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Russia shut down transfers through Nord Stream months before it blew up, used lots of excuses not to re-open it (they said they need a turbine that they can't get cause sanctions - sanctions were lifted, Russia still said it won't reopen it cause "it got broken even worse").
Blowing up Nord Stream could be simply a way for Gazprom to blackmail Germany energetically without having to pay fines for missed deliveries.
Both Sweden and Denmark were protecting the area from Russian ships before the explosion. So they both knew about what was going to happen. If they planted the bombs, or Ukrainians? Not sure but I don't think it was the Russians. Nord Stream was very controversial in Sweden when it was built.
There's plenty of Ukrainians to choose from in Russia.
And they would have to pay fines for that.
Fines? Lol, what could any country do if they don't pay the fines? Sanction them? They're already sanctioned.
To case maximum disruption in EU with rising gas prices. To avoid paying fines. To disrupt relations between Ukraine and Germany. There's many possible motivations.
> Lol, what could any country do if they don't pay the fines?
There's 300 billion dollars of russian money frozen on western accounts. International courts can allow Germany to take their money from there if Russia refuses to pay. Gasprom was clearly breeching the contract, and part of the contract is - which court can judge any disputes about it.
Gas has been always part of the carrot and stick strategy for Russia. It makes sense for Ukraine to blow it up to stop any discussions about returning back to cheap Russian gas.
The pivot away from Russian gas was well underway by then and the pipeline had lost its value. May as well blow it up and hope that Germans will blame Ukraine (and not own shortsighted energy policy) for their high energy prices and cut military aid to 'reckless' Ukrainians.
From Ukraine's point of view, messing with allies' infrastructure would've been incredibly foolish: a lot to lose and nothing to gain.
This is the autumn 2022, the pivot is only starting. Gas prices are sky-high and there's a lot of uncertainty in the anticipation of winter. The storage is low since Russia started this strategy already in 2021 by restricting the supply. The government is against buying Russian gas, but you don't know how bad the winter will be and how strong the opposition will become if factories stop working and people can't afford their heating bills.
On one hand you argue that the pipeline has no value, on the other hand Germany would get extremely mad at Ukraine destroying an extraterritorial infrastructure of no value (as you say) which is mostly owned by Russia.
The timeline is somehow always misrepresented.
> On 16 June 2022, European benchmark natural gas prices increased by around 30% after Gazprom reduced Nord Stream 1's gas supply to Germany to 40% of the pipeline's capacity. Russia warned that usage of the pipeline could be completely suspended because of problems with the repairment.[54]
> On 11 July 2022, Nord Stream 1 was turned off for scheduled annual maintenance, but remained off after the usual repair period.[55] The Siemens pipeline turbine was repaired in Canada. Due to sanctions, Canada could not deliver the turbine back to Russia after repair works and instead sent it to Germany, despite the call of Volodymyr Zelenskiy to maintain the sanctions.[56]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Russia%E2%80...
Russia even demanded papers for how the sanctions were circumvented and tried to use that as an excuse not to get the turbine back.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/08/russia-gas-siemens-energy-ce...