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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#41

Post by viraptor »

wongarsu wrote: post #20
jefftk wrote: post #3

More details: Although neither was in operation, both pipelines [Nordstream 1 and 2] still contained gas under pressure. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warni...

Sabotage makes sense, but by whom? Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter. Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive. They would benefit from…

> Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive.

I don't think that's what happened, but I do see an incentive. If you can turn "we're going to increase the conflict by refusing trade" into "we'd buy, but you can't deliver", that's a potentially politically useful change. Also internally "we're taking a stance and sacrificing your comfort during the winter" is worse optics than "we need to deal with the situation where even if we wanted to buy from Russia, we can't; sorry for the inconvenience".

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#42

Post by belorn »

cm2187 wrote: post #4

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

Since there is no direct effect (the pipelines has been out of use for a long time), the effect must be indirect. As such we can't know and will likely never know for sure why it happened or by whom.

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.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#45

Post by seydor »

Could it be because the line was underused because of russia lately and the pressure went down? It could be sabotage, but russia can always just turn the tap off. In fact, why would they want to sabotage their instrument of blackmail ?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#47

Post by krisoft »

mmastrac wrote: post #19
krisoft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point 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 wante…

That's a very Putin-esque thing to do. They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back. The question is whether they trigger article 5 here -- I suspect not, however.

> They know that Germany is off Russian gas and they want to give them as much pain as possible so they come begging back.

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.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#48

Post by tomatotomato37 »

cm2187 wrote: post #10
guerrilla wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point would depend on who did it. If it was the US, then it was to keep their promise to shut down NS1/2 but after Germany had topped up[1][2]. If it was Russia, then the point is to increase prices by creating volatility through insecurity and to make a threat (they have other pipelines like Yamal that are still running.[3]) If it was some other gas-exporting country (seems unlikely), then likewise, to spike pri…

I would think the US would be more subtle than two simultaneous leaks. That looks like an actor who doesn’t care about being identified.

My bet is on some sort of deniable operation from either Ukraine, or one of the other former soviet countries with a bone to pick against Russia. It's not like Russia isn't shy in waving around how much an asset the pipeline is to them.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#49

Post by Bud »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #40
BitwiseFool wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conspiracy theory is that either the United States or some member of NATO sabotaged the pipeline so that Germany will not have the option of easing up on sanctions in order to purchase Russian Gas this winter.

It’s not a conspiracy theory. Some group conspired to sabotage the pipelines. It’s a conspiracy fact. The only theoretical aspect is who did it and that’s more of a hypothesis at this point. It’s a conspiracy hypothesis.

Could we please have at least a shred of evidence of sabotage before we move on to the phase where we conclude there was sabotage? Sorry to be a stickler about major geopolitical crises.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#50

Post by krzyk »

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #32
cm2187 wrote: post #4

I read talks of sabotage but I struggle to understand the point, surely russia wouldn’t sabotage their own pipelines (they can just shut them) and I understand they are not in use right now. In fact doesn’t that mean that the pipeline will be flooded? Is that recoverable?

Russia doesn't really stand to gain here. Ukraine and the United States stand to gain the most by removing the option for Europe to capitulate to Russia this winter. 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?

The biggest gain is for Russia, remember the long "repair" of NS1? Blocking the filling of gas reserves in Western Europe? Repair here, sabotage there and bam Germany has less gas for winter.
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