I personally believe this was a state actor who did it. If it was a SCADA system attack to overpressure the pipe, a state actor is the most likely culprit as SCADA knowledge isn't that common among laypeople. Personally, I think powerful explosives were used, at which point it'd definitely be a state actor because who else would have access to high power explosives, and then place them hundreds of feet below sea level next to a pipeline?
Increasing the pressure levels could not have produced such extensive damage. It was explosives. If Russia wanted to stop the flow, they could simply turn off the valves on their side rather than blow up their own infrastructure they spent billions to build.
Come on. The only way to destroy 50 meters of pipeline is with explosives/weapons. Even if someone increased the pressure to a breaking point, it would cause a much smaller failure at a seam and the pressure would then stabilize.
This is Putin playing power games. He wants so strike fear in the German public and cause public support for aiding Ukraine to falter.
By failing to correctly attribute the actor behind this act of terror and spreading conspiracy theories you are only playing to the hand of that war-mongering dictator.
> Hacktivists or state actors attacking the SCADA systems and increasing the pressure to levels that it's not built to handle?
Such an overpressure would have been detected (and in the worst case, mitigated by flaring or outright venting) at the German entry points of NordStream 1 and 2. No anomalies were recorded, which completely debunks that theory.
Does that government have any power? Or we can always substitute for correctness "Russian gov" with "Putin" and "Russian interests" with "Putin ambitions"
I still want to know where the USS Jimmy Carter was right before this happened. Undersea espionage and sabotage is one of the specified missions for that boat.
The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way.
> The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way.
That's pure bollocks because the pipelines through Poland/Belarus and Austria/Hungary/Ukraine still exist and work. They were able to handle the entire European gas supply before Germany decided to build NordStream to reduce the leverage of these transit countries.
The point is to remove a direct source of gas. Just because there is an indirect source doesn't mean it's reliable or a full replacement; leverage can be exerted on those transit countries just as easily, or those countries may, on their own, decide to join Russia's economic sphere of influence.
... but spectacularly failed to blow up one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipes.
Instead, they put two holes in one of them, and a hole in each of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes.
Lest anyone forget, Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline which Russia had been throttling and shutting off and on for months, before finally stating that it wouldn't be reopened until sanctions are lifted - which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon - while Nord Stream 2 is the brand new pipeline which Germany declined to authorize for use following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As pointed out by Putin, that leaves Nord Stream 2 ready to start sending sweet, sweet Russian gas to Germany as soon as they say so.
Incidentally, the attacks were carried out just in time for the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland and close to its southward bend off Bornholm, in the Danish EEZ, AND half a kilometer from the SwePol cable between Sweden and Poland, in the Swedish EEZ.
I guess besides aiding Putin's stick-and-carrot gas policy in Germany, the US also wanted to send a really strong message to Ukraine-supporting Poland and NATO-hopeful Sweden.
Europe used to buy a lot of natural gas from russia via these pipelines. Now that they're gone, they will have to buy from someone else. The united states has a lot of natural gas to sell them.
edit: nice stealth edit. the original comment was just "what would the motive be?" which imo is a perfectly fine question to ask. the "conspiratorial" line has me wondering though: what would a non conspiratorial theory be?
Invading Ukraine and blowing up your most lucrative export relationships also seemed pretty odd to most observers. I don't really know how to judge what's "odd" anymore.
Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis.
Since people don't seem to get it: Europe will now be an energy subsidiary of the US. When the next US president says that they need to contribute 4% of GDP to Nato it will come with the promise of an unpleasant winter if they don't.
> Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis.
The Suez Crisis is when the British, French, and Israeli governments conspired behind the back of the US to invade Egypt and install a puppet regime. With the goal of taking back the canal and stealing their oil supply.
Pretty much the same thing Putin just attempted in Ukraine.
It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
>It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
Oh wait, you're seriously using a moral argument about the cold war. Let me laugh harder.
True, with one tid bit: it was more about the Suez Canal then oil. Oh yeah, and the US was pissed not because of the conspiracy but rather because it interfered with US plans. And because the US didn't get any of the spoils if it would have worked out.
The bigger issue was how Egypt unilaterally seized the Suez Canal Company (jointly owned by the British and the French). Egypt then banned Israel from using the Straits of Tiran for shipping, effectively imposing a blockade. Attempting regime change was likely unwise, but all three countries were quite thoroughly provoked by Nasser.
> ...all three countries were quite thoroughly provoked by Nasser.
FYI "provoked" is the exact word used by many to rationalize Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One could just as easily say Nasser was provoked to his actions by decades of foreign domination and exploitation.
This stuff is complex but at the end of day those three countries were clearly wrong to invade a sovereign country.
Disrupting Nord Stream 1/2, which the US has wanted and been very explicit and vocal about since day one. Why? The theory goes that they want to sell gas to Europe rather instead of Russia. That seems plausible if not obvious, but what's definitely true in any case is they did not want Europe buying gas from Russia. The official propaganda is that it was for Europe's own security (which we see now is not completely invalid.)
I hear this a lot, but my understanding is that shipping LNG across oceans is very inefficient and would require far more terminals to receive LNG than exist. My impression is it's not even close to a 1:1 substitution.
Nowhere near. Right now that's more of a Germany problem than a USA problem though.
America would like Europe to build more LNG terminals to accomodate its growing gas surplus but first investors will want to feel confident that that tap wont be switched on again soon coz LNG wont ever be able to compete with a pipeline.
The gas storage is >95% full and it looks like households are reducing their gas usage significantly so far. So the outlook for this winter is not too bad. Unless something really big happens that changes this the situation is nowhere even close to being bad enough to cause any change in Germany's policy regarding Russia and Ukraine.
No one’s arguing that Russia is a rational actor. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if you had a commander in chief in the US who didn’t appear half senile?
Just read informed commentary instead of conspiracy theories?
