>No it doesn't.

No one denies that the explosions are an act of sabotage. How do you imagine non-deliberate explosions happening approximately at the same time and of such power as to cause seismic sensors to reliably detect them?

I believe this is sabotage. I have no idea who did it and why, but saying "Hey, there are two ships, miles away from the site with transponders off. It's them!" is a bit of a stretch.

Maybe they didn't expect to get caught. It seems we're assisting to a recalibration of what's possible in several fields.

With all the rhetoric from the US about not allowing NS2 using any means, I think that it's quite possible that charges were planted long before the explosions and were activated remotely.

Then you completely misread the comment you originally responded to, and this entire thread is a waste of time. All they said was that the dark ship evidence does not prove sabotage. And you say the same thing, that the dark ship may or may not be responsible.

At a wild guess, there'd be multiple merchant vessels travelling past the point where the pipes were attacked. Who would notice if a group of divers happened to leave a ship as it transited?

And of course, those vessels could be flagged under many a convenient jurisdiction. Liberia used to have the world's largest merchant marine, theoretically.

Whereas if you go in with a submarine, and it gets detected in the vicinity, it's far harder to plausibly deny that your country wasn't involved.

TL;DR - you're assuming a submarine would be stealthier, but there's a lot of stealth to be had from hiding in the crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TgSGylIw2A

That in turn were quoting usual explanations from the Blue Book Project era.

I think the obvious conclusion is a false flag operation, but again, all evidence is circumstantial.

The USS Fitzgerald had its AIS turned off right outside of Tokyo, another busy shipping lane, when it collided with a container ship. [0]

Interestingly, the corresponding Wikipedia page of the collision is omits the AIS factor completely. [1]

[0] https://maritime-executive.com/article/fitzgerald-made-20-kn...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Cr...

Fishing boats reputedly run without AIS as well to hide their (potentially illegal) activities.

Then there are obviously pleasure craft that are not required to have AIS. But at least in the southern Baltic, most seem to carry a transponder.

I also don't really understand the practice of calling it a "mystery". Yes, after Biden threatened to unilaterally end the pipeline, and Blinken reiterated the threat, "someone" blew up the pipeline. But wait! Even more mysteriously the US (and allies) is the only party with a clear benefit from blowing up the pipeline. Yes, I wonder who could've done such a thing...

Here's why: the upside for Russia is getting European NATO countries to point fingers at each other, accusing Poland or USA or Great Britain of (nearly) violating Denmark's territorial integrity. Creating distrust inside NATO is a pretty useful strategic result!

The line of 'why would Russia blow up their own pipeline' is terribly simple-minded.

The side of this that is most opaque is the Russian one.

*it was never going to be easy, but it’s harder now.

Occam's razor provides a better explanation, the West did it because it handicaps a rival power.

So, let's do some more thinking. What would USA have to benefit from attacking the pipeline between Russia and Germany? A higher price for their LNG, so more money from Europe (economically weakening their ally), and if it would come out that USA did it, it would lead to severe fractures in NATO — not at all to the USA's benefit. And how, if the USA did it, would it have increased Russia's inability to sell gas to Europe? The flow was already zero, with no prospect of it returning anytime soon, sabotage or not. According to you, the USA sabotaged an ally, at the risk of ending NATO, at almost no detriment to Russia, for some increased LNG sales money. That, I would call mental gymnastics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r...

Very doubtful this is some sort of 8d chess game by the Russians.

You still haven't explained why you think it's doubtful Russia would use sabotage in this way. This is what their entire modus operandi, just think of the various Polonium-210 and Novichok operations. You can't dispute that people are suspecting USA of having done it, does that not harm cohesion inside NATO?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk-0qJXyido

/s

Russia had already shut down the pipeline and proven to be unreliable partner, and facing heavy sanctions.

It's not like the US needed the pipeline destroyed in order to be in the position to supply LNG to Europe.

By physically removing capability to transport gas from Russia to Germany, US not only secures fat margins for several years (at the very least until new LNG sources become available), but also significantly reduces probability of Germany acting independently in the near term, even if energy situation becomes critical. Don't forget that the gas storage numbers do not show the whole picture. A lot of energy-intensive industry got shut down and will not reopen in the near future.

Russia lost 99% of leverage the moment they attacked Ukraine. And they lost remaining 1% the moment the weaponized energy.

Germany was dumb, but it’s not that dumb to enter any agreement with Russia for any foreseeable future. It’s literarily like going back to loan shark for extra money, after they broke your legs last week.

>weaponized energy

I always find it amusing how Russia gets blamed for "weaponization", while US/Europe continuously use their control over technology and financial system as a weapon.

What? Who weaponized energy?

Do you think that Russia should have conducted business as usual after 300 billion in foreign oil reserves were seized?

You don't have to like Russia, but you can at least be honest.

1) The PR disaster that would ensue if the US were caught doing this

2) The fact that the US does this sort of thing with submarines, not ships.

