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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#521

Post by sschueller »

aredox wrote: post #381
eloff wrote: 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.

Yet it was the United States president that told a German reporter that NS2 will never go online and the US will see to that.

Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?"

Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that." abcn.ws/3B5SScx

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#522

Post by throwawaymaths »

FiberBundle wrote: post #270
pphysch wrote: post #195

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…

It's really not that absurd. The fact that it looks entirely irrational for Russia to do this is exactly why they might have done it. Their intent is to cause division in the West. They could potentially hope for EU countries to blame the US or Ukraine for this. If you read Twitter trends you already see an army of Russian bots pushing the theory that the US has done this.

It's not just Russian bots, unless I've been deepfaked, Biden announced he would do this if Russia invaded Ukraine prior to the Feb invasion.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#523

Post by migro23 »

0x457 wrote: post #491
aredox wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Remove its only leverage is in Russia's interest? Until now, there was a possibility that EU get tired and get bend over. Now that possibility is gone.

That possibility is long gone. Damaging the Nord Stream pipeline however gives Putin reason to continue to not supply gas (rather than flat out breaking existing contracts) hence maximising the possibility for civil disruption in Europe over the Winter. The less gas there is in Europe the more chance of this occurring. No one knows for sure at this point but all these comments on this thread that there isn't reason or motive for Russia to do this is complete nonsense.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#524

Post by throwawaymaths »

kbelder wrote: post #481
holoduke wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the Ukrainians in cooperation with their biggest friends: the Polish government. It's in no interest for the Russians to destroy their own pipeline. They could as well just shut down the supply. I don't wanna speak to negative about Ukraine. But don't forget that the country belongs to the most corrupt and dirty countries in Europe. The state is controlled by oligarchs. In fact the Oligarchs brought the Z…

In my mind, the Ukrainians are the only party who could blow the pipelines without being dirty. It's a strategic asset of a country they're in an active war with.

At 70m it could also be a private citizen

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#525

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

migro23 wrote: post #513
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes zero sense to me. What does Russia get by destroying their own pipeline? If they wanted to shutoff gas, thats just a turn of a valve. Russia looses massive leverage by no longer being able to deliver gas, even if they wanted to. Prior to this, if the public got cold enough, they could tell their government "forget Ukraine, we need gas. Go agree to get it or we will vote you out ASAP". Now.... There's no po…

People need to stop thinking of 'Russia' (or any other country for that matter) as a single monolith. For example, a possible motive that may be bad for Russia but good for Putin is that maybe he wants to deter any would be assassination attempt coming from within the Kremlin by making it abundantly clear that there will be no going back to business as usual if he was to be eliminated. Blowing up the Nord Stream pipe…

This could be the same for the US or Ukraine. So considering that, all things being equal, it sounds pretty terrible for the main Russian goals, so I'm going to say no it wasn't Russia.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#526

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

ed_balls wrote: post #305
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone assume the need for submersibles? Why not a small patrol boat dropping some depth charges on a time delay in the middle of the night?

> patrol boat dropping some depth charges on a time delay in the middle of the night That's also an option, but you would have problems with precision and deniability*. You could use some WW2 style device and blame it on German mines that are still present.

If you knew the exact position of the pipes, why would there be a problem with precision? Maybe there are lighthouses in sight which you could use to line up exactly, maybe you'd use gps/glonass, maybe you'd have some plane go by near at a specified time, doing it for you, saying via radio, all good, drop it?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#527

Post by 0x457 »

lurquer wrote: post #301
stickfigure wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also "the Sicilian option". Putin, knowing that the pipelines are no longer practically useful, blew them up deliberately to seed mistrust and discontent among NATO allies. It's a mindbender, but he's also a former KGB officer and may have bombed his own people to justify the 2nd Chechen war[1]. He can only succeed in Ukraine if he divides Ukraine's western allies. What other tools does he have? [1] https://w…

> It's a mindbender, but he's also a former KGB officer Your speculations are interesting. But the above adds nothing. There’s nothing magical about having been in the KGB and one can’t determine one’s aptitude for ‘sneakiness’ from same. It’s just silly. Putin has been in power for 20+ years. There’s no need to draw conclusions about his character from his KGB days when you have such a rich history since then. As an…

It's silly. Even if you include training in KGB, he was a politician for longer than the was at KGB. He was president longer than his active KGB career. Plus, his KGB career wasn't all that glorious: counterintelligence here, collecting newspapers there, maybe donated a few guns there.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#528

Post by some0x80070005 »

bradgessler wrote: post #310

Does anybody know what this means in terms of bringing the pipeline back online? I'm assuming it's filling with seawater, which seems like it would cause all sorts of problems between the salt and debris. Is it a matter of repairing the breaches, removing the water, cleaning the pipeline out, and pressurizing it or is this pipeline effectively destroyed?

Due to the special inside coating to reduce friction, seawater ingress would mean the abandonment of the pipeline. It’s just not possible to fix the line without just replacing the entire thing. I theorize it’s possible to run at severely reduced flow rates if they were able to get the water out, but that seems unlikely since the receiving facilities are not designed to handle the tremendous amount of water that would be in the system.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#530

Post by tpm »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #499
saiya-jin wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This makes zero sense to me. What does Russia get by destroying their own pipeline? If they wanted to shutoff gas, thats just a turn of a valve. Russia looses massive leverage by no longer being able to deliver gas, even if they wanted to. Prior to this, if the public got cold enough, they could tell their government "forget Ukraine, we need gas. Go agree to get it or we will vote you out ASAP". Now.... There's no po…

If they just turn a valve, they break contract. If they pipeline blows up, its force majeure. They can still pump gas using the other pipelines (yamal etc). But they will shut down all of them eventually. Why? Because they are past the point of no return.
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