Three Nord Stream gas pipelines damaged in one day (opens in new tab)

From an EU perspective why would peace and trade with Russia be so bad?

Clearly US psyops are stronger than anything Russia puts out because EU governments have been persuaded to participate in a crusade in Ukraine against their own economic self interests.

Making the EU kowtow to America may be in American interests but it certainly is not in EU interests.

I am not sure when this myth of Russia psyop dominance came from. Only seemed to become a thing after Hillary lost the election and Brexit. More likely source of blame for that falls on endogenous populism in reaction to economic and social changes in the last decade or two. Russia was not responsible for bailing out western banks while real wages stagnated and also was not responsible for widespread immigration and others consequences of globalisation and conflict in the middle east and Africa.

Reality does not correspond to the social media mythology that Russia has some how infiltrated western politics at a significant scale.

The real question is whether it's Cyrillic or Latin.

so much for being covert, they aren't too great their job.

It doesn't. Russia's benefit lies in insecurity and control over Europe's energy supply. This operation however reduces their control and influence. In the short term insecurity rises, but this is a one time thing and lasts until solutions are found, which definitely will be found. Gas prices might be higher, but Russia doesn't profit from them, as they can't send gas to Europe anymore and the prices for China aren't influenced.

It benefits however US interests: Germany becomes a more stable partner, no matter how this thing turns out. Currently Russia is blamed, so the German reaction is more severe. In addition, LNG prices are higher, but I don't think that was the main reason for that operation in the first place. Blaming the US, even if their responsibility is certain, in a time of crisis won't happen as a united front against Russia is still needed.

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that Poland's interests didn't lead to such a operation. They have even more problems with high gas prices than Germany because they don't have long term contracts with Norway.

Which convinietly covers up any explosion signs...

The pressure in the pipes went from +100 bar to 7 bar. Depending on your definitions you could call that an explosion i guess.

Turns out yes, there were explosions: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosio...

You left out the best part:

"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion."

Also:

"When the pipeline exploded, Reed writes, the first reports caused concern in the U.S. military and at the White House. "NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based," he said, referring to North American Air Defense Command. "Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device." However, satellites did not pick up any telltale signs of a nuclear explosion.

"Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis," he added, "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry."

They used to do good work before, didn't they? Now, it's just blowup the thing. No more intelligent covering of their actions.

Politicians change, sometimes abruptly, especially during crisis. This prevents the "new guys" from starting the pipeline.

Ukraine is still pumping Russian gas to Europe through their own pipeline and are being paid by Russia for it

They could sabotage their own if they really wanted to, or just switch it off.

For Ukraine, it's better to confiscate NS as a compensation for the war, so it better to keep it off and intact, until it will be Ukrainian.

Because Ukraine isn't going to get caught committing an act of war against NATO in Europe while fighting an existential war for its own existence against Russia while completely dependent on supplies from NATO.

The obvious answer here is going to be the correct one: it was Russia. Specifically Putin: Russia can be rebuilt on gas to Europe if it ceases the invasion, but Putin specifically won't survive such an event.

Ensuring his potential successor can't "make a deal with the West" is exactly his sort of thinking. With a side benefit of people asking questions like this right now (I mean, this is catastrophic for him long run, but so is the entire war so it's also on brand with his incompetence).

Nord Stream 2 is (politically) dead in Germany, reviving it is a total fringe position in German politics. And: Putin doesn’t currently deliver any gas through it or Nord Stream 1 anyway. Gas storage in Germany is still filling up, gas prices are going down and it looks like getting through this winter will be tough but it also looks like there will be no dramatic gas shortage in Germany. And all indications are that while things are though, it seems as though there is enough flexibility to move away from Russion gas and that has, if anything, only accelerated. I more or less expect things to become easier as time goes by, not harder, with this winter now looking to be only a bump in that road.

In that current favorable climate for anyone whose political goal it is that Germany does not rely on Russian gas I see no strategic value at all in sabotaging Nord Stream 1 or 2.

You don’t need to blow up Nord Stream 2 if the position of the German government and the largest opposition party is to not move forward with Nord Stream 2 anyway. That would only seem to unnecessarily complicate things (and sabotage can only ever really delay things, better to actually also have the political will align with your own).

Troops could be sent for other purposes, though. Like they were sent to Kazakhstan before Ukraine, without invading. So it's kind of smoothing. I'm not sure was it intentional or not.

Putin's propaganda during the first hours of war was a rescue operation[1] and you can definitely send troops to help someone.

Wording chosen by the Reuters editor leaves unnecessary room for interpretation imo.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30450498

Ok. But that's worse.

You do get how that's worse, right?

Since when is the truth a trigger-word? Wtf? They started a war. It's not "triggering" to state the facts.

> Isn't that obvious?

No. These aren’t disabling attacks.

It could be a warning from the Kremlin; a false flag operation; internecine warfare; interference by the U.S., Gulf or private actors in Norway; or a pipeline built by the same corruption that shipped cardboard armour [1] doing what Russian-involved infrastructure does.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nazk_gov/status/15019605885950156...

There really isn't anywhere close to something like a median voter wanting to get the gas flowing from Russia again in Germany - now or in the winter. A government giving in to the more fringy hard right/hard left asking for that would not survive. The German-Russian relationship has been damaged for decades to come now.

This is not correct. Nordstream II is fully functional and can carry far more gas.

This "accident" allows Russia to turn up the pressure on Germany without formally exiting it's contract. It creates plausible deniability for when they pressure Germany to pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire.

I’m not following? Isn’t it less gas?

Indeed. It's most probably an inside job.

