Pure speculation: A very hard winter is predicted with sky-high energy prices. If people, the economy and industry is suffering one can easily imagine that Germany wavers and opens up the taps. If the pipes are damaged and it will cost a lot to repair and restart the flow that supports those who want to keep the gas flow off and hinders those who wanted to restart it.
> surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines
I would agree with that. Hard to imagine what would be their point in doing that.
Precisely because it is hard to imagine? It looks like a clandestine operation by one NATO country to limit the options of another or perhaps even the German government doing it to limit the options of its own people.
Like you I have no idea, but this is one of those areas where Occam's razor doesn't do as well as it usually does.
If you are implying that weather forecast is accurate months ahead - nobody knows what the temperatures will be this winter. Everything further ahead than 7 days is pretty much rolling the dice.
With energy prices rising, people won't have money to heat their houses, industry won't be able to produce stuff, people will be left jobless, etc... meaning, a hard winter for europe.
Nop. Hard as in a winter full of hardship, stress and problems.
> Everything further ahead than 7 days is pretty much rolling the dice.
And yet every winter it is cold here and every summer it is hot. Nobody can say which day will be sunny and which day will be stormy that far ahead, but clearly there are trends.
Cold combined with high energy prices will mean that a lot of people will go either cold, or poor or most likely both. Not so cold and so poor that everyone dies instantly, this is not a prequel to snowpiercer, but you know having a bad time.
Winter being generally colder than summer - that's climate, which is different from weather.
[1] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/boerse/konjunktur/studie-skizz...
The question is whether they trigger article 5 here -- I suspect not, however.
Okay, but how would this particular act accomplish that? Those pipes are the means Russia would be serving the german market after "they come begging back". If Russia wants to starve Germany of gas they can just simply not pump it in the pipe. That simple. No need to blow up their own infra for that.
Blowing up a pipe that can be repaired to cause friction between allies? That's priceless. The fact that it's cause for speculation on Facebook, Reddit, HN, Twitter, etc shows exactly how disruptive of a move it was.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/a-winter-of-pr...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hi... "Neither pipeline was pumping gas to Europe at the time the leaks were found..."
It would be interesting to watch this evolving, if it wasn't fucking scary.
What's wrong with that? I mean... we're either a democracy, and people choose their own government, or we're being governed by some other external force not obeying the wishes of the people.... if italy choses to be friendly with the russians, their people wanted that, so why not?
but no, it's the russians and their facebook posts, sure.
Ukraine isn't on the Baltic Sea, but do they need to be? Honestly, I don't know the resources that would be required to accomplish this. Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough?
Might not even need divers. Just a fishing boat, a GPS, a limpet mine, and a few hundred feet of rope. Dangle the mine in the water at the right depth as you cross the path of the pipeline and let go when it attaches. Set the timer for weeks or months so you're long gone by the time anyone starts investigating.
(If the pipelines are made of a non-magnetic material like stainless steel maybe you'd need to do something more sophisticated.)
Maybe we'll know more once investigators inspect the damage, but I think practically anyone could have done this based on what we know so far.
Sections are shallow. (No clue about the blast sites.) With zero information on the extent of the damage beyond measured pressure drops, folks dropping weighted dry bags of dynamite from kayaks is in scope.
Germany has an option to talk with russia to make a deal, so russia reopens the valve... some other forces don't want that.
It is a 101 of economical warfare.
With the closed valve, they have an upper hand at negotiations about gas, especially if the german people get cold and start sharpening the pitchforks for their own (german) politicians... now, even if the germans want to negotiate, there will be no gas until the pipelines are fixed, and it doesn't seem that will happen soon
Nobody believes in their 'repairs' and temporary issues with the pipeline. I really hope it is destroyed.
If they wanted they could reuse the old pipeline that is on land on Polish territory.
BTW. It is not only my suspicion: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/28/nord-stream-pipelin...
ed: https://twitter.com/ASabadus/status/1574729027570769920
Also, Apparently Norway has recently warned about drone activity near hydrocarbon rigs: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-oil-safety-re...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/27/nord-stream...
Fixed version:
> The theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO conspired and sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.
I don't think Russia had interests in doing it, unless it is for some internal power play.
edit: or plausible denial when they won't send gas to Europe this winter. But do they even need the deniability at this point?
I would prefer to assume governments are somewhat rational actors, who at least try to act in the interest of the own country.
In this case, the biggest loser from destroying NS1 and NS2 is Germany, second-biggest Russia and the rest of the Europe, sorted descending by the dependency on Russian gas.
As for the winners, we have the USA and Ukraine as biggest immediate winners, and indirectly and in the long-term India, China, Arab countries, ...
Let's say secret negotiations are ongoing (it would be surprising if they weren't) with Russia regarding a winter ceasefire. Russia annexes the occupied regions to force the hand and be in a better position, then offers gas in exchange of no NATO military help during the ceasefire.
NATO rejects the offer and blows the pipeline to show it is off the table.
If you're going to claim that every single random person elected into this office (so several hundreds of people) was coerced into lying to keep it private, not a single leak has ever happened even though this state is not exactly known for its (cyber)security, that they somehow magically generated the funds for it even though we're really not rich at all and every US$ million missing is immediately visible, and that they managed to make everything else check out perfectly as if nothing was happening - then sorry but I think you're being way more than overly paranoid. I don't want to be rude but you should visit a psychologist if you're seriously considering this claim.
