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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#871

Post by int_19h »

segah wrote: post #859
int_19h wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without gas, Russia is in a worse position at the negotiating table, since it cannot promise to resume shipments in return for removal of sanctions. This is actually something that the pro-war faction (and Putin personally) would love. Conversely, the elites who want to revert back to status quo before the war would never do this.

This is not correct. Gas supplies are controlled by state-owned corporation. Putin and this corporation are one. There is no multi-factions within this organization. It is 100% under Putin's governance. If there was interest to cut supplies, they would have done this publicly. And they have the PR/Media to spin the story however they want. On the other hand, elites don't benefit from this gas supply. For example, it…

Gas already stopped flowing from Russia to Europe. The question now is if and when it'll be restarted.

And yes, of course, for the peace faction to make use of it, they'd need to carry out a coup to remove Putin first, so that they are in control. That's precisely why it all adds up.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#872

Post by mgoetzke »

yznovyak wrote: post #449
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…

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…

It seems the CIA had warned Germany about such attacks a few weeks ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/world/europe/cia-nord-str...

PS: All the reasons you mentioned also went through my head when I heard about it and it will be very interesting to see where this leads

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#873

Post by twelve40 »

cbmuser wrote: post #677
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.

Russia doesn’t really care about Western money anymore. They can’t spend it due to the sanctions anyway.

what? it's paid for in rubles via gazprombank

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#874

Post by lb1lf »

hedora wrote: post #869
lb1lf wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another option which is being discussed in Norwegian media now - that the Russians have used the pipelines essentially for storage of excess gas (Seeing as the pipelines are basically, combined, a 5M cubic meter pressure vessel) That would go a long way towards explaining how several ruptures happened in relatively short succession - pipes being loaded up with too much gas (after all, the more gas stored, th…

Simultaneous ruptures could be caused by sabotaging software. See my other comment; the US did something similar to Russia in 1982. These days, it wouldn't surprise me if it was script kiddies on Shodan.

...but that would require flow, right? (that is, closing of the flow too fast will basically lead to a shockwave rupturing the pipe).

In this case, the pipes were basically being used as pressure vessels (I believe it was quoted in the media that pressure in one of the pipes was 105bar/1,500psi or so before the leak sprung).

With nothing but static pressure, I have a hard time seeing how such a pipeline may be sabotaged in SW alone - doubly so as it, as far as I can tell from media reports, really is the proverbial dumb pipe - valves and thingamajigs at either end, but the pipeline itself is essentially just a pipe with no shutoff valves throughout. (Which, in itself I find hard to believe, so I probably had better dig a little bit more!)

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#875

Post by MichaelCollins »

kibwen wrote: post #778
SanjayMehta wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia could have just turned off the tap. The sabotage ensures Europe can't back off from the US sanctions now. Wrecks Germany's economy, thereby eliminating a rival. VW et al are already talking about moving production to the US. And Biden promised to take care of NS 2 back in February itself. https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8

This is tinfoil-haberdashery. No, Biden did not authorize a clandestine attack on Russian infrastructure just to boost the US auto industry, nor did he subtly broadcast his nefarious intent months ago as part of some game to throw red meat to the conspiratorialists, Q-style. The US would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by engaging in such an action, and has absolutely no impetus to since it already curren…

> No, Biden did not

What's with the authoritative tone? You have no clue what American submarines have been up to, and if you did know, you'd be breaking the law by telling us anything about it. And it's absurd to pretend that the premise of submarines doing clandestine illegal stuff underwater is an outlandish "Q-style" 'conspiracy'.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#876

Post by mjfl »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #833
mjfl wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of the warning don't make sense. Why destroy billions of dollars, 10 years of construction, and hundreds of miles of Russian investment for a warning? That's stupid, and Putin isn't stupid, at all. Dogshit take.

It's not about economics, it's about winning the war. He's telling NATO to back down or he will make winter hell for their populations.

he could do it by shutting off the pipeline, which is what he was already doing. He didn't need an excuse. Furthermore, he wants to be able to turn it back on, as negotiating tool. But the explosion prevents that, with no benefit. People are saying they want to avoid fines, but the fines could never exceed the value of the intact pipeline. It's nonsense.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#877

Post by mytailorisrich »

monkeydreams wrote: post #569
mytailorisrich wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don't know that Ukraine has the capability to do this. The number of countries capable of this act is quite small.

They have combat divers (one of the special forces units is even the 1st Underwater demolitions Unit, apparently) and the average depth of the Baltic is 50m. So my guess would be: yes they have the capability in principle.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#878

Post by mort96 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #857
mort96 wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said Putin's interest, not Russia's interest. Don't make the mistake of assuming Putin will act in accordance with Russia's interests.

The key point is that "they" is the Ukrainian war propaganda machine, which is obviously not a reliable source of news or analysis. It is also a classic propaganda technique to differenciate between the awful dictator and its poor people/country. I do not know what happened and if it was deliberate it is not obvious who did it. People should be prudent and not buy into propaganda from either side.

"They" specifically referred to /u/yznovyak here, I don't know if they're part of a war propaganda machine or not. But /u/yznovyak talked about what's in Putin's interest, /u/mytailorisrich argued that no, it's not in Russia's interest. All I was doing was pointing out that /u/yznovyak was talking about Putin's interest, which might not perfectly overlap with Russia's.

And you're right, pointing out that there's a difference between a dictator and their country is a common propaganda technique. But it's also just true, and if it's not part of your analysis you're probably doing it wrong.

And to be clear, I'm not arguing in favor of either side, I don't have any clue who did this and I'm not trying to pretend I do.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#879

Post by trasz »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #769
trasz wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is already dictating the price - it’s been like this even before war. Without gas they have no reason to tolerate Putin.

> Without gas they have no reason to tolerate Putin. Nope. If you think about this on a geopolitical scale, China has every interest in wanting their Northern border with Russia secure, and to advance the Chinese Belt & Road initiative, and collaborate on non-USD currency trading, and other things that make them both sanctions resistant. China also wants Russian Technology where they still hold leadership positions.…

All the Belt and Road projects have already left Russia, moving south.

For China to secure its northern border they need Russia as a buffer zone; they don’t need it strong.

As for technology - Russia has two, nuclear and military. China already got everything nuclear they wanted, and Russian military tech is, as we could all see, rather worthless.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#880

Post by [deleted] »

jcranmer wrote: post #220
dncornholio wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe needs the gas. Not enough LNG stations to import this amount. Also prices are absurdly high. Saying Europe doesn't need Russian gas sounds almost like propoganda.

Yes and no. Since the Russian invasion in February, Europe has been working out how to get by without Russian gas. For this winter, stocks are high enough that Europe can probably get by without gas rationing or a major hit to GDP (although this also depends on what the weather's like). There's also a variety of short-term (increasing gas flows from North Africa) and longer-term (increased renewables energy productio…

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