But who is that? Ukraine should be fine with having Germany buy Russian gas since Germany keeps sending arms and push others to send arms. I don't see why the US would care either now that Germany is finally moving away from Russian gas. And Russia can just close the pipeline in a less destructive way.

Barring a change in the political structure in Russia, Germany IS off Russian gas.

There are no political alignments that would reverse that given that other options, such as allowing fracking again in Germany, are not even contemplated.

There is nothing rising there was a demonstration of 2000 Pan European(!!) people at the pipeline buildings... we had more crazies out and about demonstrating against a trainstation, public transport and windmills.

>Indirectly anyone who is interested in causing mistrust among western countries.

My gut tells me this is the most likely answer. It would be a very Russian thing to do.

"nowhere near reopening" indeed strong words...

Nordstream 2 is also hit. Otherwise an interesting thought.

I assume the Russians have some sort of valve on their end of the pipe that they could switch off. That would be cheaper than blowing the pipe up, and also givem more negotiating leverage.

It probably wasn't them.

But Northstream 2 ist also damaged which should stand in the way of opening, especially as these events are unlikely to be anything but deliberate.

I'd imagine the Russian would have less permanent ways of restricting gas flow.

I have seen this line of thinking multiple places. It doesn't make any sense. Russia makes the energy crisis by turning off the gas. Destruction of the nordstream line only makes it impossible to start the gas exporting in case Russia want to sell it again and/or the sanctions are lifted. The obvious result of this is making sure that trade relationships with Russia can't go back to normal anytime soon.

That doesn't make any sense. If the sanctions are indeed lifted, how should the gas be transported into Europe that the Russian economy is dependent upon? This guessing game is silly in lieu of any hard evidence. It could be Ukraine or the US in order to enforce sanction even after a ceasefire. It could be Algeria or Venezuela or Qatar to guarantee gas supply by them. It could be Norway or an orca whale for all we know -- but we don't as of yet

But if Germany decides it wants the gas and the pipeline is broken, how does that make sense? Also, the Russians can just turn it off if they want to pressure the Germans. They don't need an excuse, we know why they'd want to create such pressure. "We're shutting off the gas until you stop supporting our enemy" is perfectly understandable and legit.

Putin has been telling Germany to certify and turn on Nord Stream 2 for gas - several times. Some folks who don't want normalisation of energy relationships decided to take this option away.

> Russian conquest of parts of the Ukraine.

I encourage you to drop the definite article "the" when referring to Ukraine.

https://theconversation.com/its-ukraine-not-the-ukraine-here...

Putin already lost that game since he allowed most (all?) EU countries to fill their gas reserves beyond 90%.

No pipelines means no Russian gas period. Putin loses because even if he wanted to, he can't send gas anymore.

I've been hoping from the start that someone would sabotage the pipelines to remove the temptation. Guess I got my wish.

As far as I can tell the Russian leverage has so far proven to be very small (it caused Germany to hesitate at the start of the invasion but right now Germany pushes heavily for supporting Ukraine) and it is decreasing for each day that the gas storage are getting filled and more LNG terminals near completion. Endangering this progress right now seems foolish.

please elaborate further how the US would benefit from destabilizing German gas supplies.

Shows as [dead], why else would it?

edit: never mind, seen it mentioned elsewhere this thread now. (but still...)

> Germany has struggled to store enough gas storage for winter. They have told the public they have enough, however those estimates assumed a continued flow along the Nordstream 1 pipeline.

This isn't true based on what I've read in German and Swedish news. Storage was filling ahead of usual schedule, already having enough to sustain through the winter. What we haven't got, in my understanding, is any buffer room whatsoever. What's your source that knows better than public service news here?

Edit: Here's a Bloomberg article about how you're wrong: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...

That's within the realm of possibility I guess. The three parties in the current government are struggling quite hard to find a common strategy to manage this crisis, so it's not entirely certain that they'll make it to the next regular elections, and the far left and right have largely positioned themselves in favor of taking both Nord Streams online and appeasing Russia, and that view is apparently also held by part of the conservative electorate, who might drift rightward if the crisis deepens. If there were elections in late winter, who knows how that would turn out, especially for the AFD party on the right.

It doesn't destabilize the relationship between US and Germany one bit - unless evidence comes out that the USA did do this damage - in which case the Germans will probably apologize and kowtow, as they always do when America is on the line ...

It does make it hard for Germany and Russia to have energy trade, however.

Which makes it easier for the USA to sell its dirty gas in Europe.

I'd think they would have cleared them before, instead of blindly laying some pipes in 'good faith'.

Understood! Does this mean that this leak will affect the whole pipe or can it be isolated? I assume it will perhaps not crush, but at least fill up with water.

In a way, it's sort of astonishing how much damage Putin has done to his legacy in Russia with this foolish invasion.

One of the most impressive feats of pipeline engineering in the world and his inability to cooperate with other nations has catalyzed its destruction.

In some poetic fashion, it makes sense. A pipeline like this is symbolic of interstate cooperation. Not surprising it would not survive the breakdown of such cooperation that he instigated. When a state engages in medieval-style aggression, it can't have nice things.

It was in "maintenance", as claimed by the Russian end operators. Germany has successfully pressured Canada to send a replacement turbine to Russia (violating sanctions), after which the Russians said that the turbine isn't any good, it's missing some documents and they will not take and install it. Then Scholz decided to take a photo shoot in front of the massive turbine, looking all sad. The Paper Chancellor in full glory :D

Thanks!

Mostly since I have zero knowledge of the Nordstrom pipelines, that's why I'm wondering if there's any commonality.

I assume the current mode of operation is far from the normal one, which probably brings a much higher likely chance of "edge case" malfunctions, but yeah just speculating here.