1. The US is already selling gas to Europe and there was no sign that would change. Europe has already committed to disinvesting from Russian energy. The pipelines were dead already. The US and others had already captured the market. Increasing the usage of Russian energy again during a bloody war against a neighbouring country would be political suicide for any European country I can think of. Maybe this is not obvious to Americans, and maybe this explains the obsessions with American intervention here - Americans always think their country is behind everything good or bad in the world, which in my mind explains a bit of the “Russia attacked due to NATO” delusional narrative. If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah.
2. Like other posters here have already mentioned the consensus hunch (and that’s all we have - a hunch) for now is this was a warning to internal competitors in Russian internal politics. This was a way to burn the ships and end any idea that Russia will come back to the West. We are in unrestricted warfare against Russia.
3. If you look into Russian propagandists online, they are 100% behind the idea that America did it to deindustrialise Europe, increase dependency, etc. I regularly follow the rule that whatever Russian propagandists say is higher in likelihood to be false, something which has been demonstrated again and again with - MH270 flight, invasion of Crimea, the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the Skripal poisoning, the invasion of Ukraine, now the usage of Iranian drones (Russia denies ever using them as they rain upon Kyiv). I could go on and on.
4. Like others have said, there are other operational pipelines. Thinking the problem with Russia selling Europe energy is “pipelines” is the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Assume we are at war with Russia and that they are a full blown revisionist militarist state in the Nazi tradition and everything will make more sense. Stop making stuff up and start dealing with reality - we are in a state of direct economic and information warfare with Russia, and in a proxy hot conflict where we hope to annihilate their armed forces. They are acting accordingly, and in order to prevent a “detente” later on after perhaps a change in leadership, the core rulers of Russia decided to blow up remaining economic bridges.
Effectively the world is at war against a new form of fascist/hypernationalist superpower and you guys are arguing about who blew up a pipeline that the fascists would use to feed energy to their now sworn enemies.
> If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah.
Purely statistically speaking (without considering any details), that's definitely what one should bet on [1] before other information is recieved. If someone didn't know any of the specific facts, it's obvious that their intuition is honed correctly if that's their default. That doesn't mean it was the US, but without further knowledge (which most people don't have because who has the time for that), it's a very good default setting considering actual world history.
There was no gas flowing through the pipeline anyway.
Ukraine is already winning the war.
European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia
And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. If any evidence ever surfaces, the US may lose the trust of most of its allies. I don't see why taking this risk would be justified.
> European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia
Yes, because Russia is temporarily sanctioned. The moment the sanctions are lifted, Russia will still have the cheapest prices due to proximity and infrastructure. And Europe, of course, would resume buying from Russia, although they will try to secure better backup solutions in case of a future incident.
Blowing up the pipeline makes sure that gas flow will take a considerable time to resume. This gives leverage to alternative suppliers to negotiate for long-term deals with EU. With long-term deals in place, it will take several years for Russia to regain its dominant position in the European energy market.
> And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US.
What risk? The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. It's fairly easy for the US to find or create a window of opportunity to carry the operation.
The risk is, if the US ever gets caught, then we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies. How is sabotaging our geopolitical position in exchange for oil companies making some extra bucks worthwhile?
> we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies
But let's say that the US is caught red-handed. I doubt the consequences will be anywhere close to dire for them. See what happened when CIA was revealed to be spying on chancellor Merkel (hint: nothing). As this action will not be directly against any EU nation, significant reactions are very unlikely.
At least a few EU countries would probably align with the US, vetoing/dampening any centralized reaction from the EU. I am aware of at least one EU leader that wouldn't mind undermining EU in exchange for an invitation to the USA and a photo-op with the POTUS.
Some countries will be secretly mad, yes. But they won't have the option to stay mad for long. At the end of the day, US would even find their geopolitical position reinforced because of the fragmentation inside the EU.
What would be that moment, though? When they pause killing? When they decide to start peace talks? Frankly, I find it hard to imagine everyone* gets back to business as usual after everything that happened. Maybe if Russians themselves killed Putin and at least apologized it would be a good starting point to consider talking about potential lifting of sanctions.
Keep in mind that original nordstream was destroyed while Russia offered to supply gas via nordstream II which is repairable. If only EU and US would lift sanctions.
Great excuse to get NS2 going! How convenient for Russia, huh?
Remember that Sweden so far is not a NATO nation. Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden are running investigations of the pipeline destruction and they are not necessarily sharing everything they find.
>German, Danish, and Swedish authorities have all been investigating the incident but Swedish prosecutors reportedly rejected a joint investigation out of fears of sharing sensitive information related to national security. [0]
From the video in the linked BBC article it is apparent that explosives were used to destroy the pipeline at that site.
The thickness of the steel in the pipeline is 41 mm (1.6 in.). It is coated with an anti-corrosion wrap and has a concrete coating for added weight.
You can clearly see a trench across the seafloor intersecting the pipeline where it was cut. The video shows the steel wall bent inwards at the top with the anticorrosion blanket cut and the concrete shattered. The trench could be from the initial blast or it could have been cut by the force of the gas as it was expelled from the pipeline. Since it is a nice, straight cut I lean towards the trench having been created by the escaping gas which would cut like a knife through the soft seafloor in a focused stream.
Since the pipe shows an inward bend at the top of the break that implies a downward force. This force created a nice, clean cut that allowed the gas to escape.
There are many players who knew exactly where the pipeline lay on the seafloor and could pick any spot for a rupture.
I will be watching this to see how it all works out.
[1] Here is one analysis that makes an interesting case. I stumbled into this and had never heard of these guys before. Anyone recognize this outfit - MonkeyWorxus?
This could be true. I didn't think about that. It would explain why there is no apparent melting along the cut as you might expect with an explosion too.
I don't know what type of equipment the investigators have at their disposal but I would think that they could certainly recover sections of the pipe from the seafloor pretty easily. That capability would be necessary for any future leak repairs.
That would also explain why there appears to be a trench at the location.
