The Russian government not being a monolith, there must be factions who’d like to stop fucking around in Ukraine and get back to printing money pumping gas to Europe. The peace incentive gets much weaker with the destruction of Nord Stream.
This is very wrong. My brother is a technical diver, and after the blast I had a long chat with him about what it would do to achieve this. After going over the location, the estimated amount of explosives needed to break the pipes, and the depth, he came to the conclusion that he could have done it with 2 friends and a budget of ~10k€.
This was before these new pictures that paint a picture of a more powerful blast than he assumed, but it is still well within the capability of a bunch of very determined activists. This absolutely didn't need to be a state actor.
I came out of the discussion with a newfound appreciation just how fragile a lot of our billion-euro infrastructure is, and how easy it would be to disrupt.
>But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russian forces planned the attack as a pretense to escalate the war in Ukraine.
>"The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine," Podolyak told Ukraine's national broadcaster.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-atta...
These pipes lay at ~70 m depth so the drones can be wire-controlled. A small fishing vessel would be enough to deliver them.
That's not drag a hose behind a commercial drone. That's specialized equipment with trained operators. I just don't see Ukraine being able to pull that off.
...since an underwater explosion (particularly one underneath a hull) can produce greater damage than an above-surface one of the same explosive size. Initial damage to a target will be caused by the first shockwave; this damage will be amplified by the subsequent physical movement of water and by the repeated secondary shockwaves or bubble pulse. Additionally, charge detonation away from the target can result in damage over a larger hull area. [1]
The pipes have ...two layers; the inner pipe steel which is between 27-41mm thick with antifriction coating and a concrete steel outer coating between 60-110mm thick with corrosion protection... [2], far from the 'several inch thick pipes encased in a foot of concrete' you mention. They were also under high pressure, probably around 200 bar at point of attack [3]. Given that the pipes are at a depth of around 70 meters there this means they had an overpressure of around 193 bar so it would not have taken that much of a crack to cause them to rupture. Once ruptured the whiplashing effect - think what happens to a water hose when you turn open the tap but now with 193 bar of pressure behind it - would take care of the rest.
[1] https://wikiless.org/wiki/Underwater_explosion?lang=en
[2] https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/nord-stream-risk-of-...
The motivation should make sense, Russia makes sense, it was probably Russia.
And in regards to past Russian behavior even more realistic.
One of the theories I've seen espoused is that Russia is basically going "nice pipeline, shame if something happened to it" to the new Norway-Poland pipeline which was inaugurated about the time of the explosion.
This is not a mystery. The US has the most to gain from this: increase Europe's energy dependence on the US by literally forcing Europe to not use cheap Russian energy
That word you're using, I don't think it means what you think it means.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukrain...
https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/10942347...
I will quote another poster's comment: """ 1) There really were mass graves in Bucha. This was known even before the departure of the Russians and there is a video with burials. But it's also not a secret that in Bucha the Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment that was driving through the streets from artillery. And just as many residential buildings were destroyed - an accompanying zherb. So all these victims are victims of Ukrainian artillery. They are silent about it. But this is a fact.
2) The corpses on the street, obviously defiantly laid out - to create the effect that the city is littered with corpses. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, just think with your head, how could this happen? People stood on the road in different places and the Russians shot them at the same time? That's bullshit.
3) The biggest puncture of propaganda and staging is the statement that there is a satellite image of where the bodies lie on March 11th. And so they had to lie until April 1, that is, 20 days. On the video of the Ukrainians on April 1, there is not even a hint that the bodies have been lying there for 20 days. This is complete nonsense. It turns out that the Russians could not allocate 5 minutes in 20 days to throw these bodies into the truck and take them out if they needed to hide these "terrible crimes"
4) We were shown video from the camera and from one drone. But we don't know when it was filmed. On the camera, two military men are leading people - the Ukrainians could have filmed this on April 1-2, at the same time that they were also staging a general staging with corpses. """
Make your conclusions from this as you will, or keep consuming the propaganda that the media fits you.
Exactly. And where do you think at least half those billions of government money has ended? In the pockets of all involved in the building them. And no new pipes are being build now. Not very profitable for the oligarchs, isn't it?
Why these unknowns didn't blew second pipe of NS2? It is moderately possible that it was done to pressure Germany to open NS2 (and it may happen next year, nobody knows how future will be shaped). This will legalize NS2 and then Russia can repair 3 other pipes (and repair corp will pocket half of the funds, again).
Also legalizing NS2 will pave the way to building 3rd and 4th pipes in the Turkey system, which Kremlin want very much. And builders of these potential southern pipes will do what? Correct, they will pocket half of the money.
There are a lot of moderately probably arguments for Russia doing it, and all involved can profit from this - Germany, Turkey, Kremlin, Russian builders and gas oligarchs. Sure, Russian people will be poorer, but when it was ever a consideration of Kremlin? :)
And we're talking about 50 meters of a pipeline several hundred KMs long. It's a trivial repair job compared to the effort to build the pipeline and its economic value. It temporarily changes the calculus but doesn't change the long term picture if Germany still wants to buy gas from Russia.
Plus, it seems likely to galvanize Europe into becoming much more of an independent actor. Destroying a major energy source is pretty far over the line of how you'd expect allies to treat each other. It would be a dramatic step and thus far the response has been pretty drama free.
Because these are our client states. NATO's purpose is to bend Europe's will across the Atlantic and away from having mutually beneficial relationships with Africa and Asia.
They aren't our allies; they are our client states. The European leaders align with what Washington wants, and not what the majority of their people want. The US doesn't have allies... only interests.
We are crushing German industry; this is beneficial to us, because it allows our industry to thrive and helps reshore production. We get to sell more energy to Europe; this is beneficial to us... and so on.
Russia risks what? Gas they can't sell anyway? Their incentive to stop the war?
The US risks NATO by blowing up Germany's energy. It's completely insane.
Europe was _already_ working about as hard as they could on removing their dependence on Russia though.
Another way to see this would be that around now might be the last chance for something like this to hurt Europe and still have time to put political pressure on afterwards.
If this had been done in the middle of winter, Europe would treat it as an attack and would be on their guard, but now Russia can play political games in the background to destabilize Europe or at least reduce Europe's will to help Ukraine.
Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
Russia
For: Plunge Europe into an energy crisis to force concessions in Ukraine
Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy.
USA
For: They've been against the Nords from the beginning and could pull something like this off
Against: Big escalation, huge potential blow back from Europe, and economic fallout is bad for the midterm elections
Ukraine
For: Removes a large source of Russian leverage over Europe
Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off and it risks the support from Europe they do have
Random European Country:
For: Lots of them don't like the dependence on Russian energy and many of them have the means
Against: Huge escalation with Russia and risks discord amongst the EU