, and Lukashenko will be toppled, and a NATO friendly government installed. So that's not just Ukraine as a buffer state, that is the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine. Westernized, trained, militarily capable, integrated with NATO.

The conscripts are useless, have no equipment, and are being delivered to the front for WINTER. They won't have winter equipment. They won't be supplied. Existing forces aren't being supplied. This will be a humanitarian disaster. Supply lines? Russia won't supply them, and that which is sent will be plundered or redirected.

The elite of Russia's armed forces have already been gutted and defeated.

Theses strategic weapons... are they like Russia's air force? What heavy weaponry? The heavy weapons that were sent are destroyed, the artillery is being neutralized by superior HIMARS. Russia knows each escalation of weaponry results in better arms being sent to Ukraine, and a more militarily capable Ukraine in the long run.

Why are you portraying the South as a permanent victory? Were you portraying the North as a permanent victory as well a month ago? Russia's southern victory is temporary. Russia lost the north because they sent all their forces to the South... where 20,000 soldiers reportedly were abandoned or trapped across a river.

And... does Putin have cancer? He does appear increasing ill.

While winter will slow a counterattack, likely it will further devastate Russian morale.

In WWII, the Russian conscripts were trapped between Russian machine guns if they retreated, or annihilation by the Germans. The Ukrainians will accept them as POWs, and provide aid. This is a key difference. What percentage of conscripts will simply surrender as soon as possible?

Russia's soft touch is debatable: is it restraint, or a non-functioning military? So far it appears to be non-functional.

If Russia keeps saber-rattling on nukes, and the west views Ukraine as a functional state, NATO can provide Ukraine with nukes. But I suspect Putin will be toppled if he continues to threaten nuclear armageddon.

> 1- NS1 along NS2 are (were) shutdown and clearly these were not going to re-open, not before the end of the war - not politically acceptable for Putin, even less for Germany.

No, some Germans were asking for NS2. Here is one article after a very quick search from 8/19: https://www.politico.eu/article/vice-president-of-the-german...

Another:

https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/germanys-kla...

"Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has criticised German leaders' calls to initiate talks regarding Nord Stream 2. "Calls by some German politicians to launch NS2 for a little while and close it later are totally irrational. This resembles drug addiction when a person says “Just one last time!” without realizing the devastating consequences of each “last time”."

So there is political support for German government if they needed it. And it was in play. Important people were tweeting about it. :}

> Not politically acceptable to Putin.

I think he is not happy today, at all. Russians are supposedly running to borders to leave, the famous Operation is a shitzkrieg, his last move is dig in, annex, and hope and pray Medvedev's mad russian act has convinced opposite number psychos over here who are in charge of our end of world weapons that "we are not bluffing".

Imagine the PR if great Uncle Vodya like father christmas opens the pipes to a freezing Germany ("gratis!" Its our gift). Is the German goverment going to say "Nein"?

To sum, you must be joking. This Nord Stream was Russia's ace in the hole. Now it is gone.

There is also China and maybe India. With the pipeline gone for good, Russia has to sell to them. No other market.

But all this speculation depends on how damaged the pipeline is. I haven't seen any info on how long a repair would take.

How long before China and/or India are blamed for this event?

As for timelines, the media is saying several months, if not years.

With the pipeline gone for good

The physical pipeline is still there and mostly fine. Fixing the holes is expensive and requires the right expertise and equipment, but most experts I've seen quoted in the media seem to agree that it could definitely be done within a year, and probably faster, if everybody involved really wanted to.

Edit: Other experts are now claiming that the damage is more substantial and that repairs might not be possible

Well, yeah, but the CEOs of one company in Germany with the hardware and people to do that, and who was also charged with monitoring the pipelines, just died in an unexplained private jet crash two weeks ago.

It's interesting you wrote a very long response and yet you presented no concrete arguments that the US could be behind this.

We can agree that most EU countries will not support such an incident. The only two countries who have the technical capability and the political reasons are the USA and Russia. Both are evil and ready to blow the world for their own gains.