It will be interesting to see what the various investigations turn up.
the main beneficiary is Russia's "we don't need the west" policy and Putin's ego. Both far more likely than some minor boost the US economy would get from selling a bit more LNG to Europe, when 90% of it will come from the middle east because it's far closer that the USA (as well as cheaper to get out of the ground).
Interesting that the pipeline in the middle of Ukraine, right in the hotspots of a war - remains intact and well, but this one, at the bottom of the sea - is blown away.
That's a great point, and therefore leads me to believe it was a pro-Ukranian force because if it were Russia, they would have blown it up inside Ukraine so they could then blame Ukraine for it. Putin really is not that bright, so it is unlikely he would think it through any further than that.
Eh, I don't think Putin himself is the mastermind. He just bullies his underlings into figuring out how to actually do things, and throws tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants. Like Trump, he really just seems like a big evil baby, and I highly doubt he pulls his weight in any kind of strategic planning that requires true brain power. He's not even a good orator, or creative liar. He literally just says the opposite of the truth, which makes him easy to figure out in a way.
He has only one skill, like the orange man, and that is demanding personal enrichment at all costs. He is, at the end of the day, just another basic KGB neanderthal.
The idea is more like russia is sending the message "we are suicidal and ready to do really expensive, stupid stuff, maybe even go nuclear, are you too?"
You're getting downvotes but this is why. Putin wants to end relations with western nations because democratic ideas are becoming more popular in Russia (and Ukraine, whom russians can easily compare themselves to, starting to prosper as a result) and that is a huge danger to his authoritarian legacy and to him. His ego is that Russia has superior culture and genetics when compared to the west and his losing to Ukrainians and NATO supplied weapons is really hard on his ego and reputation which is everything to him.
The "obviously" escapes me. I mean: accuse whomever you like. Let's drop the pretence of civil exchange, and throw some oil on the fire. Kanye and Elon do it all the time, so why can't you?
One strand of the Nordstream 2 pipeline is still functional, and Russia offered to send gas via that one recently. Just as a counterpoint to everyone claiming that Russia has no motive because they would harm themselves. This attack didn't remove all pipeline capacity, only 3 out of 4 strands of the two pipelines. So it did not remove the ability for Russia to sell gas to Germany.
Like no attacker has ever self-harmed to cast doubt and to make it look like they were also a victim rather than the attacker. These self inflicted wounds are not meant to be fatal (counter-productive)
It causes a lot of uncertainty, which does benefit Russia. And it did not elinimate their capacity to sell gas to Germany. Of course there is much less capacity now in total, but NS2 was never even used so far and there is no way that Germany would buy that much gas from Russia again that the reduced capacity would be an issue.
If Russia were able to break the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine it would benefit enormously. I'm not seeing them succeeding in that, but that doesn't mean they're not trying it.
Russia has a history of blowing up their own infrastructure for political purposes, such as 2009 [1] or 2006 [2], not to mention simple shoddy workmanship or neglected maintenance (1995 [3][4]).
Pipeline explosions are easy to cause and usually easy to fix as well, while claiming "force majeure" absolves Russia from holding up existing delivery contracts.
Seems risky to think you'd be able to get away with this without someone developing some reasonable suspicions. Which makes me lean towards one of the Western parties. Don't think Russia would be able to pull this off without getting caught and if caught you'd think the US would be trumpeting the proof from the roof tops.
It would be a high risk play but Russia is likely the one to lose the least from it if caught given their current position. Russia is also a nuclear power so even if the US had proof they may not want to escalate the conflict that much. There's also the question of the truth even mattering since in the age of constant online propaganda you can influence enough people to have an impact even if the documented truth is otherwise. Then again the current US administration may feel the risk is worth it for a better chance in the upcoming election.
My best guess is that it was Russia for internal political reasons aka to remove the ability of Russia to back out and resume business as usual after some concessions.
The Russian government not being a monolith, there must be factions who’d like to stop fucking around in Ukraine and get back to printing money pumping gas to Europe. The peace incentive gets much weaker with the destruction of Nord Stream.
Russia could just turn off the taps instead of blowing it up... Russia spent billions building these pipes to bypass transit fees through other countries.
This is not a mystery. The US has the most to gain from this: increase Europe's energy dependence on the US by literally forcing Europe to not use cheap Russian energy
People got so bought into the "Russia always bad, NATO always good" propaganda line that they have to perform Olympics level mental gymnastic to try and put the square peg into the round hole.
I will quote another poster's comment:
"""
1) There really were mass graves in Bucha. This was known even before the departure of the Russians and there is a video with burials. But it's also not a secret that in Bucha the Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment that was driving through the streets from artillery. And just as many residential buildings were destroyed - an accompanying zherb. So all these victims are victims of Ukrainian artillery. They are silent about it. But this is a fact.
2) The corpses on the street, obviously defiantly laid out - to create the effect that the city is littered with corpses. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, just think with your head, how could this happen? People stood on the road in different places and the Russians shot them at the same time? That's bullshit.
3) The biggest puncture of propaganda and staging is the statement that there is a satellite image of where the bodies lie on March 11th. And so they had to lie until April 1, that is, 20 days. On the video of the Ukrainians on April 1, there is not even a hint that the bodies have been lying there for 20 days. This is complete nonsense. It turns out that the Russians could not allocate 5 minutes in 20 days to throw these bodies into the truck and take them out if they needed to hide these "terrible crimes"
4) We were shown video from the camera and from one drone. But we don't know when it was filmed. On the camera, two military men are leading people - the Ukrainians could have filmed this on April 1-2, at the same time that they were also staging a general staging with corpses.
"""
Make your conclusions from this as you will, or keep consuming the propaganda that the media fits you.
Exactly. And where do you think at least half those billions of government money has ended? In the pockets of all involved in the building them. And no new pipes are being build now. Not very profitable for the oligarchs, isn't it?
