It's opinion because there is not a sliver of proof who blew up the nordstream pipes. Only speculation based on the motives of different parties.

It's that simple.

I agree: "It's the "opinion" of pretty much everyone in the geopolitical community."

I disagree: "Hardly propaganda."

A loneley voice in the geopolitical community (August Hanning):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33066745

>It's the "opinion" of pretty much everyone in the geopolitical community.

How exactly did Russia sneak so deep into enemy territory to blow it up and sneak back out again? Especially considering how incompetent we hear that they are in literally every single article written?

I've yet to read a single explanation of this, and in fact you would think we're not supposed to look on a map and ask ourselves this question since it doesn't seem to even be asked by "everyone in the geopolitical community".

Doesn't that seem strange?

Russia literally has submarines built for this type of purpose (e.g. the Belgorod). And yes, their armed forces are a clown fest of incompetence, but they still have the occasional hit/stroke of luck. They do genuinely produce some good equipment (e.g. BMP-3) that is easy to maintain, where they fail mostly is around the human factor.

Sounds like US/NATO are incompetent then if they let Russia sneak in that deep and blow up a crucial pipeline in the middle of a war, all without a trace.

Fortunately the US benefits the most from this so that was very considerate of Russia, I guess. To sabotage themselves for our benefit. Bold move.

FWIW Belgorod has draft of 10 meters, pipeline as at 50 meter depth. There isn't much much water to hide for such subs in baltic.

You forget that Russia controls the ingress end of the pipelines. They could, and IMO almost certainly did, simply send maintenance "pigs" [1] laden with explosives and a timer down 3 of the 4 lines. No submarines necessary, they didn't even have to leave the office.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging

The Swedish investigation determined there were explosions in the area, not from within the pipeline, so that would eliminate that. Also there is the pesky problem of how the US benefits from it while it hurts the Russians, so common sense would consider the motive.

Sure there were explosions, of course there were. The investigation has not released any information about the location - internal or external - please feel free to correct me. I was only demonstrating how easy it would have been for them, since others were going on about submarines and what not.

Russia had already shut off the gas, "hurting" themselves by your own logic. They have a long, proven history of irrational behaviour and false flag operations. And if the USA had done it, against all reason and logic, why didn't they finish the job?

Anyway, I did say almost certainly Russia. Who knows, could have been some faction in Germany or another EU power seeking to really force Germany's hand. But it seems far more likely to be the obvious actor with the means, motive and mindset who started the bloody war in the first place.

It is trivial to determine blast direction (inward vs outward), which is how Sweden was able to determine so quickly that the blast was from nearby, not from within (which eliminates your theory completely).

Also, everybody in Europe hates Russia so if the investigation had pointed to them that would have been shouted from the rooftops immediately. Instead, the details of the report has been hidden from public view and Russia was told they couldn't see it.

So really nothing would indicate Russia is behind it and everything indicates they're not.

   Russia had already shut off the gas, "hurting" themselves by your own logic.

They shut it off which left them leverage (i.e. "play nice, we turn it back on"). Blowing it up removes that option and removes all of their leverage.

> It's the "opinion" of pretty much everyone in the geopolitical community. Hardly propaganda.

"Everyone" thought that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program.