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Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

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Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#21

Post by lb1lf »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15
lb1lf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one is of a sufficiently dark view, it may even be some western power wishing to drive home the point that Russia will not - full stop - export gas in any significant quantity to Europe anytime soon. I would believe it more likely to be the Russians testing the waters, so to speak - finding out how far you can go sabotaging infrastructure. After all, starting with two non-operational pipelines makes consequences l…

> it may even be some western power wishing to drive home the point that Russia will not - full stop - export gas in any significant quantity to Europe anytime soon Then it would be incompetent. There is political resolve against Russia in Europe. Keeping the ability to bomb the pipes is one thing. Doing it in the midst of that resolve would be self defeating.

-But that resolve is feared to be weakened by falling temperatures in Continental Europe.

Surely it cannot be completely outside the realm of the possible that Someone(tm) helped EU politicians do The Right Thing(tm) by ensuring they couldn't give in to Russian demands this winter even if they'd wanted to?

(I believe this one's on the Russians - but I can see other actors finding it beneficial that Russian exports cannot easily be resumed. Especially as long as the Kremlin denying it had anything to do with something is largely seen as evidence it did indeed have something to do with it.)

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#22

Post by timonoko »

Anybody could destroy this pipeline, me myself included. I watched the pipe-laying ship from Finnish "Suuri-Pisi" Island while kayaking. https://youtu.be/0P-wd3qzCBA?t=526

So I know exactly where the pipeline goes. Nothing prevents me from packing some dynamite and Arduino-based timer in water-proof box and do some more kayaking on some dark October night.

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#23

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lb1lf wrote: post #21
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it may even be some western power wishing to drive home the point that Russia will not - full stop - export gas in any significant quantity to Europe anytime soon Then it would be incompetent. There is political resolve against Russia in Europe. Keeping the ability to bomb the pipes is one thing. Doing it in the midst of that resolve would be self defeating.

-But that resolve is feared to be weakened by falling temperatures in Continental Europe. Surely it cannot be completely outside the realm of the possible that Someone(tm) helped EU politicians do The Right Thing(tm) by ensuring they couldn't give in to Russian demands this winter even if they'd wanted to? (I believe this one's on the Russians - but I can see other actors finding it beneficial that Russian exports ca…

> it cannot be completely outside the realm of the possible that Someone(tm) helped EU politicians do The Right Thing(tm) by ensuring they couldn't give in to Russian demands this winter even if they'd wanted to?

Could be. But doing it now and like this (three simultaneous incidents that are also highly repairable) would be stupid. If it’s American it’s because placed mines went off early.

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#24

Post by nradov »

aa-jv wrote: post #18
netsharc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could put on my amateur geo-political-analyst hat for a moment, who could be behind this and why? Seems like a Putin move, since he dared using (probably) a sub in other nations' waters. Reason? To show Europe he means business? To show Europe he's not planning to rewind anything to the way things were in 2021?

I'm curious why you're avoiding the obvious party: the USA did this. Biden even stated he would do it. https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-germanys-scholz-stress-u...

It's impossible to completely rule out some sort of US sponsored covert action, but that seems highly unlikely. The risks outweigh any possible rewards. If the operation went wrong and got exposed the political fallout would be catastrophic.

Right now the US is the only country really "winning" the war in Ukraine so there's no need to do anything so crazy.

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#25

Post by almost_usual »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #19
jusssi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not out of question that there could be a faction in Russia that would want to undermine the current regime. Edit: Or it could be a play by the current regime against any competing factions.

Lots of people in Russia have family in Ukraine

That didn’t seem to stop an invasion and bombing campaign.

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#26

Post by 4gotunameagain »

jusssi wrote: post #17
omega3 wrote: post #16

Potentially sending gas via this pipeline was one of the last remaining bargain cards for Russia. In case of harsh winter they could use it to pressure European countries (cough Germany cough) into lifting the sanctions. There is no logical reason as to why Russia would have been attacking it's own pipeline.

It's not out of question that there could be a faction in Russia that would want to undermine the current regime. Edit: Or it could be a play by the current regime against any competing factions.

a faction with a submarine ?

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#27

Post by JumpCrisscross »

aa-jv wrote: post #20
silexia wrote: post #12

For the conspiracy theorists claiming this is the US... The current US administration has made climate change it's number one priority. It's extremely doubtful they would damage the environment in this way with methane.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Biden even announced he'd do it

Looking at your recent comment history, it’s difficult to take these claims seriously, given their repetition and wrongness. But in the effort of maintaining HN’s ethos I’ll assume good faith.

Your link [1] talks about Nord Stream 2. It was halted. With sanctions. With the stroke of a pen the U.S. could do the same to Nord Stream 1.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-germanys-scholz-stress-u...

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#28

Post by lb1lf »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #23
lb1lf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-But that resolve is feared to be weakened by falling temperatures in Continental Europe. Surely it cannot be completely outside the realm of the possible that Someone(tm) helped EU politicians do The Right Thing(tm) by ensuring they couldn't give in to Russian demands this winter even if they'd wanted to? (I believe this one's on the Russians - but I can see other actors finding it beneficial that Russian exports ca…

> it cannot be completely outside the realm of the possible that Someone(tm) helped EU politicians do The Right Thing(tm) by ensuring they couldn't give in to Russian demands this winter even if they'd wanted to? Could be. But doing it now and like this (three simultaneous incidents that are also highly repairable) would be stupid. If it’s American it’s because placed mines went off early.

-Easily repairable may be a stretch, it is my understanding there are no shutoff valves along the length of the pipeline, so if they're all breached (4 pipes, each ~1200km long, slightly over 1m in diameter) then that's about 5B liters of water which needs to be pumped out after whatever damage done where they were punctured has been repaired.

(Presumably the water inrush is slowed by the escaping gas sufficiently so that the pipeline doesn't sustain further damage, but I'm just guessing. Being an electrical engineer this is way outside what I dabble with on a day-to-day basis)

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#29

Post by mox1 »

timonoko wrote: post #22

Anybody could destroy this pipeline, me myself included. I watched the pipe-laying ship from Finnish "Suuri-Pisi" Island while kayaking. https://youtu.be/0P-wd3qzCBA?t=526 So I know exactly where the pipeline goes. Nothing prevents me from packing some dynamite and Arduino-based timer in water-proof box and do some more kayaking on some dark October night.

I see this type of comment all the time, you are vastly underestimating the skill required to do the thing you hypothesize.

Spend 15 minutes walking through the scenario, there is a lot that can go wrong with your simple plan.

Of course it is possible, but you would need to find the intersection of 1. Willing / Desire to blow up the pipeline 2. Have the skills to create an underwater bomb of correct properties to blow up a pipeline.

1 & 2 is not "Anybody". Its a relatively small set of the worlds population, probably someone with mining skills, engineering skills, probably diving skills and/or former military.

Re: Pressure leaks hit undersea Nord Stream pipelines

#30

Post by rasz »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #26
jusssi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not out of question that there could be a faction in Russia that would want to undermine the current regime. Edit: Or it could be a play by the current regime against any competing factions.

a faction with a submarine ?

Hey, Iv seen this movie!
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