Why these unknowns didn't blew second pipe of NS2? It is moderately possible that it was done to pressure Germany to open NS2 (and it may happen next year, nobody knows how future will be shaped). This will legalize NS2 and then Russia can repair 3 other pipes (and repair corp will pocket half of the funds, again).
Also legalizing NS2 will pave the way to building 3rd and 4th pipes in the Turkey system, which Kremlin want very much. And builders of these potential southern pipes will do what? Correct, they will pocket half of the money.
There are a lot of moderately probably arguments for Russia doing it, and all involved can profit from this - Germany, Turkey, Kremlin, Russian builders and gas oligarchs. Sure, Russian people will be poorer, but when it was ever a consideration of Kremlin? :)
Why would Europe sit idly by while the US unilaterally reshapes their energy policies?
And we're talking about 50 meters of a pipeline several hundred KMs long. It's a trivial repair job compared to the effort to build the pipeline and its economic value. It temporarily changes the calculus but doesn't change the long term picture if Germany still wants to buy gas from Russia.
Plus, it seems likely to galvanize Europe into becoming much more of an independent actor. Destroying a major energy source is pretty far over the line of how you'd expect allies to treat each other. It would be a dramatic step and thus far the response has been pretty drama free.
> Why would Europe sit idly by while the US unilaterally reshapes their energy policies?
Because these are our client states. NATO's purpose is to bend Europe's will across the Atlantic and away from having mutually beneficial relationships with Africa and Asia.
They aren't our allies; they are our client states. The European leaders align with what Washington wants, and not what the majority of their people want. The US doesn't have allies... only interests.
We are crushing German industry; this is beneficial to us, because it allows our industry to thrive and helps reshore production. We get to sell more energy to Europe; this is beneficial to us... and so on.
The US has by far the most to lose by doing this. Blowing up Germany's energy supply in their backyard, without them finding out? Can you possibly imagine anyone sane agreeing to that?
Russia risks what? Gas they can't sell anyway? Their incentive to stop the war?
The US risks NATO by blowing up Germany's energy. It's completely insane.
> [Russia] Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy.
Europe was _already_ working about as hard as they could on removing their dependence on Russia though.
Another way to see this would be that around now might be the last chance for something like this to hurt Europe and still have time to put political pressure on afterwards.
If this had been done in the middle of winter, Europe would treat it as an attack and would be on their guard, but now Russia can play political games in the background to destabilize Europe or at least reduce Europe's will to help Ukraine.
> Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off
This is very wrong. My brother is a technical diver, and after the blast I had a long chat with him about what it would do to achieve this. After going over the location, the estimated amount of explosives needed to break the pipes, and the depth, he came to the conclusion that he could have done it with 2 friends and a budget of ~10k€.
This was before these new pictures that paint a picture of a more powerful blast than he assumed, but it is still well within the capability of a bunch of very determined activists. This absolutely didn't need to be a state actor.
I came out of the discussion with a newfound appreciation just how fragile a lot of our billion-euro infrastructure is, and how easy it would be to disrupt.
How is Ukraine getting explosives and divers to Nord stream without being caught? That's the issue. You'd need a fairly sophisticated spy network with experience in covert operations. I don't think Ukraine has that.
>But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russian forces planned the attack as a pretense to escalate the war in Ukraine.
>"The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine," Podolyak told Ukraine's national broadcaster.
Underwater drones would be a rather easy way, no deep sea divers needed. Just have a drone pull a mine-clearing charge (a long flexible hose filled with high explosives) and drop it next to the pipe and detonate it.
These pipes lay at ~70 m depth so the drones can be wire-controlled. A small fishing vessel would be enough to deliver them.
These are several inch thick pipes encased in a foot of concrete. And they made 4 holes IIRC. So we're talking probably a ton or so of explosives.
That's not drag a hose behind a commercial drone. That's specialized equipment with trained operators. I just don't see Ukraine being able to pull that off.
I think you underestimate the efficacy of explosives under water:
...since an underwater explosion (particularly one underneath a hull) can produce greater damage than an above-surface one of the same explosive size. Initial damage to a target will be caused by the first shockwave; this damage will be amplified by the subsequent physical movement of water and by the repeated secondary shockwaves or bubble pulse. Additionally, charge detonation away from the target can result in damage over a larger hull area. [1]
The pipes have ...two layers; the inner pipe steel which is between 27-41mm thick with antifriction coating and a concrete steel outer coating between 60-110mm thick with corrosion protection... [2], far from the 'several inch thick pipes encased in a foot of concrete' you mention. They were also under high pressure, probably around 200 bar at point of attack [3]. Given that the pipes are at a depth of around 70 meters there this means they had an overpressure of around 193 bar so it would not have taken that much of a crack to cause them to rupture. Once ruptured the whiplashing effect - think what happens to a water hose when you turn open the tap but now with 193 bar of pressure behind it - would take care of the rest.
News outlets said it wouldn’t be possible for divers but 80m isn’t impossible for divers. The one thing that makes me think state actor is the timing of the bombs. Too close for activists to coordinate IMHO.
I want to believe this explanation (under Occam's Razor), but from the article: "Danish police believe 'powerful explosions' blew *four holes* in the pipe and its newer twin, Nord Stream 2.
Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
Another thing for Russia, showing that they can and are not afraid to attack such infrastructure of EU countries. It's safe because it's "their" pipeline and cheap if they don't think they would've resumed operation in the future anyway.
For Russia, in the against you should add that they mostly owned the pipeline, they could have switch it off without destroying it and destroying it means not being able to use it to sell oil to Western europe against. I can't see any way it would make sense to them, even accounting bad calculation like the Ukraine invasion.
NS1 was already switched off for about a full month by the time the explosions happened, and NS2 was never put into production (and was unlikely to ever be put into production after Russia invaded Ukraine).
One of the theories I've seen espoused is that Russia is basically going "nice pipeline, shame if something happened to it" to the new Norway-Poland pipeline which was inaugurated about the time of the explosion.