> why would they take the risk to destroy the pipeline knowing Germans won't buy Russian gas in the foreseeable future?

Because they know their "allies" will cave. They've been trying to push them from Russian gas for a long time now but it didn't work.

> Their utmost priority is that Ukraine defeats Russia to send a strong message to China.

They are not trying to send a message to China. They are being engaged in a proxy war with Russia since the cold war. Now things are heating up again as they are closing in on their prey.

That’s because there are no reasons for the US to do it. Europe is staying aligned just fine right now. Germans think Russia is an unreliable business partner, and don’t want to deal with them again. Germany is already expanding LNG port capacity to buy more North American gas. It would be a tremendous risk to be discovered; Denmark could trigger Article 5 against the United States. The US needs to show strength in Asia, not that it’s entangled in European affairs. It’s all too much malarkey for Dark Brandon to tolerate.

> Europe is staying aligned just fine right now.

Sure, right now. When the winter comes and heating bills skyrocket, there will be those in Germany who want to turn the gas back on. Or... would have been. That option is gone now, at least for this winter. That's what the US might have gotten out of it.

> It would be a tremendous risk to be discovered

The US has taken more severe risks before, such as tapping the undersea cables in the territorial waters of their nuclear armed adversary during the Cold War, in principle risking global nuclear annihilation. The primary rule clandestine submarine operations play by is "don't get caught". If the US did it and did it properly, nothing will ever be conclusively pinned on America.

> Denmark could trigger Article 5 against the United States.

Fantasy scenario, get real.

>That’s because there are no reasons for the US to do it.

As said before, it would be to prevent Germany from caving and turning the taps back on in winter when they are desperate for gas.

But why now? There is no wavering at the moment. They could have waited a month or two, to see if it's actually needed, because the downside of discovery is so high. And why does the CIA warn about attacks then? False flag?

Another option is that somebody wanted to plant explosive devices for future use, and something went wrong. Hard to see how both pipelines would blow up then, but maybe a possibility.

If Germany and Russia were about to kick off negotiations to bring nordstream back online then it would all but confirm that an ally did it (probably America). This would be far more likely to happen next month as Germany really starts to suffer.

Whoever did it picked pretty much the perfect time from the perspective of deniability.

> It would be a tremendous risk to be discovered;

This isn't really a counterpoint, since it's all the same risk for every potential suspect.

Your argumentation is missing a crucial event, which threatens USA’s position: The win of a right wing party in Italy. If this trend continues in Europe, then a friendly disposition of Europe towards Russia becomes probable. If this happens, it would threaten the core geopolitical interests of USA. It would also become lonely around the USA.

Its not what I want but an attempt at an unbiased assessment.

Anyone with access to either end of the pipeline had the technical capability to do this. Slip a time bomb into the pipe and have it get pumped out to sea before exploding.

Either end? But the gas flows in one direction only?

It wasn't flowing at all.

You forgot to mention how Russia is supposed to profit from this whole situation.

> Blowing up their (now useless) pipeline is in line with another desperate move: at least try to make something useful out of it

Specifically what?

Isn't it obvious what the advantages would be for Russia?

IF the Russians did it they get ;

1.Blowing up NS1&2 creates more energy and gas uncertainty in Europe in a period where they need to put on the pressure and try to limit military support for Ukraine as they are loosing the war in Ukraine. Its an assertive move.

2.They get to do big power signaling with a direct threat to other infrastructure in the north sea which is significant and all of which supplies Europe with gas.

I would also like to point out that the Russians [unconfirmed but its basically what went down] sank the passenger ferry Estonia with 852 dead because it was used in the transport of stolen military hardware.

So these explosions is not out of the realm of possibility - quite the opposite - I would say that it is basically how the Russians operate - with force.

Norway-Poland gas pipeline opened up on the same day that the N-2 pipeline blew up. Also, those waters are HEAVILY controlled by NATO nations. We all know who benefits here - and it isn't the Russians.

PS: US has blown up Soviet gas pipelines covertly before while condemning the act the same time. Read "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War".

