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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#461

Post by splitstud »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #28
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…

Quoted post unavailable.

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#462

Post by jpfr »

NeverFade wrote: post #387
jpfr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If the Russians wanted to stop the gas supply, they could just stop supplying gas. And they had already stopped. Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability (degree of freedom). It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. And thus removes this option for Russia to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations. I would say this is either the US, Ukr…

> It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. Have you been following the news? The current Russian regime is threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and massacring thousands in war crimes in Ukraine. The EU has already set up permanent alternatives to Russian gas: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the…

> The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations.

The new supply chain isn't yet ready to a sufficient level. The pain inflicted by missing gas could become high enough for some "moral flexibility".

Apparently some state actor did see a greater-zero-chance for resumed operations. Otherwise, why blow up the pipeline...

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#463

Post by seydor »

I dont know who did it but this is a good thing for europe. Enough with the schizophrenic approach. Either we accept that russia is invaluable and ask ukraine to negotiate peace, or we cut off russia completely.

A cut off was bound to happen anyway sooner or later

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#464

Post by Symmetry »

eloff wrote: post #113
tpmx wrote: post #54

The Swedish national seismic network picked up two explosions within kilometers of the reported gas leak locations yesterday. The time of the first explosion: Yesterday, Monday morning at 02:03 am, second one Monday evening at 7:04pm (local time, CEST). The reports of the gas leaks came at 1:52pm and 8:41pm, respectively - by means of ships reporting bubbling at the surface level. One of the two events registered at…

So that doesn't look like an accident. I have difficulty imagining accidental ignition in an underwater gas pipeline. Where would the oxygen come from? Plus it's more than one explosion on the same day - can't be a coincidence. The next question is, who did it? It doesn't seem like something in Russia's interest, they've been wanting to get that pipeline approved and operational. They invested huge sums of money to b…

The problem is that the technical resources required to pull something like this off don't seem to be all that high. You need a ton or so of explosives which is the hard part, a delayed fuse, a water proof container, a camera and light that work underwater, and some winches to deploy the camera and then the bomb. It wouldn't surprise me if almost every nation in Europe could pull this off if they put their minds to it, and a wide variety of sub-national groups as well.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#465

Post by mrguyorama »

hendrikrassmann wrote: post #436
twawaaay wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realise the risks US would be taking? Like the end of NATO? I don't want to say US isn't making stupid things, but this would be a whole new level of stupid...

1. I'm not saying the US did it. 2. I just want to remind you, that you're talking about a country literally renaming their national dish to "freedom fries" over France not wanting to join in a war, started under provably false pretenses.

>literally renaming their national dish to "freedom fries"

Nobody actually did this. 10% of extreme "patriotic" losers wanted to do this. It did not happen.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#466

Post by bulbosaur123 »

NeverFade wrote: post #387
jpfr wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. If the Russians wanted to stop the gas supply, they could just stop supplying gas. And they had already stopped. Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability (degree of freedom). It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. And thus removes this option for Russia to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations. I would say this is either the US, Ukr…

> It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. Have you been following the news? The current Russian regime is threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and massacring thousands in war crimes in Ukraine. The EU has already set up permanent alternatives to Russian gas: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is... The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the…

> The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west

Never say never.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#467

Post by ancorevard »

bamboozled wrote: post #422
ancorevard wrote: post #244

The most plain explanation is that this was simply a warning message from Russia. These two pipelines have no longer any value to them, nor to EU. However, what does have value are the numerous pipelines from Norway and other countries to EU. And this is where the real treat is. Russia has now shown it is willing to blow up infrastructure outside Ukraine. Russia is known to have carefully mapped out the gas pipelines…

Except now they’ve told everyone they’re coming, which would be stupid. If they were considering blowing up pipelines they wouldn’t tell anyone and ruin the element of surprise.

There is no element of surprise. A real threat is demonstrating your capability and willingness to take action, no use of words no surprise (if surprise then no threat).

This is a warning to Norway and rest of Europe.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#468

Post by rad_gruchalski »

origin_path wrote: post #278
tgv wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these make much sense. It's pretty idle to speculate, and the list is most likely incomplete and inaccurate. It only feeds the trolls. Then again, this whole thread is full of fingerpointing without evidence. If HN can't contain itself, what won't the twitter and facebook, and –may God forget– Truth Social do?

Note that NS2 has also been destroyed, and that's even more recent than NS1. It was definitely sabotage, it can't be anything else given the timing, and it has to be state sponsored given that the pipelines are under the ocean. Berlin apparently thinks it would require submarines or special forces. US / Ukraine are unfortunately the only states for which this makes sense (perhaps US with back-room permission from som…

> given that the pipelines are under the ocean

Under the sea. It’s not really deep either, 80 to 110 meters.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#469

Post by [deleted] »

axus wrote: post #260
Roark66 wrote: post #145

I don't see a mention that today is the day Poland officially opens up its pipeline to Denmark and Norway. The pipeline Russia (and to a much lesser extent Germany) put a lot of resources trying to jeopardize. Some of the things those two countries did include: Financing of various "grassroots ecology groups" that managed to find an extremely important field mouse (no joke!) habitat on the planned route which caused…

I liked the theory that Russia did it as a warning that they can blow up Poland's pipeline anytime.

[deleted]

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#470

Post by nosianu »

jpfr wrote: post #192
NeverFade wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next question is, who did it? The Russians. > It doesn't seem like something in Russia's interest, they've been wanting to get that pipeline approved and operational. Once their invasion faltered, and with the recent escalation, they had no hope of that happening. The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume oper…

That doesn't make any sense. If the Russians wanted to stop the gas supply, they could just stop supplying gas. And they had already stopped. Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability (degree of freedom). It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. And thus removes this option for Russia to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations. I would say this is either the US, Ukr…

> Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability

Remember the many deaths of important people in Russia but also abroad?

It could very well be about "sending a message" while maintaining plausible deniability. Just like when the Russian oligarch was murdered in Spain a few months ago, and his whole family. Russia had nothing to do with it! But all the others got the message - you are not safe anywhere.

Similar here. There are a lot of other pipelines. If you look at the news, Poland opened a new pipeline from Norway exactly now! What a coincidence in timing?

The threat is that they can destroy any important infrastructure, cables and pipelines, under the sea, and there is no way to prove it was Russia.

It fist very well with how Russia operated this year. The many many different threats, direct and indirect, and demonstrations to actually carry them out.

To me, it's plausible. Much more so than "the US did it", or even Ukraine. Neither has any reason to stupidly risk their relationship with the Europeans for that, Ukraine least of all, and the US is already set to be the main supplier of LNG (German article: https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/usa-wird-wohl-wichtigster-l...). Gas exports for the US are nice to have, but not nearly essential, I think the US's own independence was the main driver in investing into domestic fossil fuel extraction, exports are a distant second. And they already got them, as I pointed out, no need for such a stupidly risky thing. Russia on the other hand does not need to gain anything, they can be content setting up a bigger threat scenario now that Putin escalated almost as much as he will be able to excluding using "WMD".

By the way, Der Spiegel is reporting that the CIA warned the German Government that an attack on the pipelines might be imminent. (Paywall and German -https://www.spiegel.de/politik/beschaedigte-gasleitungen-cia...)

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