> Western leaders have stopped short of directly accusing Russia
I'm going to stop short of directly accusing anyone, but I will say that any motive for Russia to eliminate their economic leverage against a powerful NATO nation escapes me, whereas eliminating that leverage is in the apparent interest of every NATO member nation that wants to see Russia weakened, except Germany. Accusing Russia of this particular act of destruction doesn't make any sense.
This wasn't done because of conflicts between the Kremlin and NATO, it was because of the conflict within the Kremlin. Wealthy Russians may have thought things could go "back to normal" if they quickly end the war (through diplomacy, coups, or violence) they can go back to making money. This is Putin sending a signal, "you're going down with me".
> Western leaders have stopped short of directly accusing Russia but the EU has previously accused Russia of using its gas supplies as a weapon against the West over its support for Ukraine.
I like the commenters trying to make sense of this event. Has any of the events in Europe up to this point made sense? One of Putin's goals is to fracture NATO, sowing this chaos furthers that goal. I don't think Europe has enough LNG terminals to accept more from the US, even if they could.
If you think it was anyone other than the Russians, you really need a better model of reality. The thing to realize is Nordstream was already dead. Nordstream 2 never came online and Nordstream 1 was never again going to pump gas. Whether it was blown up or simply idle does not matter - no gas ever again either way. Russia's invasion has caused a permanent shift away from buying stuff from them. The first few years may be tough, but eventually LNG terminals will be built, heat pumps will be installed, EVs will be built and Russian gas will not play a role in Europe's economy again.
Russia has committed so many own goals in this war that the fact that it is against Russia's interests to blow up Nord Stream actually increases the probability that they did it.
One thing that puzzles me - there are thousands of satellites 24/7, CIA has their own, NSA has their own, Navy, Air Force and so on. And all other neighbors around that incident site should be monitoring everything possible. On a very strategically important pipeline for whole continent.
Yet nobody saw anything, there are no past records going few hours back of some ship sailing to those spots? I mean US can spot very shallow speed boats of cocaine smugglers for a long time, so they use submarines from what I gathered.
One explanation would be that submarine, but - if I would be doing marine defense, I would be pinging / doing some other equivalent of radar checks very frequently. But maybe this is really difficult to do due ie shape of sea bottom, reach of such pings, animal protections, just pure costs etc.
Assuming these incidents were caused by some sort of device, that device could have been placed there a long time ago. Oligarch-superyachts are/were (before the war) probably not that suspicious cruising there, and I would not be shocked if some of them have mini-submarines.
I know about this because I got a NYTimes email push alert and I saw it all over the news subsequently. But that was then, this is now - what is there to report?
I mean there's constant daily coverage here, so all of that. How would you know you're not missing anything if you're missing almost everything? I don't think you can expect us to fill you in on everything, but did you know that the Swedish Navy was in the specific area on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th for example? Recently the news was about the emissions and the leaks stopping, video of the damage, closing the area, opening the area, repairs, redirection of gas, environmental impact analyses and so on. Right now it's more about the negotiations and diplomacy surrounding the investigations. Then of course there's all the market, security and policy reactions...
I guess I'm asking: what else should they be putting on the front page headline and blasting on CNN chirons. Stories have continued to be published in both the NYT and WaPo. It's certainly still coming up in my Google News feed. I haven't seen any major news that merits news cycle domination.
What people fail to see is that this is an opportunity (albeit forced) to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels to renewables. To slow and hopefully reverse the effects of carbon emissions we need to massively invest in new wind and hydro projects, energy storage technologies, and tighten energy efficiency rules.
I'm surprised any video footage at all was released, given the political tensions around this event. This looks like the most comprehensive version of the video (possibly the earliest released, one of the earlier and less cut than others):
That's very thick steel. Either a whole lot of explosives or some kind of shaped charge/explosively formed penetrator (widely used in oil drilling industry to blow holes in down-well pipe to allow oil flow) must have been used, with possible further damage caused by depressurization of the pipe.
As far as who did it and why? Russia seemed to be pushing Europe for a deal whereby if they went along with the annexation of the eastern provinces of Ukraine they'd open up gas supplies and end the looming energy crisis Europe faces, and a working Nordstream / Nordstream 2 pipeline was necessary for that strategy, so blowing up the pipeline derailed that strategy for months at least.
As to motive on the USA side, several officials in state and energy seem to view this as a 'tremendous opportunity' to shift European gas purchases away from Russian pipelines and towards US LNG tankers (price differential there), not sure how the Qatar gas output is affected.
Europe of course would have been better off pushing a lot harder for wind/solar/storage over the past two decades and getting off the Russian, American and Middle East fossil fuel teat that way, but to quote Jeremey Irons in Margin Call, "That is spilt milk under the bridge". So now what?
The US already sells all of the LNG to Europe that either side has the capacity to handle. It will be faster to repair the pipe than build out new LNG capacity. I don’t see how the US has anything to benefit from blowing up the pipe to inflate energy prices in Europe as it’s a significant drag on the global economy which has far broader impacts on the US economy than slowly and incrementally increasing LNG shipments would.
Furthermore Russia already has 1 pipe “down for maintenance,” so clearly limiting capacity is a huge bargaining chip for them.
I think it’s also worth considering Russia may have internal detractors from their current policies and blowing up a pipe removes it from the equation. It may have even been a warning to those internal detractors: “don’t speak up or we can take all the pipes off the table as bargaining chips.”
Russia benefits from the pipes being a high stakes game far more than the US.
But who knows. The CIA has done dumber things. I just don’t see the incentives for the US especially considering even if we could ship more LNG (it would take years) that would increase energy costs here. The Biden administration has to LOVE being isolated from the madness of Europes gas market at the moment, especially considering the elections and looming winter.
To me, it looks like the end of the pipe are bending outward. Meaning that the explosion must have come from inside the pipe. But, it's not a very good video and is pretty hard to tell.
First of all, would you please stop posting flamewar comments and otherwise breaking the site guidelines? You've added a whole bunch of them to this thread already. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it.