Russia doesn’t really care about Western money anymore. They can’t spend it due to the sanctions anyway.

what? it's paid for in rubles via gazprombank

They absolutely do. The sanctions are very far from impenetrable. They can buy pretty much anything they could before, only at slightly higher prices.

Think about what you're saying here: Vladimir Putin, famously corrupt head of a mafia state, doesn't care about money!

Because Putin's interest is Putin, not Russia.

> Why is Putin direct interest destroy a source of income and leverage to the country!?!?

The logic isn't unreasonable. Nordstream is very clearly NOT a source of income, currently. But it could be, if Putin were deposed. Now the Russian gas interests are stuck with Putin, they don't win anything (in the near term) via a coup.

Add to that that clandestine adventurism like this is very much Putin's MO and not the USA's (we do our adventurism with giant flags and 24/7 news coverage), and... it seems the most reasonable guess.

Really the US doesn't have that much interest here, certainly not enough to provoke further escalation. If Ukraine were to straight up fall to Russia, we'd deal with it. That's what we all assumed was going to happen back in the spring anyway.

> Add to that that clandestine adventurism like this is very much Putin's MO and not the USA's

Clandestine adventurism is not the USA's, really???

> we

Oh, that explains it. Cuz "we" are always the good guys!

He's only wrong about the first half of that.

>Clandestine adventurism is not the USA's, really???

Not this ambitious, no.

  Why is Putin direct interest destroy a source of income and leverage to the country!?!?

Because there's no political will to re-open it for the time being. Pushing the narrative that this was an American action benefits Putin in two ways:

- Spreads discontent in Germany (and elsewhere). While the EU is okay shutting down NS 1+2 for now if things are particularly bad this winter (weather, value against the dollar, inflation) being able to turn on pipeline again is a relief valve. Blowing it up and blaming the Americans makes it easy to push a narrative that lack of independence from America is putting the EU (especially Germany) at risk.

- While it would be really hard to spin an American attack on NS 1+2 as a rationalization for escalating the war (e.g. nukes), it does create a nice narrative that America is actively hurting Russia unfairly. Sanctions are a lot easier to lift than that pipeline is to repair. That kind of narrative could help popularize recruitment.

Look. Russia is already losing their war badly. The Russian draft is wildly unpopular and the US stands to lose a lot by antagonizing the American left (over environmental issues), Germany, and even Russia. If blaming America can help staunch the mass exodus in Russia and undermine NATO unity then blowing up the pipeline is a small price to pay.

This is the classical conspiratorial judo-move. Who does this benefit? It seems to benefit A in every meaningful way, but that's too obvious, so clearly it's B doing it to make A look bad! False flag!

Usually it's Russia doing this kind of rhetorical judo move.

But this clearly benefits Norway, Ukraine, the US and maybe the Baltics in roughly that order, and hurts Russia, Germany and to some extent Netherlands. If you think the US is too noble to play dirty on a powerful European ally, I've got an Airbus to sell you.

Russia has condemned it and called it a terrorist act. The US, conspicuously, has not. At least one prominent US commentator has suggested that the US did it and that this was good.

The sabotage happened in Swedish and Danish waters, not in Russian ones. No evidence implicating Russia has been presented, although we know that the US and allies are much better than Russia at presenting evidence - when they want to.

Russia condemned the attacks the fastest so it must be the Americans! Boris Badenov, you may be on to something yet.

It does sound like a propaganda story, having so many contingent factors and supposition.

Russia could have just turned off the tap.

The sabotage ensures Europe can't back off from the US sanctions now.

Wrecks Germany's economy, thereby eliminating a rival. VW et al are already talking about moving production to the US.

And Biden promised to take care of NS 2 back in February itself.

https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8

This. Amazing how people get caught up in their fantasies and ignore simple facts.

Indeed. The demagoguery in their comments are quite revealing.

The tap was already turned off. I think everyone at the time understood Biden's comments to mean the nordstream 2 pipeline wouldn't be operational because of diplomatic pressure on Germany. And that's exactly what happened, Germany decided not to certify it and it was left functional but not pumping any gas (the current leak was likely just enough to keep the line pressurized).

