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As of my understanding the 2 pipelines were already inactive anyway. What's extruding is the gas that filled them. It's better for the system longterm when it is filled with gas (with the benefit of being able to quickly reactivate them).
On September 27 2022 22:19 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Yeah so either a Submarine hit it, a good guess what be that it wasn't a Western navy that hit it. Or just some divers. No idea the depth of said water.
It would be absolutely possible with work diving equipment ,which is not that rare in these parts and some explosive device. The depth is 100-150ft. max. over there.
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Norway28665 Posts
Who actually stands to gain from this sabotage action? Cause I mentally jumped to must've been the Russians myself, and while that's what I'm going to believe unless I see some very convincing evidence-ish suggesting otherwise (simple because I see them as the worst involved actor), I'm totally ignorant of how Russia gains from this. Any ideas?
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I have no idea. I am completely clueless on this subject.
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Among others objectives it sends a message to the west.
"Nice Norwegian pipelines you have there, would be a shame if that happen to them during winter time when you need them most."
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Yeah it makes very little sense to me. I know the Russians have made a bunch of stupid decisions this year, but why would they destroy what could've been a major source of income should the EU not have enough gas for the winter?
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To remind the EU where their gas came from and how easy it was/is to get more.
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Norway28665 Posts
On September 28 2022 00:53 pmp10 wrote:
Among others objectives it sends a message to the west.
"Nice Norwegian pipelines you have there, would be a shame if that happen to them during winter time when you need them most."
That does make some sense, and Norwegian media reports that Russians have been conducting reconnaissance missions around Norwegian pipelines after the invasion begun. But then why not just jump straight to taking one of those during winter? Overall though this being like some type of Russian-orchestrated unspoken threat with some degree of plausible deniability + some degree of sowing discord (people believe in weirder conspiracies than this being some type of false flag operation) is a fine guess.
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I hope there's a crazy story behind it and some vigilantes or agents of a baltic nation pulled it off. But in the end it most likely were the Russians (but why?) or the US (obvious gains).
One thing comes to mind: Germany forced the Russian owned gas infrastructure companies into a trust, controlled by the German government until the weather changes. Maybe they are not expecting their property back. And they are Putin and the Oligarchs.
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The bigger question is will this trigger an Article 4 by one of the member nations. I know Finland and Sweden are protected by Article 5, I think, no idea about the other options. It was last triggered in March by several nations at the start of the war.
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For me, the Russian have no good reason to sabotage the pipeline. It would be similar to kill the hostage in front of the (would be) ransom payer.
I do not have expertise in this kind of things so I probably be very wrong, but I believe the damage is not going to be permanent if the involved parties decide to fix the leak. It would take some time, money and resources to fix it but it definitely can be done. However, I believe it is in the interest of the Russian for the pipe to remain intact so that they can turn it back on whenever they want, instead of taking a few months (wild guess) to fix the pipe before they can turn on.
On the other hand, the USA and Ukraine (or other anti russia group) have reason to take down the pipe, so as to prevent Germany from ever (consider) scale back their military support to Ukraine. I mean, if the Germany can never get Russian gas, they have no reason not to support Ukraine. Although I doubt Ukraine actually have to ability or the manpower to do such thing.
And I think if any country can force the pipe to remain not repaired (against other parties will, assuming the other parties want it to be repaired), it would be the USA, so it would make sense that they sabotage the pipe, then force it to permanently shut down.
I believe if the sabotage is indeed performed by the Russian, information or rumour will come out very soon, may be within 1 week. Just like other high profile assassination, major damage to infrastructures, or previous case of sinking of military submarine.
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On September 28 2022 01:10 Liquid`Drone wrote:
But then why not just jump straight to taking one of those during winter?
As with any tit-for-tat escalation there are rules to be follow lest everyone sees you for a madman.
Besides, resulting economic crisis could well burn all bridges with Germany.
And then there is the risk of getting caught while striking at a critical NATO infrastructure.
No need to take these chances if you can get western politicians to abandon Ukraine and force a freezing of the conflict.
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On September 28 2022 01:14 JimmiC wrote:
US does not gain because instability is bad for business. They have worked pretty hard for the last couple of years to show that they are a stable place to do business with, no random tariffs and so on. There is no chance they are going to do some random terrorism on an ally when they could simply legally put way more pressure economically.