If "amount of nonsense" is your indicator, then literally every internet discussion on every divisive topic is "information attack". The HN guidelines specifically ask users not to post insinuations about this kind of thing without evidence, so when you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, please note that one.
So the Russians used their equivalent of navy seals to lay bombs and blow out a huge section so it would be ruined? I assume all that saltwater will destroy it in short order?
None of the comments so far offer the most obvious motive for Russia to blow the pipeline: For Russia to show that it could, and it would. That the pipeline nominally benefits Russia is useful ambiguity (that many here seem to have fallen for).
There is no shortage of undersea infrastructure vulnerable to such attacks, not least bringing gas from Norway to the EU - look at exactly where the pipeline was blown. It is part of a pattern of strategic terror.
>" the most obvious motive for Russia to blow the pipeline: For Russia to show that it could, and it would. That the pipeline nominally benefits Russia is useful ambiguity."
I don't follow this reasoning. The kind of expertise required to detonate a bomb underwater is likely something any developed country with a reasonably equipped navy/intelligence agency could pull off. Unlike something like Stuxnet, this seems rudimentary in comparison. As dysfunctional and diminished as Russia may be today, I don't think anyone assumed this was something they couldn't do.
185 comments
[ 69.2 ms ] story [ 3867 ms ] threadThe russian government itself doing that to make it appear someone else did it?
Causing it to fail, with the seismic signature that coincided with the failure? Impossible.
This is Putin playing power games. He wants so strike fear in the German public and cause public support for aiding Ukraine to falter.
By failing to correctly attribute the actor behind this act of terror and spreading conspiracy theories you are only playing to the hand of that war-mongering dictator.
Such an overpressure would have been detected (and in the worst case, mitigated by flaring or outright venting) at the German entry points of NordStream 1 and 2. No anomalies were recorded, which completely debunks that theory.
Does that government have any power? Or we can always substitute for correctness "Russian gov" with "Putin" and "Russian interests" with "Putin ambitions"
That's pure bollocks because the pipelines through Poland/Belarus and Austria/Hungary/Ukraine still exist and work. They were able to handle the entire European gas supply before Germany decided to build NordStream to reduce the leverage of these transit countries.
I wouldn’t say its an unrealistic POV though, Ukraine and Poland would likely block gas if the alternative was letting Russia win the war.
Instead, they put two holes in one of them, and a hole in each of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes.
Lest anyone forget, Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline which Russia had been throttling and shutting off and on for months, before finally stating that it wouldn't be reopened until sanctions are lifted - which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon - while Nord Stream 2 is the brand new pipeline which Germany declined to authorize for use following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As pointed out by Putin, that leaves Nord Stream 2 ready to start sending sweet, sweet Russian gas to Germany as soon as they say so.
Incidentally, the attacks were carried out just in time for the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland and close to its southward bend off Bornholm, in the Danish EEZ, AND half a kilometer from the SwePol cable between Sweden and Poland, in the Swedish EEZ.
I guess besides aiding Putin's stick-and-carrot gas policy in Germany, the US also wanted to send a really strong message to Ukraine-supporting Poland and NATO-hopeful Sweden.
edit: nice stealth edit. the original comment was just "what would the motive be?" which imo is a perfectly fine question to ask. the "conspiratorial" line has me wondering though: what would a non conspiratorial theory be?
Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis.
Since people don't seem to get it: Europe will now be an energy subsidiary of the US. When the next US president says that they need to contribute 4% of GDP to Nato it will come with the promise of an unpleasant winter if they don't.
The Suez Crisis is when the British, French, and Israeli governments conspired behind the back of the US to invade Egypt and install a puppet regime. With the goal of taking back the canal and stealing their oil supply.
Pretty much the same thing Putin just attempted in Ukraine.
It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
Oh wait, you're seriously using a moral argument about the cold war. Let me laugh harder.
That may be true of some people in his administration but I don't think that was Eisenhower's view.
And control of the Suez Canal...
FYI "provoked" is the exact word used by many to rationalize Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One could just as easily say Nasser was provoked to his actions by decades of foreign domination and exploitation.
This stuff is complex but at the end of day those three countries were clearly wrong to invade a sovereign country.
Also to shift European dependence away from Russian gas and on to American LNG.
America would like Europe to build more LNG terminals to accomodate its growing gas surplus but first investors will want to feel confident that that tap wont be switched on again soon coz LNG wont ever be able to compete with a pipeline.
That might stretch to 4 if you ration.
[0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM
that stupid smirk on his face really makes it look like he's eager to blow it up
edit to add the now-dead comment I was replying to so people can still see it (and hopefully forgive my snark): "Completely insane hot take but sure."
1. The US is already selling gas to Europe and there was no sign that would change. Europe has already committed to disinvesting from Russian energy. The pipelines were dead already. The US and others had already captured the market. Increasing the usage of Russian energy again during a bloody war against a neighbouring country would be political suicide for any European country I can think of. Maybe this is not obvious to Americans, and maybe this explains the obsessions with American intervention here - Americans always think their country is behind everything good or bad in the world, which in my mind explains a bit of the “Russia attacked due to NATO” delusional narrative. If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah.
2. Like other posters here have already mentioned the consensus hunch (and that’s all we have - a hunch) for now is this was a warning to internal competitors in Russian internal politics. This was a way to burn the ships and end any idea that Russia will come back to the West. We are in unrestricted warfare against Russia.
3. If you look into Russian propagandists online, they are 100% behind the idea that America did it to deindustrialise Europe, increase dependency, etc. I regularly follow the rule that whatever Russian propagandists say is higher in likelihood to be false, something which has been demonstrated again and again with - MH270 flight, invasion of Crimea, the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the Skripal poisoning, the invasion of Ukraine, now the usage of Iranian drones (Russia denies ever using them as they rain upon Kyiv). I could go on and on.