I also don't think the US sees Germany as a "rival" in this way at all, they are a strong trading partner.

The motivations are not that clear for any actor really. Someone wanted to burn a potential bridge between the EU and Russia, but it's not clear to me why the US would want to lose their biggest carrot (immediately dumping cash into Russia if sanctions were lifted and gas could be bought), or why Russia would want to lose a pipeline they invested so much into, sitting there and just tempting the west to Germany to ease sanctions.

This is tinfoil-haberdashery. No, Biden did not authorize a clandestine attack on Russian infrastructure just to boost the US auto industry, nor did he subtly broadcast his nefarious intent months ago as part of some game to throw red meat to the conspiratorialists, Q-style. The US would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by engaging in such an action, and has absolutely no impetus to since it already currently has the upper hand in the overall geopolitical conflict. The pipeline can be repaired within months, and the sanctions were already going to last for at least that long. It buys the US none of the the things you mention, even in the fantasy world where someone thinks that those would comprise the US's grand strategic goals.

To be clear, with our current information, the sabotage makes sense for nobody, not for the US, not for Russia. The only reason people are attributing it to Russia is because, of all the people currently in the room, Putin is the one acting the most generally irrational. But if we assume irrationality, it could just as easily be any random entity; Iran, or North Korea, or Greenpeace, or mermaids, or the shambling, zombified corpse of Abraham Lincoln.

> it could just as easily be any random entity; Iran, or North Korea, or Greenpeace, or mermaids, or the shambling, zombified corpse of Abraham Lincoln.

Obviously a rhetorical flourish but Iran and North Korea would have substantially less capability for an attack of this nature. It’s not impossible but certainly there are more likely perpetrators.

Putin is acting as irrationally as JFK did during the Cuban missile crisis.

Putin is acting rationally as someone staying in power at all costs to his country.

You just described the Biden regime with elections coming up.

I beg to differ. To at least consider that the sabotage is in US interest, is sound logic.

Of course there are many factors at play and a lot we don’t know.

The arguments in your post carry a hint of denial in them. Read other posts that outline the benefits to the US position after the sabotage, and consider them without bias. Not saying its the only explanation- but the case is worth considering.

I have no particular love for the US government or its foreign policy. At the same time, it is neither "a hint of denial" nor "bias" to reject the above claims as nonsense. There is simply no motive. NATO solidarity is at an all-time high, none of the imaginary economic benefits to the US would be worth jeopardizing that solidarity, especially since the US isn't remotely at any point of desperation. In practice it will achieve nothing (other than an environmental disaster), and even the things people imagine it might be intended to achieve are eye-rollingly petty compared to the US's actual strategic objective right now, which is holding NATO together.

No motive?

Let's see who benefits from this sabotage.

1. Russia doesn't benefit as it disabled their property and removed an important negotiating tool from their portfolio.

2. Germany doesn't benefit for obvious reasons. Now even if they wanted to, they can't try to get gas from Russia.

3. The US on the other hand benefits both by wrecking Germany's industry and opening up a market for their LNG.

4. Ukraine gets to demand more freebies and weapons from NATO. Benefit.

5. NATO gets to dump their own inventory on Ukraine. Benefit.

6. The US weapons manufacturers get new orders. Lots of benefits.

Take a step back and apply some common sense.

> Now even if they wanted to, they can't try to get gas from Russia.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Nord Stream is the largest pipeline, but by no means the only one. Despite the fact that Nord Stream has been shut down for over a month, Germany continued and still continues to buy Russian gas.

> The US on the other hand benefits both by wrecking Germany's industry and opening up a market for their LNG.

Again, you have no idea what you're talking about. The US is a beneficiary of German industry, it has no financial motive to wreck their industry, let alone the geopolitical implications of wrecking the industry of their key ally. And the US has already been selling gas to Europe literally as fast as it can. There's no new market to open up, the status quo continues.

