[flagged]
1. Direct monetary benefit
Russia was not delivering on its contractual obligations to deliver gas. There were actual monetary penalties attached to not delivering, painful monetary damages, and those were to come into effect soon.
With the pipeline gone, they no longer could deliver gas through it, and thus were no longer in breach of contract.
2. Indirect monetary benefit
Gas prices spiked heavily afterwards. Even without NS1/2 Russia is still a heavy supplier of natural gas and thus benefitted from those spikes.
3. Political benefit (threat)
There are other pipelines in the baltic supplying former Russian gas customers. The message is: we can blow up this pipeline, we can blow up yours as well.
Importantly, they could do this without an actual attack on a NATO partner. It's their own pipeline after all. But of course, they had to do this covertly in order to send the message that they could also do this covertly to other pipelines.
4. Nothing to lose economically
The pipelines were economically useless. Nobody was going to buy Russian gas again through them after Russia first threatened and then actually cut off supplies. So an economically worthless asset. Sacrificing that to get the benefits 1-3 is easy.
5. Nothing to lose politically
The pipelines were politically useful as a threat towards Europe: don't cross us, or we'll cut off your gas. Well, the warning wasn't heeded, gas supplies were cut and ... nothing big happened. So the pipelines were no longer useful politically, as well as economically. Once again, sacrificing them to get benefits 1-3 was well worth it, because the price for Russia was close to zero.
6. Sweden dropping the investigation
The reason given was: "we do not have jurisdiction." Well, if Russia blows up its own pipeline, Sweden would not have jurisdiction, would they?
7. Precedent
Russia has blown their own pipelines up in the past.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia–Georgia_energy_cri...
2. I thought they were forced to sell to China at a heavy discount because it was their only option ?
3. That could be an argument against anything and any side, so I do not buy it
4. I doubt that Germany would not buy Russian gas. Which would be a reason for the US to blow up the pipeline. So it is a hypothetical which cannot enforce either argument.
5. Nothing big happened because of luck. Let me remind you that the EU gas reserves were pretty low, and only managed to be not depleted because of the mildness of the 2022 winter.
6. They do not have the jurisdiction to prosecute, but why would they not disclose their findings, at a period where western media takes the extra mile to throw shade on Russia ?
7. I am not convinced, the fact that it has happened before could as easily be used as an argument for a false flag operation.
There are plenty of frozen Russian assets available in the West for seizure after a court order. These have not been touched so far, although there have been repeated suggestions of using them to pay for the damage in Ukraine.
> 2. I thought they were forced to sell to China at a heavy discount because it was their only option ?
Hadn't heard of that, but you are making my point for me: lots of incentive to try and spike the price! (A motive for an action doesn't mean it will actually succeed)
> 3. That could be an argument against anything and any side, so I do not buy it
How so? And it's not an argument "against" anything. Russia was using (their) energy supply to try and blackmail Europe. Europe switched to other sources. Threatening those other sources is a logical next step.
> 4. I doubt that Germany would not buy Russian gas.
You can doubt it all you want. Russian gas is over in Germany. I am from Germany.
> 5. Nothing big happened because of luck. Let me remind you that the EU gas reserves were pretty low, and only managed to be not depleted because of the mildness of the 2022 winter.
Oh yes, the mild winter definitely helped. Though reserves were actually very high, the gas storage facilities were topped up to the rim and the government had scrambled like mad to secure alternative supplies.
This is the data, it covers April 2022 to the start of 2024.
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Gasversorgung/aktuelle_g...
What I heard is that Germany essentially bought up all gas available on the open market. Now this is not really a sustainable strategy, and particularly not a replicable one (only one country can do it at a time). Which is why the winter 2022-2023 saw a nuclear renaissance in pretty much every country apart from Germany. They all saw that our "Energiewende" was built on a dirty little secret, that secret being cheap Russian gas. With the emperor now naked, that dream was over.
> 6. They do not have the jurisdiction to prosecute, but why would they not disclose their findings, at a period where western media takes the extra mile to throw shade on Russia ?
They handed their findings over the Germany after discovering enough to know that they did not have jurisdiction.
"Ljungqvist said the main task had been to establish whether Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack, which he said had taken place in international waters.
“The answer to that question is ‘no’ and there is nothing in this case that poses any risk to Sweden’s security now that we have seen how things stand,” he said."
So while the non-release of the details also bothers me, it seems to be fairly standard operating procedure: hand the data over to the Germans, let them decide.
> 7. I am not convinced, the fact that it has happened before could as easily be used as an argument for a false flag operation.
No. While almost anything can be used once you go into the convolutions false-flag operations, such arguments are not nearly as easy as the simple one. Occam's razor applies.
In addition, the primary suspect in a false flag operation would be Ukraine, and one thing the investigation did uncover, and a piece of information that was revealed, is that the operation required resources that Ukraine simply does not have. And Russia does.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/nord-stream-p...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/11/ukraine-officer-ha...
Apart from the evidence, the motive for Ukraine seems to be pretty obvious as well.
Meanwhile, the SS-750 salvage ship, designed for specialized underwater operations with a mini-submarine, was operating in the area four days before the blast.
You mean the 17th century technology pioneered with diving bells? Like using some rope or a cable?
Edit: pioneered with. You just need a diver who would drive the pilot cable to the exact place, then you just rope the load to that cable. But sure, ignore the common sense in the presence of angst.
Not a very convincing story to me.
Not a very convincing story to me.
I would love to live in a world where that was close to one of the most heinous acts that year, let alone century. The release of natural gas into the environment was very bad but the impact on humans was essentially zero.
Edit: Wikipedia has a helpful graph showing NordStream gas flows. You can see that in the month before the sabotage it was already pretty much zero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...
No gas was flowing to Germany at this point, and by blowing up the pipeline, the "carrot on a stick" was removed.
However bad is the invasion of Ukraine, climate change remains the worst threat for humanity. If you don't like tyrants and like democracy, what do you think will happen to democracy when energy, hence food is more scarce and you try protect militarily your resources against countries that are eying them ? History knows the answer.
You need a specialized boat to do so, if possible with a submarine. Like the SS-750 which was there a few days before the explosion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...
Dude, Russia had already cut Nordstream months before it blew up. No gas was flowing through it (the gas that leaked was the gas remaining in the line).[0]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Nord_Stream_pipeline_sabo...
>Countries investigating the disaster have been worryingly silent [2]
Uh, no, Swedes closed their investigation because they did not have jurisdiction. That's all.
> I wonder when countries on the macro scale stop acting like fifteen year old boys fighting over the same toy. Not in our lifetime for sure.
Maybe it would help if we properly sanctioned the countries who are starting the wars. By, I dunno, no longer sending them Billions of dollars for their stuff. And by helping the victims to defend themselves.
Incentives matter.
The explosion on the other hand forces all the previously change-averse industries to quickly find out new sources. And politically, no rival can tell that you should lift sanctions and buy russian gas again for the people
And that's exactly what happened: German gas is now cheaper than it was before the war.
Yeah, Germany is getting decoupled alright. From its industry.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-likely-recess...
https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-gaspreis...
2021: 6,35 ct / KWh
2024: 10,23 ct / KWhCome on, I love my “designed in California” stuff.