4. Like others have said, there are other operational pipelines. Thinking the problem with Russia selling Europe energy is “pipelines” is the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Assume we are at war with Russia and that they are a full blown revisionist militarist state in the Nazi tradition and everything will make more sense. Stop making stuff up and start dealing with reality - we are in a state of direct economic and information warfare with Russia, and in a proxy hot conflict where we hope to annihilate their armed forces. They are acting accordingly, and in order to prevent a “detente” later on after perhaps a change in leadership, the core rulers of Russia decided to blow up remaining economic bridges.
Effectively the world is at war against a new form of fascist/hypernationalist superpower and you guys are arguing about who blew up a pipeline that the fascists would use to feed energy to their now sworn enemies.
Stop guessing. It was the fascists.
Purely statistically speaking (without considering any details), that's definitely what one should bet on [1] before other information is recieved. If someone didn't know any of the specific facts, it's obvious that their intuition is honed correctly if that's their default. That doesn't mean it was the US, but without further knowledge (which most people don't have because who has the time for that), it's a very good default setting considering actual world history.
1. https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md
There was no gas flowing through the pipeline anyway.
Ukraine is already winning the war.
European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia
And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. If any evidence ever surfaces, the US may lose the trust of most of its allies. I don't see why taking this risk would be justified.
https://youtu.be/k8YC7UQVmis
Yes, because Russia is temporarily sanctioned. The moment the sanctions are lifted, Russia will still have the cheapest prices due to proximity and infrastructure. And Europe, of course, would resume buying from Russia, although they will try to secure better backup solutions in case of a future incident.
Blowing up the pipeline makes sure that gas flow will take a considerable time to resume. This gives leverage to alternative suppliers to negotiate for long-term deals with EU. With long-term deals in place, it will take several years for Russia to regain its dominant position in the European energy market.
> And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US.
What risk? The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. It's fairly easy for the US to find or create a window of opportunity to carry the operation.
The risk is, if the US ever gets caught, then we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies. How is sabotaging our geopolitical position in exchange for oil companies making some extra bucks worthwhile?
Exactly: if.
> we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies
But let's say that the US is caught red-handed. I doubt the consequences will be anywhere close to dire for them. See what happened when CIA was revealed to be spying on chancellor Merkel (hint: nothing). As this action will not be directly against any EU nation, significant reactions are very unlikely.
At least a few EU countries would probably align with the US, vetoing/dampening any centralized reaction from the EU. I am aware of at least one EU leader that wouldn't mind undermining EU in exchange for an invitation to the USA and a photo-op with the POTUS.
Some countries will be secretly mad, yes. But they won't have the option to stay mad for long. At the end of the day, US would even find their geopolitical position reinforced because of the fragmentation inside the EU.
What would be that moment, though? When they pause killing? When they decide to start peace talks? Frankly, I find it hard to imagine everyone* gets back to business as usual after everything that happened. Maybe if Russians themselves killed Putin and at least apologized it would be a good starting point to consider talking about potential lifting of sanctions.
* except Hungary
Great excuse to get NS2 going! How convenient for Russia, huh?
Even discussions of lifting some sanctions would be nasty.
>German, Danish, and Swedish authorities have all been investigating the incident but Swedish prosecutors reportedly rejected a joint investigation out of fears of sharing sensitive information related to national security. [0]
From the video in the linked BBC article it is apparent that explosives were used to destroy the pipeline at that site.
The thickness of the steel in the pipeline is 41 mm (1.6 in.). It is coated with an anti-corrosion wrap and has a concrete coating for added weight.
You can clearly see a trench across the seafloor intersecting the pipeline where it was cut. The video shows the steel wall bent inwards at the top with the anticorrosion blanket cut and the concrete shattered. The trench could be from the initial blast or it could have been cut by the force of the gas as it was expelled from the pipeline. Since it is a nice, straight cut I lean towards the trench having been created by the escaping gas which would cut like a knife through the soft seafloor in a focused stream.
Since the pipe shows an inward bend at the top of the break that implies a downward force. This force created a nice, clean cut that allowed the gas to escape.
There are many players who knew exactly where the pipeline lay on the seafloor and could pick any spot for a rupture.
I will be watching this to see how it all works out.
[1] Here is one analysis that makes an interesting case. I stumbled into this and had never heard of these guys before. Anyone recognize this outfit - MonkeyWorxus?
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63297085
[1] https://www.monkeywerxus.com/blog/the-nord-stream-2-pipeline...
It looks to me like someone cut out the damaged portion and removed it for investigation. That cut looks far too clean for an explosion.
I don't know what type of equipment the investigators have at their disposal but I would think that they could certainly recover sections of the pipe from the seafloor pretty easily. That capability would be necessary for any future leak repairs.
That would also explain why there appears to be a trench at the location.
It will be interesting to see what the various investigations turn up.
Now looking at Turk Stream
He has only one skill, like the orange man, and that is demanding personal enrichment at all costs. He is, at the end of the day, just another basic KGB neanderthal.
But "obviously"?
Russia has no more motive to blow up its own pipeline than America had to knock down the twin towers.
Cheap ready to go gas in January during a particularly harsh winter is going to look to Germany like crack looks to an addict.
It may escape you, but Russia knows this, Germany knows this and America knows this.
Ok? You’re stating that they don’t not have motive, so what’s the motive? Why would Russia throw away part of it’s cards? What’s the play?
If Russia were able to break the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine it would benefit enormously. I'm not seeing them succeeding in that, but that doesn't mean they're not trying it.
Pipeline explosions are easy to cause and usually easy to fix as well, while claiming "force majeure" absolves Russia from holding up existing delivery contracts.
[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/Pipeline_Explosion_Stokes_Tensions_B...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_en...
[3] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/disaster-down-the-pipe-2...
[4] https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/2764.html
Russia
For: Plunge Europe into an energy crisis to force concessions in Ukraine
Against: It looks a lot like a glass cannon to me. Meaning, Europe will now change their behavior to remove dependence on Russian energy.
