Very weird. Would you volunteer a theory? (since that is probably all we can do for now).
So the question is, what was the strategic effect for the US, Ukraine, and/or Russia to have done this?
My take, its almost as good for Russia to play victim than it is for the US to cut Russia's Gas. It would be interesting to see how dominant this story was in Russia, given the Ukrainian advances in late 2022.
This was after a series of reductions, stops, and restarts where they reduced flows and tried to get Germany to break sanctions to send parts. That they then ultimately rejected and wouldn't receive. E.g. [2].
When Germany offered the parts. They refused them, stopped NS1 entirely and offered to activate NS2 with Germany. [3] Germany refused and resisted the blackmail attempt.
Then the explosion happened a couple of weeks later. After that Russia again offered to activate NS2 with Germany. [4]
In this context, the US going ahead with the plan to demolish NS1, and leave NS2 50% operation makes zero sense.
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1331710/nord-stream-phys... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kremlin-says-gazprom... [3]: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-nord-stream-closed-energy-cris... [4]: https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-nord-s...