And the last half of your points appear to be completely irrelevant? None of the sabotage here will have any noticeable effect on the war in Ukraine, let alone have the effect of extending it, which is what you appear to be suggesting.

> You have no idea what you're talking about.

And you do? Ad hominem make for great debating skills.

And the other points are lost on you, since you appear to be completely taken in by your regime's propaganda.

It was also in America’s favor for Putin to invade Ukraine, because it strengthened the western alliance.

That doesn’t mean Putin is an agent for America.

> No, Biden did not

What's with the authoritative tone? You have no clue what American submarines have been up to, and if you did know, you'd be breaking the law by telling us anything about it. And it's absurd to pretend that the premise of submarines doing clandestine illegal stuff underwater is an outlandish "Q-style" 'conspiracy'.

Can you point to the commenter here who does know what any nation's subs have been up to, and isn't pulling stuff out of their ass to satisfy their geopolitical soap opera fantasies? What's "absurd" is pretending that a nation state would either need or even want to use submarines for an operation like this; reports indicate that these pipelines are at a depth of 80m, which is well within the depths that professional deep-sea divers regularly access undersea pipelines.

In practice there's not a single state on Earth that benefits from the temporary disabling of this unused pipeline, but of all the states that have something to lose from being discovered as the perpetrator, the US is near the top of the list.

It has nothing to do with the depth. Surface ship diver tenders work great if you don't mind everybody seeing what you're doing. For something like this, it would be stupid.

> In practice there's not a single state on Earth that benefits from the temporary disabling of this unused pipeline,

Severing this tie between Germany and Russia benefits America. If you don't understand this then you haven't been paying attention. Furthermore, doing it in a way that takes the blame off the German government is beneficial to the German government. The German people will be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long run severing this link between their country and Russia will be good in the long run for them and the rest of NATO.

> Furthermore, doing it in a way that takes the blame off the German government is beneficial to the German government.

No, the German government knows it needs to weather the winter, and have been relying (and continue to rely upon) Russian gas to fill their reserves. Their goal was to have their gas reserves filled to 95% capacity by November, and they appear to have been at around 75% before Russia started playing games with Nord Stream 1 last month. Of all the states most negatively impacted by this, Germany is probably #1 (yes, even more than Russia).

"...he (or she)" couldn't help smiling at the instinctive political correctness.

Reminds of of a story about a person from US visiting South Africa and at some point referring to black people in the audience as African Americans.

My university announced an call for applications to an initiative supporting Ukrainian students and one of the bullet points read “impact on Indigenous and minority peoples of Ukraine”

Now Roma aside, the only Ukrainian law about this covers Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaim in occupied Crimea (not even Hutsuls) so basically they wrote the law because EU told them to, and in such a way so they wouldn’t have to lift a finger

Not true.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/28/europe/students-allege-racism...

If the students in question do not possess Ukrainian nationality the scheme at my university wouldn't have covered them.

Online I've seen some takes that America is responsible for this. I get why. America's foreign policy has done and continues to do some appalling things (eg any number of coups). The idea is that the US doesn't want Europe to be reliant on Russian gas or that Russia may be able to use the prospect of that gas (coming into winter) to sway Europe with respect to Ukraine.

I don't buy it. The blowback potential would be enormous. It's also not America's style. Coups? Sure. Unjustified military action? Absolutely. Directly destroying infrastructure of critical importance to supposed allies? I have trouble seeing it.

If this is by human action (which seems entirely possible) then Russia seems the most likely suspect. The counterargument is that why would Russia destroy something that they're dependant on? Sure Russia isn't selling gas today but the possiblity of them selling it in the future has value (to Russia and Europe).

But Russia, like probably every country and certainly the US, is not a monolith. There are competing interests. Putin is reportedly facing dissent for how badly the war in Ukraine is going. Russia has hardline nationalists, those who are anti-war and other factions.

The example I'm reminded of from history is Cortez who 500 years ago upon arriving in South America burned his ships. Why? So there'd be no way out. There could be no mutiny if there was no means of escape.