The thing is, there's no reason anybody here would do it. We don't have anything like the national pride of other nations like the US or even the Russians. We don't care, nationalism and patriotism is considered laughing matter here. The agents would burst out laughing if you suggested a plan like this - even if it was plausible, you'd be seen as insane. The only thing we have is strong anti-communism, so anything that resembles these times is pretty much not possible here - and the newspapers are fishing to expose you for it.
Simply put, no, not every state does stuff like this. Don't normalize it.
Seems unlikely. USA, UK, Russia, and China could all keep it secret. I'm sure other Western countries likely could as well like Germany.
>Anyways, the main point is that we know for a fact thanks to our constitutional audit office that nothing even remotely like this is being done by our three/four-letter agencies. :-)
You are so certain it couldn't happen in your country and yet you haven't stated the name despite me asking you twice. Perhaps you are afraid you claims won't stand up to scrutiny?
Do you really think that there is zero corruption in your country? That no agency claims to pay more for an item then they do to skim money?
>If you're going to claim that every single random person elected into this office (so several hundreds of people) was coerced into lying to keep it private, not a single leak has ever happened even though this state is not exactly known for its (cyber)security,
I don't know how your agencies work and since you refuse to give the name then I have no reason to trust your claims. You think 100s of people are all auditing every single agency and purchase all while having 100% perfect accuracy?
Unless you are talking about a microstate that doesn't seem likely.
>that they somehow magically generated the funds for it even though we're really not rich at all and every US$ million missing is immediately visible, and that they managed to make everything else check out perfectly as if nothing was happening
No one is talking about millions of dollars. You need a couple people, scuba gear and explosives. You might be able to find people with scuba gear who could volunteer for such an assignment. Explosives don't have to cost millions. Crap, people in your government could have paid for it out of pocket.
>then sorry but I think you're being way more than overly paranoid. I don't want to be rude but you should visit a psychologist if you're seriously considering this claim.
Spending potentially less than a thousand dollars isn't really some sort of conspiracy theory.
>The thing is, there's no reason anybody here would do it.
Do you know every single person in your country well enough to know their politics? If you do then you live in a microstate which was already something I was asking you about.
>We don't have anything like the national pride of other nations like the US or even the Russians. We don't care, nationalism and patriotism is considered laughing matter here.
Seeing how much you are posting to defend your country, this sure seems like a lie.
>The agents would burst out laughing if you suggested a plan like this - even if it was plausible, you'd be seen as insane.
You know every single agent right?
>The only thing we have is strong anti-communism, so anything that resembles these times is pretty much not possible here - and the newspapers are fishing to expose you for it.
Doesn't seem likely, but since you haven't stated the name of your country I can't show any evidence to the contrary.
>Simply put, no, not every state does stuff like this. Don't normalize it.
Prove it by giving me the name of your country so I can check.
1. https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1490792461979078662
2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
3. https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/infographics/gas-...
There are three leaks.
> That looks like an actor who doesn’t care about being identified.
I don't see anyone being identified, do you?
It is a tweet posted in February 7th by ABC News:
Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?"
Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that."
They already showed they are capable of doing terrorist actions on Russian territory while keeping silent about it. Baltic pipeline would be a children play for them, since an army can't protect it.
Their enemy will not be able to sell gas to Europe without going through what is left of Ukraine. Since Poland stopped Jamal, they can basically dictate transit price and let Russia finance their army.
So far Ukraine has only hit legitimate military targets within Russia, unlike Russia who repeatedly uses it acts of terror, rape, genocide and torture as a active part of its war machine. It's a large stretch to call what Ukraine has done 'terrorist actions'.
Because Ukraine has no submarines and they don't have access to the Baltic Sea even if they had any?
There are quite a bit of scenarios in which this could go terribly wrong or be successfully attributed after the facts.
The paramount Ukrainian reliance on western support to have any chance to win this war makes me think that the risk/reward ratio for this operation would make it super unlikely that Ukraine would consider doing this.
Russia has probably been in a civil war for quite a while now, a backroom civil war of the elites with the TV-controlled masses completely uninvolved. Think of all those mysterious hospital windows falls... gas pipeline sabotage fits right in.
The EU, through von der Leyen, has more or less made it clear that no more gas will ever be bought from Russia, not even if the war would suddenly end today with Russia retreating entirely from Ukraine's territory. The pipelines have been forfeited.
People with geopolitical expertise have offered the theory that it may be a "red flag" operation by Russia, granting them some sort of excuse to mobilize in international waters in the Baltic.
Russia already has Kaliningrad.
So yeah... us and eu would be my first suspects
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#Second...
Yes, the US administration knowingly misrepresented the facts but in the end the only thing that happened was some US ships firing at shadows in the fog they believed to be enemies. Nothing that had not happened before in far more dramatic fashion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_incident
Also, Biden promised that they had the capability and desire to take out the pipelines if Russia invaded so there is that. Plus, the US would stand to profit from exporting LNG to Germany.
Dear Russia
Thanks for confirming so clearly that you are an untrustworthy and manipulative partner.
Best,
-The Rest of Europe.If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
I won't heat my (different) apartment this winter. It will be ok.
It could be Russia. Russia is the prime suspect in 99% of the cases when there is a hostile military operation on Swedish/Danish water. It isn't like Russia were using the pipelines, and it possible that spinning this as an attack on Russia will result in popularity gains for Putin.
People in most of eu are getting angry at their governments and demand some sort of negotiations so the pipes get reopened before people start freezing to death in their homes.
With pipes destroyed, even if people get mad, most governments can now just say "there's nothing we can do".