Russian navy ship photographed near Nord Stream pipelines before blasts | Hacker News Reader

Russian navy ship photographed near Nord Stream pipelines before blasts

theguardian.com

21 pointsmpweiher13 comments

My theory is the Russians blew up NS1 / NS2 to cause pain to the EU over the winter and gain an advantage to show that EU needs them. With increased gas price and inflation, they were hoping the EU citizens would protest and decrease support towards Ukraine. Fortunately, the winter was not too cold this time and gas consumption was lower than previous year usage.

(NS1 & 2 = Nord Stream 1 & 2)

[Video] Russian gas giant Gazprom is purportedly taunting Europe with a cold and dark winter as it cuts supplies: https://youtu.be/n6GTKgVJrIo?t=29

Classic Russian playbook. Lame propaganda.

> My theory is the Russians blew up NS1 / NS2 to cause pain to the EU over the winter and gain an advantage to show that EU needs them.

Neither NS1 nor NS2 were in use; the only scenario that really makes sense for Russia is that they new Europe wasn’t reversing course on Ukraine without some additional threat, and thought that blowing up NS1 & 2 would make an effective threat against Baltic Pipe.

The “Ukrainian-friendly non-state entity did it to foreclose from European states the option of resuming gas purchases from Russia” idea is not (in motivationbterns) implausible.

> ...the only scenario that really makes sense for Russia...

Dictatorships don't come without an internal power struggle. Your logic depends on a view of Russia as a single self-serving entity.

> Your logic depends on a view of Russia as a single self-serving entity.

No, it doesn’t, though if you’d like to elucidate your theories on other scenarios that make sense for Russian state-affiliated factions to have attacked NS1 & NS2 based on analysis of interests of conflicting power centers in the Russian regime, I’d be interested in hearing them.

I’m not at all unaware that there are such conflicting power centers and that a lot of action by Russian state and state-associated entities is explained by their conflict rather than their shared interest, but I don’t see any additional plausible NS1/NS2 attack rationale out of that.

I thought NS1 was in use.

Yea, what you say makes sense then.

As Denmark is a protectorate of the US due to the strategic importance of Greenland and Thule AFB, I am weary of any official announcements made.

If it were the US, as other sources have speculated (and as Biden has hinted in speeches), Denmark would never say anything.

As the Russians maintain a network of vatnik posters and bots pushing FUD and whataboutism, I assume that posters on online fora, especially early posters, are just that.

Do you think that in places like hackernews there is more Russian propaganda than US propaganda ?

I did not claim that the US did it. I said that we will never know. Because of the sad state of current affairs where we are flooded by propaganda and disinformation.

And needless to deny that I am not paid to post here, I can hate on imperialism from both sides all day for free.

I’m not sure, but there’s always a “whatabout x”, or “the US did y” reply early in the post lifetime.

I would argue that contrarianism is a key characteristic of hackernews, except in exceptional circumstances :)

> Do you think that in places like hackernews there is more Russian propaganda than US propaganda ?

Recently yes, you'd have to blind to not see the huge uptick in pro Russian posters on here lately.

> I said that we will never know

This is sadly true, we will never know what actually happens.

Equally valid headlines from the same article:

Danish navy ship reported near Nord Stream pipelines before blasts

Russian Baltic fleet ship sails in the Baltic

Danish and Russian navy ships in the same area as shady Ukraine yacht

For sure there were any number of military, commercial, and private vessels in the area (with and without valid AIS). It seems that it would be naive to not be skeptical of anyone's claims on the story.

But they still pretend they do journalism.

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