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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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471–480 of 1001 posts

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#471
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure the US companies would love to sell more LNG, but my understanding is they don't have enough ships to sell them, i.e. they are selling every lb they can already and they just can't get capacity to sell more to the EU, which makes it a much less rational decision to do this.

That's the thing, there is high demand, and they have supply, they also can sell them contracts to build more infrastructure to increase the rate at wich supply is delivered Quickening the cut from gazprom is in their plan, considering: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gazprom-says-groups-... We can all pretend and not see what's happening, but then you have this: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia…

The US (or someone else) instigated Azerbaijan to go to war so that they can interfere with their own future gas sales?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#472

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. 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 lev…

Quoted post unavailable.

I don't really disagree with your information or analysis, but it was very unhelpful to start out accusing someone of being a "troll".

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#473

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. 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 lev…

[deleted]

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#474

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…

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.

And what would these many reasons be?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russians blew up their own brand-new pipeline, which they spend billions creating (jointly with the Germans) and is one of the few major "hopes" to salvage that relationship, especially as winter dawns. That's frankly absurd. Russia almost certainly sabotaged a LNG terminal in Texas a few months ago (industrial cyberattack). This act was almost certainly done by Washington or their proxies. It drives the wedge fu…

I don't understand why people here seem to think Russia is acting rationally. The fact they continue the invasion when losing is clearly irrational. They threaten mass nuclear bombardment of Europe nearly daily. I don't see any long term rationality in Putin's government in the slightest. There will be no salvaging the relationship between Germany and Russia for a long time unless Putin gets replaced, even during win…

Putin is employing Madman theory and you are falling for it.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#476
post #381
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is in Russia's interest: this is their last warning before the North Sea pipelines blow up too.

I'd vote for Russia too, not direct evidence obviously but makes more sense than anybody else. Elites who decide see that EU wants and will cut itself off from Russia anyway, just a question of when and its coming soon. So harsh punishment of this pesky EU right before winter starts to feel the consequences of daring to break away from Russian dependence.

Russia made tons of money in past months on oil and gas due to elevated prices. Money ain't what they need desperately now, rather massive civil unrest in EU to weaken Ukraine support and punish. Those who decide have stellar-size egos which are getting continuously humiliated by recent development. Don't underestimate pettiness of a ego-maniac person who has tremendous power and thinks about themselves as somebody larger-than-life and on a life mission. Anyway financial consequences of not selling gas anymore won't affect anyhow the folks on top, and clearly russian population is just cannon fodder for them.

Its political and military move. Realistically only US and Russia have the capacity to do 3 attacks like this simultaneously. This all benefits US too in some ways, but if I have to decide between those 2 options, for me personally its a no brainer.

Has anybody checked Russian reaction? Sometimes its quite obvious from how they say things / what they don't say whats really happening and how much they actually care. For me its not easy to see this in western media and I don't speak russian to check source directly.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#477
post #192

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 (degree of freedom).

It's not a bad strategy per se. As the parent comment said, this could be done to limit the choices that the future government of Russia will have. And in the present, this fact being public could be used by some political forces to create extra leverage.

There was a good game-theoretic example explaining why limiting your own future choices can be a good strategy which I can't find right now. So I'll try to re-tell it. Suppose you want to buy X, and you're willing to pay as much as $20 for it. You know that the seller is likely to agree even on $10, and they know that they know that you're likely to pay more for it. So for both of you the bargain happening is better than not happening as long as the price is within the range $10-20, but both of you know that both of you know this, so you both will be trying to squeeze as much as you can out of this deal.

In this case, artificially reducing your own capabilities and making it public can help convince the seller to sell it to you for less than $20. Say, you can sign an agreement with a third party saying that if you pay more than $10 for X, you will have to pay 11$ more to the third party. Now your possibilities are limited and you can't buy X for $20 anymore, so the only acceptable price for you is 10$, to which the seller has to agree because they know that otherwise the deal won't happen and they will lose.

It gets funnier if both you and seller sign these kind of contracts quietly, and then announce together making the deal impossible.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#478
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…

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). *…

Where is USA sabotage?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#479
post #408

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. 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 lev…

I’d be _immensely_ proud if it was Poland.

[deleted]

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#480

Intense amount of conspiracy chatter is in this thread. Let the dust settle a bit and see what shakes out. To be fair - I do understand how fun it can be to play at conspiracy theories especially given the circumstances here.

It's speculation, not conspiracy. There is no legitimate course of events that leads to the blowing up of the pipe
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