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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

forsvaret.dk

711–720 of 1001 posts

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#711
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia wants the taps ON, not off. Russia unilaterally turned the taps OFF repeatedly in the last months to keep Germany from meaningfully supporting Ukraine.

Not sure that is correct, the companies contractually responsible for the nordstream 1 turbine maintenance/repair were European and Canadian, that were refusing to repair them because of the sanctions on Russia https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-nordstream-si... https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/germany... https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukrainian-group-sue-...

Strangely, gas turbines supplying Hungary which showed a more friendly posture towards Russia didn't break all of a sudden... I obviously can't prove that the Russia controlled companies that operated this equipment deliberately broke anything but in the past outages like this were relatively rare.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#712
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why forget the obvious, Ukraine? Because Ukraine has no submarines and they don't have access to the Baltic Sea even if they had any?

Some people are claiming somebody could have dived to it. I don't know if that is the case, but I would assume Ukraine would be capable of sending a couple people who know how to dive a few countries over. They also likely have plenty of explosives.

There is quite a bit of risk involved in a covert operation like this for Ukraine. Let's just imagine they sent a special ops team covertly into Denmark (onto the island of Bornholm which is mostly reached by airplane or ferry) and planted some explosives on the pipeline in a secret dive operation.

There are quite a bit of scenarios in which this could go terribly wrong or be successfully attributed after the facts.

The paramount Ukrainian reliance on western support to have any chance to win this war makes me think that the risk/reward ratio for this operation would make it super unlikely that Ukraine would consider doing this.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#713

Putin no longer sees this as an economic conflict, all decisions they have taken are against their economic interests, as is the war itself. They are currently killing the rest of their economy with mobilization for some south Ukrainian fields and destroyed towns. They stopped supplying gas and are running deficits at the same time. So assuming an economic motive is just wrong this has become a classic political conf…

This was never an economic conflict.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#714
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's greatest leverage was Europe needing their gas, and eventually agreeing to stop supporting Ukraine in order to get the gas turned back on. Now if the pipelines are destroyed, no matter how cold and angry citizens in the EU get, EU leadership has no reason to give in to Russian since that now won't get the gas turned back on. If anything, this points to Ukraine or the US doing it.

Yes, Ukraine's famous Baltic sea combat divers.

lol. You made my day.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#715

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…

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Putin direct interest destroy a source of income and leverage to the country!?!? Now Germany can buy gas from 2 sources: Ukraine and USA. This explanation makes no sense to me.

Like on any crime scene, who profits from the crime? Well, a few things first: 1- NS1 along NS2 are (were) shutdown and clearly these were not going to re-open, not before the end of the war - not politically acceptable for Putin, even less for Germany 2- The war is going to last for many more months (best case scenario) or a year or two or ... No matter how long it will really last, Europe, after having survived Win…

> Their [US] utmost priority is that Ukraine defeats Russia to send a strong message to China

Not exactly, as it's a serious double payoff. We want to break Russia too - that's what the Middle East wars have been about (including Syria, Libya and Iraq). We just expected their military to be considerably more potent than it actually is.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except maybe the Russian speaking ethnically Russian separatists in the Donbass region of Ukraine? (from before the 2022 propaganda started): https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-the-forgotten-victims-of-donba... Story from 2018: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/about-40000-ukrain... So many seem to have just swallowed anything and everything the US propaganda has put out this year and know absolutely nothing about…

Your links are highly disingenuous. Russia supported armed separatists and started a low-grade war against Ukraine in 2014. Their aims have always been clear: control Crimea and seize control of a land bridge to it. They never hid these intentions, and you'd have to purposefully ignore this realpolitik in order to lay the blame at Ukraine's feet. Are Ukrainians all saints, souls pure as the driven snow? Clearly not.…

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they didn’t threaten an attack. This is such a low-effort take on this whole situation. Think a bit.

Doesn't matter if it's a follow up to Biden's threat or not. It was probably a joint US-Polish operation. The Poles wanted to stick it to Putin and ze Germans for historical and more recent inter-EU spats. The US has obvious reasons, no need to elaborate here. In case things go south the Poles will be exposed as rogue agents of NATO and take full blame. If everything goes well, then I guess we'll be reading about it…

3/4 of the pipeline is taken offline.

NS2 still has an intact set of pipe and can operate-- if the West falls on its sword and allows NS2 to open.

And a clear statement of capability has been made: whomever has done this can also target pipelines in the North Sea that provide Europe's remaining gas.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#719
post #614
post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've been wanting to get that pipeline approved and operational Not recently. Recently, they pulled out a string of excuses to send less and less gas over (turbine bing repaired, sanctions, etc.) to show Europe their leverage. They don't feel any lack of money currently, and they know with current hydrocarbon prices, they have options to sell, even if at discount, and no money shortages currently. So they're bet…

They stopped sending gas over on Nord Stream 1 with the excuse of maintenance and repairs specifically as leverage for Germany to sign off on opening their brand new pipeline Nord Stream 2 for business. Now, both pipelines have been blown up. It doesn't make any sense for it to have been Russia.

3/4 of the pipeline is taken offline.

NS2 still has an intact set of pipe and can operate-- if the West falls on its sword and allows NS2 to open.

And a clear statement of capability has been made: whomever has done this can also target pipelines in the North Sea that provide Europe's remaining gas.

Also, if someone is thinking of succeeding Putin, this step makes it hard to think one can walk back to the status quo (especially if the last NS2 parallel segment is rigged to blow).

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The USA has absolute power over Europe. This is just a demonstration of that. No country will complain or do anything. And it'll just be forgotten about like the extraordinary renditions, the May 1947 crises, etc.

What happened in May 1947?

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