Whereas: we have Vladmir Putin who is looking at would be assassins who have a nice, ready-made source of cash if they take him out simply by turning the pipeline back on. And Putin will suffer neither PR nor diplomatic repercussions for blowing up the pipeline.

Why would the US care about a PR disaster? It's not like Europe has any choice in the matter at this point.

> Whereas: we have Vladmir Putin who is looking at would be assassins who have a nice, ready-made source of cash if they take him out simply by turning the pipeline back on. And Putin will suffer neither PR nor diplomatic repercussions for blowing up the pipeline.

What?

Because the will of the allied sanction group is strongly dependent upon PR? The EU nations are a fractious group on the best of days. One of the reasons why the support for Ukraine and sanctions for Russia were so swift was the fact that Biden played the PR and intelligence game perfectly.

> What?

What part of my statement is not clear? Putin is worried about assassins. Taking out Putin and taking over Russia can be converted to cash very quickly by turning the pipeline back on even before sanctions get lifted. Blowing up the pipeline prevents any would be assassins from making use of it later. Putin will suffer neither PR backlash (he controls the Russian media) nor diplomatic backlash (he has already been isolated) for blowing up the pipeline.

And I note that you completely ignored the point that the US would do this with subs (and this was what they could do 30+ years ago). See: Blind Man's Bluff--https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/...

Ha-ha, let's take a look how much of "PR disaster" was direct spying on European "allied" leaders. Europe simply swallowed it without much trouble. With NS/NS2 we have a much better field for deniability. Simply say that any evidence is a Russian conspiracy or false flag.

I'd be surprised if the US was involved because the thing could backfire massively it were to come out they were behind it, and it's just not worth the risk. But Russia is not really an "obvious" suspect either IMO. My best guess is that it's an irrational act from an irrational regime (Putin) as a kind of "fuck you".

I can imagine Vlad or a faction aligned with him thinking this severs the ability for someone else displacing him to just turn on the taps, retreat out of Ukraine, and say "lol, whoops, our bad".

So the benefit may be to factions within Russia, even if it's detrimental to Russian economic capabilities.

The fact that out of 4 pipes 3 were destroyed and one was left impact IMHO strongly points to Russia doing it - any other country would destroy all 4.

Practically every country that has it's gas cut off is preparing to sue.

During the summer the price of gas on the European exchanges was often over $2000 for 1000 cubic meters. The long term contracts signed years ago had the price fixed around $200. Russia was losing a ton of money everyday these pipes were pumping gas. On top of that these deliveries were decreasing the global demand for gas - lowering the price Russia could sell gas outside of contract. There was a huge pressure from the top in GasProm to find a way out of those contracts.

I don’t buy it.

Assuming you want to plant charges, I've seen mini-subs attached to bigger submarines, but it was a movie (Red October), so no idea if that's really a thing.

Otherwise, what do you do? Can divers be deployed from a submarine?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter

The guy makes these cutaway of the subs with MS Paint

http://www.hisutton.com/Spy%20Sub%20-%20Project%2010831%20Lo...

http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Intervention-Underwater-Dron...

Video about seabed-warfare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H_tFKT9EXU

these are Russian subs / AUVs , very cool stuff.

P.S.: With regard to these sensor networks, I guess, the "dark" surface vessels weren't big news for the military in the area.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Just trying to imagine the real-time data feeds of Russian military gear deployments that Ukraine gets from NATO.

Russia has a long history of operating satellites and they have plenty of skilled software engineers as well. But I have a feeling it's hard to match the level of funding / ability brought to fore by the west.

Having a constant accurate picture of where counter-battery radar is, where SAM/AA-radars are deployed, etc could massively increase survivability of high-value vehicles like HIMARs and their limited set of aircraft.

Painting with an awfully broad brush are we?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

If it's more nuanced, I'm really keen to learn.

I think which ever perpetrator executed the operation to destroy the pipelines know about these ways of detecting objects using various satellite imagery (surface only) and try to avoid being detected.

Question: what about sub surface data? Which detect anomalies at ground level of the area. Question: who benefits?

Further more the inability of the various countries to work together is remarkable, at least in public. Trust no one?

"A people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.” – Hannah Arendt, 1978

In three short sentences, this is a complete description of Russia's disinformation goals, and has been their MO in the war they've been waging on the West for over a decade. If you're wondering why they would blow Nord Stream up, it's to make everyone suspicious of everyone else, sowing distrust and making everyone unable to believe in the foundations of the alliance. They didn't do it to frame one country. They did it with the intention of it remaining unsolved. This is the same reason Russian trolls spread conspiracy theories in social media circles. It's the same reason they say one thing and do another. They want everyone confused and therefore weak.

The only way to defeat this tactic to to make it known and to help the public learn to defend against it. This has got to be a priority in the West, but we're far more focused on the distraction of conventional war and not focused at all on the real danger in front of us.