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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#411

Post by anonAndOn »

yread wrote: post #211
jcranmer wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the explosions are relevant, some possible causes, ordered somewhat (but not entirely) by my personal estimation of likelihood: * Ecoterrorists -- I discount this mostly on the basis that they would have claimed responsibility by now. * NATO sabotage -- this reduces strategic options for several EU countries (albeit a strategic option that isn't really being exercised and is almost universally disfavored). *…

One reason for Russia to sabotage it is as a show of force. "If we can hit our pipeline we can hit your pipeline, too". In unrelated news a brand new pipeline going from Norway to Poland through the Baltic sea opened just yesterday https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan... Talking about poor maintenance in a thread about registered underwater explosions sounds like FUD

"We have a saying in Russia, “to bomb Voronezh.” Voronezh is a Russian city not too far from the Ukrainian border, but the phrase does not refer to bombings by Ukraine. It refers to the Russian authorities’ perverse habit of retaliating against their own citizens in response to the actions of other governments."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/opinion/russia-mobilizati...

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#413

Post by throwrqX »

gpderetta wrote: post #108
arisAlexis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is looking for all shorts.of excuses to escalate

I don't think Russia has any interest in escalating.

Russia has every interest in escalating so that the EU backs off from supporting Ukraine. If you watch Russian state tv this is very obvious.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#414

Post by sam_lowry_ »

vintermann wrote: post #402
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have indeed been hating NS since the first pipeline was planned and opened. The reason for it's very existence has always been to squeeze us out of the picture. However, it would be an enormous risk for us to alienate NATO in any way. NATO is our only protection and we know it. Without NATO we are extremely easy to conquer - Stalin made sure of that when he drew our current borders. My money would be on a more ext…

That's an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of. Can a faction really blow up an undersea pipeline in three places at once, though?

If that fraction is FSB management, why not?

Rumor is, there is enormous pressure on Putin to cede power to Patrushev son.

This may be part if a plan to force him into quitting

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#415

Post by trasz »

hokkos wrote: post #353
wongarsu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Russia don't want Uniper to sue Gazprom on international arbitrage for the missing gas volume and using the frozen russian asset to pay the penalties, so is creating those force majeure using plausible deniability like leaking turbine and now NS1/2

Frozen Russian assets won’t ever return to Russia, and I suspect even Russians are aware of this.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#416

Post by throwrqX »

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #73
mech987 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only thought about it for a minute- but I might speculate that it is a signal from Russia- "even if we decide we want to turn the gas back on, you might not be able to get it when you want it."

Incentives don’t align for Russia (lose revenue) and Russia could just turn off the gas if it wanted to. Putin is a wildcard, but still, if he wanted to “teach Europe a lesson” he would just come out and say I’m turning the gas off, freeze to death. Also, Biden promised that they had the capability and desire to take out the pipelines if Russia invaded so there is that. Plus, the US would stand to profit from exporti…

Russia would only be losing potential revenue if the pipelines would be getting used any time soon, which is highly unlikely. They already did turn off the gas, now this just confirms it for the long term, with the added bonus of lots of people immediately blaming the US for it. Middle Eastern nations would benefit far more than the US, which has basically sold all of its capacity for LNG already. The EU is looking to sign LNG deals with those nations, see for example Scholz touring the Gulf region recently.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#417

Post by toss1 »

joshuajill wrote: post #347
toss1 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Who says the US is sensitive to gas prices in Europe? The US was already somewhat sensitive to global NatGas prices even before they recently permitted exports. Since we started permitting exports of NatGas, and are now actively sending all we physically can to support EU, it definitely affects both heating and electrical costs in the US, and the economy and political climate is very sensitive to those inputs.

Wonder if that makes sense given that Europe has just become dependent on US gas, and US being the main proponent of sanctions.

Yes, the US is working to show strong leadership for sanctions, since the current administration fully understands the global threats to democracy posed by Russia, China, and authoritarian movements inside democracies (e.g., Hungary).

The Great Experiment — the idea that exchange and trade would bring democracy to authoritarian states — has failed so far and only empowered authoritarian states (in the medium term, at least). Authoritarian states simply found ways to route around it, and see democracy as the key threat to their existence. for example, the very existence of a free and democratic Ukraine threatens Putin's administration because the Russian people can see that one of the former USSR states being free is doing much better - raises dissatsfaction.

On the gas situation, the US cannot begin to supply enough to Europe as there are not enough ships and terminals in the world. Dependence on US gas has only slightly increased, and EU NatGas imports aren't a significant contributor to US GDP, but ARE a significant contributor to inflation. This is the last thing the US administration needs right now, and it would also be seen as a massive escalation, which the US is obviously avoiding.

Increased uncertainty today benefits only one party in the world, and that is the Russian leader.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#418

Post by throwrqX »

joshuajill wrote: post #343
detaro wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that these boasts from the Secretaries autobiography are also the only source suggesting that this happened.

Quoting the Washington Post: > Portions of the operation have been disclosed earlier, including in a 1996 paper in Studies in Intelligence, a CIA journal.

The Wikipedia article quotes V. D. Zakhmatov to say this kind of attack was never possible in the first place because the control systems were either manual or analog, not digital.

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

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#419

Post by colinmhayes »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #364
Tomte wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ukrainian sabotage -- pretty much the only actor for whom sabotage makes rational sense. That would be a tragic miscalculation. If it comes out that Ukraine is responsible, German public sentiment will turn hard . No more military shipments, maybe even rapproachement with Russia. If it's a state actor, I'd think about Poland first.

We have indeed been hating NS since the first pipeline was planned and opened. The reason for it's very existence has always been to squeeze us out of the picture. However, it would be an enormous risk for us to alienate NATO in any way. NATO is our only protection and we know it. Without NATO we are extremely easy to conquer - Stalin made sure of that when he drew our current borders. My money would be on a more ext…

If it was a state level actor they probably has some level of US support. Many reasons the US would want nordstream taken out, but might be unwilling to do it themselves. Enlisting someone like Poland would make sense.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#420

Post by Tade0 »

ed_balls wrote: post #196
Tade0 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Pole, you're giving our elected representatives and secret services/special forces too much credit. Especially the latter were gutted by this government in its current and previous(2005-2007) incarnation under the guise of "decommunization" and replaced with people without the, to put it lightly, necessary qualifications. I mean, quite a few government motorcades got into accidents because the poor fool behind t…

Poland has an ideal device for this sabotage https://www.gospodarkamorska.pl/zdjecia/artykul/25081/135779...

Follow up:

It might have been a drone:

https://nyheder.tv2.dk/udland/2022-09-27-norge-advarer-om-my...

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