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Comment by Mordisquitos | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you, it generally makes absolutely no sense for Russia to be behind this (at least not the mainstream Russian state, I have my doubts about their internal unity). What's more, I find the timing of this incident odd, having happened just after the victory in the Italian elections of the far-right, who is somewhat ambivalent towards Putin.

The only conceivable motivation I can come up with for Russia would be a 4D-chess false-flag. If they were to already assume that there's no way the EU will give in to the gas blackmail this winter, blowing up the pipeline and sowing doubt on the US or Ukraine itself being behind it could be a way to divide support for Ukraine. However, it would be an extremely risky and expensive bet with no guarantee of it working.

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>> it generally makes absolutely no sense for Russia to be behind this

Of course it does - Poland is entirely relying on the Norway to Poland gas pipeline, if that goes then a country of 50 million people has no gas this winter. Blowing up the Nordstream was(to me) a clear signal that EU needs to be careful or the Norwegian pipelines are going up next.

Why not then blow up the Norway to Poland gas pipeline itself?

That would be seen as an act of war and would escalate things quicker than Russia thinks it can handle.

You think that blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines would not be seen as an act of war?

No, because it happened in international waters ON THEIR assets.

It didn't happen in international waters. It happened in Danish, Swedish and Finnish waters. Denmark is in NATO.

And everyone in NATO is doing their best to ignore it, because they know where war leads.

People ignore acts of war all the time to keep the peace where nuclear arms are involved.

NS1 and NS2 aren't shipping any gas, and notionally are "Russian": dramatic but no change in the status quo.

Blowing a pipeline between two NATO members which is shipping gas and imperils their population is very different: NATO can't ignore that.

It happened in their "exclusive economic zones", not territorial waters. Very bad, but still leaves some place for manoeuvre.

Because it would be a direct attack on NATO.

The Nord Stream sabotage is not? You know some of the explosions happened on NATO territory, right?

Nord Stream is 51% Russian (Gazprom). Not sure if it is NATO territory or international waters. It still becomes a little bit more "muddy" on who could have made it and who benefits from it.

Attacking Norway-Poland line at this point would be a very obvious and very direct attack on NATO.

This is all motivated thinking with "It's Russia!" as the end goal.

Some of the NS attacks were on NATO territory. Denmark could invoke Article 5 were it found to be Russia. If "NATO" were in the equation, the saboteurs would have stayed in Swedish and Finnish waters, and even then it's iffy.

Russia has already used radioactive poisons and nerve agents on NATO territory, so that little explosion is nothing.

Do you really feel like "send a clear signal that EU needs to be careful or the Norwegian pipelines are going to be next" is a more plausible motivation above "permanently end European reliance on Russian energy"?

tbqf that ship has kind of sailed - it'd be hard for the EU to continue to depend on Russian gas after this war anyways.

OK, let's assume that is the case. Now the EU is very careful about the Norwegian pipeline, and surveillance of this pipeline dramatically increases to defend it from potential Russian sabotage.

What has Russia gained with this?

You can't effectively defend hundreds of kilometers of an underwater pipeline, you can only increase monitoring but that doesn't stop the pipe from being blown up. In fact the charges could have already been placed, before any extra monitoring was deployed, and are just waiting for a signal.

The point being - Russia has sent a very clear message that if we don't stop pushing back on Ukraine, that pipeline is next to blow up. There is almost nothing we can do to prevent it if they want to make it happen.

It's not a clear message if they don't actually say, nor even strongly hint, "Stop pushing back on Ukraine or Baltic Pipe is next!"

No. It would make more sense for Russia to quietly blow up Baltic Pipe and say nothing.

I mean, that's not how Russia operates. They poison government critics abroad using a compound only they could possibly have, and then say "it wasn't us". They want everyone to know it was them, without saying it was them explicitly - that's just not what they do. Even if a Russian submarine blows up the Norwegian pipeline tomorrow, with recorded footage of it happening, Russia will still say it wasn't them.

What has Russia gained from any of their actions thus far in the war in Ukraine? I wouldn’t discount something solely because it appears to be a short sighted action that backfires in their face.

> I agree with you, it generally makes absolutely no sense for Russia to be behind this

Like it makes no sense for them to invade with the state of their army, shell a nuclear power plant, dig trenches in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, waste rockets on civilian targets? Why are you assuming Russia to be a rational actor?

Why are you assuming an explanation that depends on an irrational actor when permanently end European dependence on Russian fuel is a more direct, rational motive that benefits many other actors?

Because:

1) Russia has proven itself to be a highly disruptive and irrational actor

2) European dependence on Russian fuel is already ending. By the time anybody is ready to trust Russia with energy we would have moved past the current reliance on gas. Completely destroying NS1 and NS2 don't change much there.

2) is a nice theory. There are no alternatives for the foreseeable future. There simply isn't any spare capacity anywhere in the world. And Russia will be just burning gas that was originally targeted for EU as they need to keep the sources open.

It makes no sense. Russia would make itself 100% dependent on Ukrainian transit lines, prompting them to go all in to conquer the whole Ukraine, which is a nuisance. Now they have to do it or quit EU completely. This blow up doesn't help either party economically (Russia/EU).

Russia always wanted to use NS2, now it's the only option.

Damaging one pipe of NS2 makes it seem less obvious.

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