I'm trying to think of a US politician from both sides who was ever in favor of Nordstream. Can't think of anyone, rather the opposite and they weren't really shy about it. Biden threatened multiple times to shut it down. I don't get the idea from the last conspiracy trend. Someone burned a bridge here.
I'm not even mad. This was a victimless crime. Energy independency from Russia has to be achieved.
But if there's a chance a Putinless democratic Russia that doesn't invade its neighbours or force its propaganda on the world might happen anytime in the future, I'd like to buy that sweet natural gas we built all that infrastructure for. Please and thank you. We're burning even more coal in the meantime...
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On September 28 2022 01:10 r00ty wrote:
One thing comes to mind: Germany forced the Russian owned gas infrastructure companies into a trust, controlled by the German government until the weather changes. Maybe they are not expecting their property back. And they are Putin and the Oligarchs.
But what the Russian can gain with sabotaging the pipeline? They can always decide to not turn on the gas, the effect will be exactly the same. They can always make some bs reason and the German cannot do much about it, just like how they shut down Nord Stream 1 in the first place.
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I question if this was any country at all. Entertaining the US is just silly, Russia benefits to much from the pipeline being operational as a temptation for Germany for that sweet gas. They don't need to blow it up, they control the flow directly and have already shut it off.
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Russian Federation610 Posts
On September 28 2022 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
The bigger question is will this trigger an Article 4 by one of the member nations. I know Finland and Sweden are protected by Article 5, I think, no idea about the other options. It was last triggered in March by several nations at the start of the war.
Also a question - to whom this part on both NS belonged to? All explosions seem to happen in international waters, just outside of Danish territorial waters around Bornholm, but I guess different sections of the pipelines are under different jurisdictions.
On September 28 2022 01:10 r00ty wrote:
I hope there's a crazy story behind it and some vigilantes or agents of a baltic nation pulled it off. But in the end it most likely were the Russians (but why?) or the US (obvious gains).
One thing comes to mind: Germany forced the Russian owned gas infrastructure companies into a trust, controlled by the German government until the weather changes. Maybe they are not expecting their property back. And they are Putin and the Oligarchs.
If that would happen to be the case, it would be some Call of Duty level of plot.
I want to leave aside "qui prodest?" question, and discuss practical implication of such diversion. If it's US, there is no big trouble, they have whole amphibious battlegroup in the area.
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/defense/uss-kearsarge-calls-in-at-riga.a472440/
However, if it's Russia, question is - how they managed to pull it off? We have Naval Spetsnaz unit, Navy SEAL equivalent basically. But they must be somehow delivered with explosives right to the Danish border, and Swedish/German/Polish borders in close proximity, US amphibious battlegroup patrolling the area and whole NATO recon focusing on the activity of Russian military.
So helo or surface combat ship are out of the question, they would be spotted in a moment. Submarine is possible, but in such shallow waters deep within NATO control zone with US ships present - I find in unlikely.
Divers could arrive via the territory of the EU countries and probably swim from the coast. But seismologist from the Lund University in Sweden implied that it would be needed around 100 kg in TNT equivalent to cause explosions of such magnitude
If this is true, no way this amount of stuff could be delivered from land. I mean you can't simply tranfer 100kg of explosives through Europe, right?
The only possible choice could be some civilian vessel repurposed for the diver use... but I believe such thing requires a lot of planning in advance, just to make necessary adjustments to store the equipment and explosives. And I doubt that many civilian Russian vessels were moving in the area lately, especially in the speific pattern along Nord Stream. If any did so, they would be easy to track down.
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I'm sure the OSInt folks will have some idea of what relevant ships have been around recently. Then some educated maths on operating radius for small boats and you can start drawing circles on the maps.
The work gets more complicated if we allow for submarines and timed explosives, but even then I'm pretty certain we'll have more educated guesses on what happened within a week or so. Some enthusiastic people are really good at figuring these things out
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On September 28 2022 00:36 pmh wrote:
This is a complete disaster. Locking in a populist rightwing victory in Germanys next election (at least that will take 4 more years).
Yeah, no way around that now.
/s
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EPT
