Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea • Hacker News Board

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#751

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

0x457 wrote: post #594

migro23 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

87.7% of EU gas storage is filled[1]. Which is pretty close to how it is usually every winter. Germany is at 91%. Russia wasn't supplying gas via Nord Stream 1, claiming it needs maintenance and sanctions preventing this maintenance. Which is well...true[2]? Six turbines were stuck in Canada due to sanctions. There are many ways to not supply gas to Germany and not break the contract that does not involve damaging ne…

The manufacturer of those turbines themselves went to the length of making a statement that the Russian technical rationale offered was false.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#752

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #747

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pol…

Uh you might want to look around Lyman and Kherson…

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#753

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:30 AM UTC

sorokod wrote: post #560

yznovyak wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common theme I've heard here (Kyiv, Ukraine) is that this sabotage is in Putin's direct interest. There are rumours of political infighting among Russia's leaders and that there are several factions trying to seize power, however since there is no clear winner, those guys need powerful allies, EU being a very important one. The idea is that Europe really wants to buy Russian gas, but not from Putin, so if Russia some…

"...he (or she)" couldn't help smiling at the instinctive political correctness. Reminds of of a story about a person from US visiting South Africa and at some point referring to black people in the audience as African Americans.

My university announced an call for applications to an initiative supporting Ukrainian students and one of the bullet points read “impact on Indigenous and minority peoples of Ukraine”

Now Roma aside, the only Ukrainian law about this covers Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaim in occupied Crimea (not even Hutsuls) so basically they wrote the law because EU told them to, and in such a way so they wouldn’t have to lift a finger

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#754

Post by OrvalWintermute » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:31 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #649

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire war has been an exercise in Ukraine using other people's resources to attack Russia. If they wanted to I'm sure the US and Ukraine could figure out how to get this done.

During the entire war, Ukraine has only conducted a few small attacks on Russia. Almost all of their attacks have been on invading Russian troops inside Ukraine.

You are forgetting - A civil war of Western Ukrainians vs the Russian Eastern Ukrainians has been burning at varying levels of intensity for a number of years, which started with a US supported coup that overthrew a pro-Russian elected leader [1] (Article biased in favor of Western Ukrainians but gives a good picture)

Western Ukrainians firebombed Trade Union with the ~300 Ethnic Russians (Eastern Ukrainians) in it, and they were burned alive, in Odessa. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/02/ukraine-dead-o...

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#755

Post by StanislavPetrov » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:39 AM UTC

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but I have a very hard time believing Russia is behind it. Russia controls the flow of gas, they can simply turn it off whenever they wish - they have no need to blow up their own pipeline. Russia has spent many years and many billions of dollars constructing these pipelines. They want the power to use their control over the supply of natural gas as leverage and negotiation power over EU countries. Destroying this pipeline removes this leverage and lessens the capability of Russia to pressure the EU with gas restrictions. On the other hand, NATO/US officials have been openly stating their opposition to the Nordstream pipeline even before the recent invasion of Ukraine. It is entirely consistent with the desires of NATO/US officials who seek to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia to destroy the pipeline and eliminate any chance of some sort of negotiated settlement between Germany and Russia as the cold of winter sets in.

Unfortunately, barring the emergence of a whistleblower, we will likely never know the truth, as whoever is responsible for this bombing will never openly admit it. Even more unfortunately, mindless partisans will reflexively point their finger at whoever their chosen propaganda outlets claim (without any evidence whatsoever) is responsible for this bombing, and use those accusations to further escalate hostilities.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#756

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #732

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…

Biden did say that if Russia invades Ukraine, "there will be no longer a Nordstream 2" seven months ago. When a reporter asked "how he would do that, since it's under German control," he stated "we will, I promise you, we will be able to do it." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSPfXLPUJHM

[deleted]

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#757

Post by StanislavPetrov » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #338

To me, the most fascinating thing about this is the complete and utter uncertainty. Who is responsible, USA? Russia? Ukraine? Poland? Terrorists? No one? You'd think that in the 21st century, a piece of infrastructure getting blown up during a war, between two clearly defined sides, there wouldn't be nearly as much mystery surrounding the events.

>Who is responsible, USA? Russia? Ukraine? Poland? Terrorists? No one?

All of these are possibilities to some degree or another, except I think "no one". It doesn't seem plausible that multiple simultaneous explosions would sever this extremely durable pipeline.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#758

Post by dmingod666 » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:44 AM UTC

Just last week Putin was saying "we want to keep selling gas", like in quite a desperate tone, "just lift the sanctions on NS2, we want to keep seeling gas." Watch his press conference at the SCO summit it's 10-15 mis long.

Now is the time to use his bargaining chip when Germany will be desperate, why will someone make their own position weaker at the time when they can extract the most leverage, that too for no reason - destroy their own property and that too go all the way up to an area where NATO was doing naval exercises a few months ago and risk confrontation with NATO..

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#759

Post by cesarb » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:45 AM UTC

margalabargala wrote: post #738

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…

> 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". Pipes of both Nordstream 1 and 2 blew up simultaneously. It seems pretty immediately obvious that it was done intentionally by someone. I'm sure the perpetrator will eventually become known; I don't pretend to know who it is now. But that it was sa…

> Pipes of both Nordstream 1 and 2 blew up simultaneously. It seems pretty immediately obvious that it was done intentionally by someone.

Playing devil's advocate: it could be that one of them blew up first, and the other blew up in a sympathetic explosion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_detonation). Or it could be that the pressure wave from the first one blowing up weakened the second one, leading to a catastrophic failure of the later. That would allow for both blowing up without requiring an intentional act.

(Of course, you can mix and match the theories: for instance, "the intention was to sabotage only one of the pipes, but a miscalculation led to the other one also being affected and failing catastrophically" would be yet another theory.)

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#760

Post by OrvalWintermute » Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 1:46 AM UTC

runarb wrote: post #626

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…

> Its political and military move. Realistically only US and Russia > have the capacity to do 3 attacks like this simultaneously. No need to do 3 attacks simultaneously. An attacker could have placed explosives there some time ago and the detonated it remotely now. Formar Naval Special Operator and now teacher in marine engineering and doctoral student at the Swedish Försvarshögskolan, Patrik Hulterström, alleged tha…

> An experienced diver can in theory manage it himself.

This is incorrect for a different reason and it has nothing to do with capability, but instead, deniability.

Anyone could do it. But deniability and covertness is different.

Deniability for this requires covert operators with access to a top notch with great submarine with excellent acoustics (really lackthereof) for an underwater insertion and recovery.

Ding Ding Ding.

Suddenly the list of countries capable of doing became a great deal shorter