So sabotaging the pipeline could be to undermine the anti-war movement who might seek to oust Putin and resume trade with Europe. It might well solidify any wavering nationalists. Who knows?

Another theory: Russia is demonstrating a capability. I think that makes less sense.

The question no one asks is "how long does it take to repair a break in the pipeline?"

The whole pipeline is still there, this is damaged sections. This would be a known risk of an undersea pipeline: stuff undersea gets damaged by ships all the time [1].

I would wager, were we in normal circumstances, we'd be talking 6 months. There'd be big money at stake, vital infrastructure, and that's about as long as you've got till winter in Europe normally. We would have spare pipe sections, we've still got all the plant and equipment for putting them in place. Basically, this is not unplanned for event.

But does Russia, Putin specifically, think the pipeline will be of any benefit to them over the next 6 months? If Russia withdraws from Ukraine, sure. But why would that happen? Because Putin has been deposed (and is probably dead) - and the main way to accrue the sort of allies you'd need to do it would be to promise them a bigger cut of the new revenue to the state provided they played ball.

Taking the pipelines out of circulation in the short term cuts off internal negotiating power for would be usurpers for Putin specifically. Which for current day Russia, is the only consideration that matters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamchatka_(ship)

6 months of political bickering over whether we should do it or not is an eternity over turning a valve on an already functional and apparently pressurized pipeline ready to go.

I won't pretend to understand the motivations here but it definitely further drives the wedge between the EU and Russia.

there are overland pipes through ukraine, poland, belarus, czech republic and austria too, so any likely putin usurpers could easily use those. wheres the rational for russia to blow them up really?

those countries didnt want ns2 because it cut out their middle man charges. most likely culprit is any of those countries (cough poland cough)

Russia is currently moving to cut it's remaining gas supply through Ukraine: https://twitter.com/GazpromEN/status/1575021274878791680

That supply, of note, has been running this whole time through the war[1] - but suddenly there is a reason to start breaking contracts right as a bunch of pipelines explode?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-gazprom-keep...

EDIT: Although on closer review, this might be coincidental since it's "just" arguments over payment. Conversely, the timing is a heck of a thing and Russia has escalated payment disputes into "and so we're cutting gas" previously.

Given the ridiculous number of oligarchs getting defenestrated of late, it doesn’t seem Putin has lost his ability to cow them.

The USA would be entirely right not to trust Germany, but the risks of blowback should it be caught would make it too risky, and Biden doesn’t strike me as a gambler, unlike some.

Ukraine would be a good potential suspect but probably doesn’t have the capability. China could also be, turning Russia into a permanent vassal state would have its advantages, but it’s far-fetched.

This reminds me of the persons unknown who have been sabotaging Egyptian undersea fiber optic cables.

> but the risks of blowback should it be caught would make it too risky

It's the same risk for every suspect, so it's not really a counterpoint.

Russia has already been caught lying about serious things without fazing their believers one bit.

Russia, as in Russia? Or Russia as in Putin?

But the risk aversion of each suspect is not the same.

> if Russia somehow gets a successor, he (or she) would stop the war, blame everything on Putin, beg for lifting of sanction and resuming the trade.

If the war stops, deliveries will resume through the overland pipelines, so Nordstream is largely irrelevant so far as Putin's rivals are concerned.

There is Yamal, Brotherhood and Turk Stream - more than enough capacity. I don't think anyone is willing to buy more than 10% from Russian, ever. It's too risky. China is keeping it under 15%.

It seems the CIA had warned Germany about such attacks a few weeks ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/world/europe/cia-nord-str...

PS: All the reasons you mentioned also went through my head when I heard about it and it will be very interesting to see where this leads

How long would it take to repair the pipelines? A few months? Feels like that would scupper this theory.

As long as it takes longer than the end of the winter

There is no way to shut the gas production down for long enough for Europe to transition to renewables, the most they could do would be to cause Europe an immense amount of suffering while everyone rushed in to post-Putin Russia to repair the sabotage.

This is utterly absurd.

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