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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#741

Post by adventured »

dragonwriter wrote: post #680
kstenerud wrote: post #90

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…

Or, Russia realizes that Nord Stream leverage isn’t working and is now moving to attacks which implicitly threaten other pipelines (e.g., Baltic Pipe) for a stick to replace the apparently useless carrot.

Yes, the next logical move for Russia is: if we can't sell our gas to the EU & Co., nobody gets to (to the extent they can help it).

That is, the next obvious offensive move is for Russia to start sabotaging more of allied Europe's energy infrastructure, increase the pain proactively. Pipelines coming out of Norway are clear targets.

Putin is an adult child throwing a tantrum because he's losing badly, being humiliated, and being shown to be weak and not brilliant. His position entirely rested on a wrong perception (that he was a highly competent authoritarian), which is now being displayed very publicly globally.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#742

Post by _kbh_ »

lm28469 wrote: post #678
_kbh_ wrote: post #182

A plausible theory for why Russia has done this could be to avoid fines. It is likely that Russia has agreements with steep penalties for if they voluntarily don't provide gas like they agreed too (like what they are doing with Nord Stream 1). Blowing large holes in the pipelines could allow Russia to claim that they cannot provide gas because the pipelines are broken, effectively avoiding the fines.

So illgellay invading a country is no big deal but a fine for breach of contract would warrant what could be seen as an act of war on a nato country ?

I never said it was a rational action just that it’s a reason.

There’s more evidence to support that this wasn’t someone like the US or Ukraine as well.

One of the pipes of Nord Stream 2 remains intact and there’s only one country that benefits from forcing the certification and opening of Nord Stream 2 and that’s Russia.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#743

Post by adventured »

lm28469 wrote: post #678
_kbh_ wrote: post #182

A plausible theory for why Russia has done this could be to avoid fines. It is likely that Russia has agreements with steep penalties for if they voluntarily don't provide gas like they agreed too (like what they are doing with Nord Stream 1). Blowing large holes in the pipelines could allow Russia to claim that they cannot provide gas because the pipelines are broken, effectively avoiding the fines.

So illgellay invading a country is no big deal but a fine for breach of contract would warrant what could be seen as an act of war on a nato country ?

Who said invading was not a big deal? Nobody said that.

If they plan to ever sell gas to Europe again, they'd have to pay the fines most likely. This does avoid the fine issue by sabotaging their own pipelines in a way that can be fixed later, at a relatively trivial cost, and it adds confusion into the situation for the allies.

Russia can now say: we can't turn the gas on even if we wanted to, we're not to blame, and we don't have to pay any breach of contract fines for it being off.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#744

Post by mechanical_bear »

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…

No “The” used in Ukraine. It is a sovereign nation, in need of no article.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#745

Post by woodruffw »

throwawaydad12 wrote: post #739
woodruffw wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a serious stretch to read this as threatening an attack on the pipeline itself. Not only is it from over 6 months ago, but it doesn't make any sense: NS2 is controlled by the Germans themselves, and there's no strategic value in blowing it up rather than just turning it off (or on). The more sensible interpretation is that Biden was threatening to fully support Germany's plans to become energy independent. And t…

The strategic value to the US is that it completely removes the possibility that Germany will negotiate with Russia to turn the pipelines back on. Or, alternatively, it's a strategic benefit to Russia to plant the idea of US treachery in the minds of the Germans. I have no opinion and doubt we'll ever know what actually happened. Definitely sabotage, though.

I don’t have a stated opinion on the strategic value, so I’m not sure what that’s a response to.

My opinion was solely that quote is weak evidence.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#746

Post by theGnuMe »

maydup-nem wrote: post #703
maydup-nem wrote: post #671

The shilling is immense on this one. The botfarms must be working overtime tonight.

The fact that I am getting downvoted proves this.

I bet we could figure it out based on bot activity we see across social media. Same explanations given with similar language. Given this is HN, I imagine it is straightforward to train an AI to figure this out.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#747

Post by OrvalWintermute »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #666
thiagoharry wrote: post #578

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…

> 2- Russia: they are losing the war and now throwing conscripts with not a day of training on the front. That's pretty desperate move to say the least. Whenever they escalate, they see that as a chance to break unity among the west. Blowing up their (now useless) pipeline is in line with another desperate move: at least try to make something useful out of it. If Russia loses the war, Putin is just dead (at least politically). He can't care less about Russia economy at the moment.

Russia isn't losing the war; they have a temporary setback. They have completely won the south but only have ~80k troops total in the country which limits their ability to organizationally maneuver and defensively hold territory simultaneously in the North. The HIMARS introductions has damaged Russia's logistical ability to resupply the large number of arty rounds needed to prosecute an arty heavy war.

Some of the Russian mobilization impacts those with previous military experience, and their reserve forces.

Remember, until this recent collapse in the North, they were rototilling the Ukrainian Army into the ground with Arty each day.

300k conscripts gives them the defensive force they need to hold space, freeing up their Army and Wagner to handle the offensive side of the campaigns.

With new Iranian drones entering the fray, and North Korea potentially entering the campaign to gain combat experience, this is likely to continue a great deal. Because North Korea uses Russian style artillery tactics, they are an instant fold-in to Russia's conventional arty dominant war.

The real question from a combat perspective is whether or not the mobilization of forces will enable the Russian supply lines to better hold.

The biggest gamechanger still on the table is that we haven't seen yet the introduction of true strategic (non-nuclear) weaponry on the Russian side, or, the targetting of Ukrainian infrastructure. The latter is likely to happen soon because the West is exploiting the Russian's soft touch towards seizing Ukrainian territory by sending a nonstop stream of heavy weaponry and resupply.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#748

Post by Kukumber »

optimiz3 wrote: post #453
Kukumber wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> The US have an interest to disrupt gas production in the EU, since they want to sell their gas to the EU Please. If Russia wanted to keep selling gas to the EU they could have, you know, stopped invading Ukraine. Also, comment history is nearly 100% pro-Russian talking points.

Don't say "please", it makes you look like someone who want to censor critical thinkers

Provide counter-arguments, sources and materials that can help educate the people you think are wrong in their analysis and research

I do my best to document and source my claims, and you know that since you checked my past comments, i do my homework

And no i'm not pro-russian, it's called impartiality

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#749

Post by OrvalWintermute »

abathur wrote: post #549
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…

IDK about the details underlying the argument (whether the contract is actually structured this way, etc.), but https://mobile.twitter.com/nierobmitak/status/15747490369129... mentioned the possibility that the contracts entail fines for non-delivery (which they might not have to pay if the pipeline is unusable).

Contracts 101: All contracts have force majeure clauses.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#750

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

pphysch wrote: post #429
throwrqX wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I don't understand Have you genuinely attempted to understand the Russian perspective in all this? Like listened to what Moscow has been saying for the last decade? Have you ever read a single one of Putin's speeches, for example? Reading Anne Applebaum screeds in The Atlantic is not seeking understanding, by the way. How can you understand something if you don't attempt to understand it? > What evidence is there f…

I genuinely attempted to understand Russia’s perspective and tended to sympathize with it until February of this year. But the current war doesn’t fit into that understanding at all and I don’t know how to begin to reconcile it. Why spend months insisting you’re not going to invade, then invade while publicly insisting you’re not invading, then call up a partial general mobilization without identifying any goals for your war that you insist isn’t a war? Maybe there’s a master plan that has to be secret and continually lied about, but if that’s so then listening to more Putin speeches won’t help me understand him anyway.
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