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Dear Russia Thanks for confirming so clearly that you are an untrustworthy and manipulative partner. Best, -The Rest of Europe.
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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…
Europe didn't need the gas [1] [2]. Russia has nothing to lose by sabotaging it. Don't forget that Russia had already slowed/slopped NS1 by this point. [1] https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/15747542772681031... "Those shipments are enough to cover a complete halt in Russian pipeline flows from Oct. 1." [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... (paywalled version of the original quot…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
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?
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…
I think that game has been completely gone for a while. Russia just doesn't care(well, Putin doesn't), so blowing up those pipelines is like the final fuck you to Europe, now you can't have our gas even if you change your minds.
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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 s…
These parties (Italy and Hungary to name just two) are angling for friendlier relations with Russia, and name gas as one of the reasons.
And over winter Russia will say "We want to help Europe. And we want to help their people. And we even have a pipelines full of gas waiting. But their political parties don't want us to help."
And then Europe is full of far-left and far-right Russia-friendly political parties, Ukraine is part of Russia, Russia counts its oil money and continues its military expansion.
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...
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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?
> Would some special forces with diving equipment and a fishing boat be enough? Sections are shallow. (No clue about the blast sites.) With zero information on the extent of the damage beyond measured pressure drops, folks dropping weighted dry bags of dynamite from kayaks is in scope.
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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.
The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first".
Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of leverage against Germany.
Poland opened a new pipeline to Norway on the same day as the leaks appeared, so there was lots of Polish activity in the waters.
Poland doesn't receive gas via Nordstream, so damaging it doesn't hurt them in any way.
Poland is Ukraine's most ardent supporter in Europe, often leading the vanguard of actions to support Ukraine. They'd have a strong motive to ensure that the rest of Europe doesn't waver in its commitment to keep the Russian taps off.
It could be argued that since Europe has already decided to never turn on Nordstream again, the fallout from such an act of sabotage is minimal.