USA
For: They've been against the Nords from the beginning and could pull something like this off
Against: Big escalation, huge potential blow back from Europe, and economic fallout is bad for the midterm elections
Ukraine
For: Removes a large source of Russian leverage over Europe
Against: Doesn't seem like they could pull it off and it risks the support from Europe they do have
Random European Country
For: Lots of them don't like the dependence on Russian energy and many of them have the means
Against: Huge escalation with Russia and risks discord amongst the EU
The Russian government not being a monolith, there must be factions who’d like to stop fucking around in Ukraine and get back to printing money pumping gas to Europe. The peace incentive gets much weaker with the destruction of Nord Stream.
This is not a mystery. The US has the most to gain from this: increase Europe's energy dependence on the US by literally forcing Europe to not use cheap Russian energy
That word you're using, I don't think it means what you think it means.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukrain...
https://time.com/6166681/bucha-massacre-ukraine-dispatch/
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/04/22/10942347...
I will quote another poster's comment: """ 1) There really were mass graves in Bucha. This was known even before the departure of the Russians and there is a video with burials. But it's also not a secret that in Bucha the Ukrainians destroyed a lot of Russian equipment that was driving through the streets from artillery. And just as many residential buildings were destroyed - an accompanying zherb. So all these victims are victims of Ukrainian artillery. They are silent about it. But this is a fact.
2) The corpses on the street, obviously defiantly laid out - to create the effect that the city is littered with corpses. It just doesn't make any sense. Well, just think with your head, how could this happen? People stood on the road in different places and the Russians shot them at the same time? That's bullshit.
3) The biggest puncture of propaganda and staging is the statement that there is a satellite image of where the bodies lie on March 11th. And so they had to lie until April 1, that is, 20 days. On the video of the Ukrainians on April 1, there is not even a hint that the bodies have been lying there for 20 days. This is complete nonsense. It turns out that the Russians could not allocate 5 minutes in 20 days to throw these bodies into the truck and take them out if they needed to hide these "terrible crimes"
4) We were shown video from the camera and from one drone. But we don't know when it was filmed. On the camera, two military men are leading people - the Ukrainians could have filmed this on April 1-2, at the same time that they were also staging a general staging with corpses. """
Make your conclusions from this as you will, or keep consuming the propaganda that the media fits you.
Exactly. And where do you think at least half those billions of government money has ended? In the pockets of all involved in the building them. And no new pipes are being build now. Not very profitable for the oligarchs, isn't it?
Why these unknowns didn't blew second pipe of NS2? It is moderately possible that it was done to pressure Germany to open NS2 (and it may happen next year, nobody knows how future will be shaped). This will legalize NS2 and then Russia can repair 3 other pipes (and repair corp will pocket half of the funds, again).
Also legalizing NS2 will pave the way to building 3rd and 4th pipes in the Turkey system, which Kremlin want very much. And builders of these potential southern pipes will do what? Correct, they will pocket half of the money.
There are a lot of moderately probably arguments for Russia doing it, and all involved can profit from this - Germany, Turkey, Kremlin, Russian builders and gas oligarchs. Sure, Russian people will be poorer, but when it was ever a consideration of Kremlin? :)
And we're talking about 50 meters of a pipeline several hundred KMs long. It's a trivial repair job compared to the effort to build the pipeline and its economic value. It temporarily changes the calculus but doesn't change the long term picture if Germany still wants to buy gas from Russia.
Plus, it seems likely to galvanize Europe into becoming much more of an independent actor. Destroying a major energy source is pretty far over the line of how you'd expect allies to treat each other. It would be a dramatic step and thus far the response has been pretty drama free.
Because these are our client states. NATO's purpose is to bend Europe's will across the Atlantic and away from having mutually beneficial relationships with Africa and Asia.
They aren't our allies; they are our client states. The European leaders align with what Washington wants, and not what the majority of their people want. The US doesn't have allies... only interests.
We are crushing German industry; this is beneficial to us, because it allows our industry to thrive and helps reshore production. We get to sell more energy to Europe; this is beneficial to us... and so on.
Russia risks what? Gas they can't sell anyway? Their incentive to stop the war?
The US risks NATO by blowing up Germany's energy. It's completely insane.
Europe was _already_ working about as hard as they could on removing their dependence on Russia though.
Another way to see this would be that around now might be the last chance for something like this to hurt Europe and still have time to put political pressure on afterwards.
If this had been done in the middle of winter, Europe would treat it as an attack and would be on their guard, but now Russia can play political games in the background to destabilize Europe or at least reduce Europe's will to help Ukraine.
This is very wrong. My brother is a technical diver, and after the blast I had a long chat with him about what it would do to achieve this. After going over the location, the estimated amount of explosives needed to break the pipes, and the depth, he came to the conclusion that he could have done it with 2 friends and a budget of ~10k€.
This was before these new pictures that paint a picture of a more powerful blast than he assumed, but it is still well within the capability of a bunch of very determined activists. This absolutely didn't need to be a state actor.
I came out of the discussion with a newfound appreciation just how fragile a lot of our billion-euro infrastructure is, and how easy it would be to disrupt.
>But Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russian forces planned the attack as a pretense to escalate the war in Ukraine.
>"The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine," Podolyak told Ukraine's national broadcaster.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/13/1128625322/crimea-bridge-atta...
These pipes lay at ~70 m depth so the drones can be wire-controlled. A small fishing vessel would be enough to deliver them.
That's not drag a hose behind a commercial drone. That's specialized equipment with trained operators. I just don't see Ukraine being able to pull that off.
...since an underwater explosion (particularly one underneath a hull) can produce greater damage than an above-surface one of the same explosive size. Initial damage to a target will be caused by the first shockwave; this damage will be amplified by the subsequent physical movement of water and by the repeated secondary shockwaves or bubble pulse. Additionally, charge detonation away from the target can result in damage over a larger hull area. [1]
The pipes have ...two layers; the inner pipe steel which is between 27-41mm thick with antifriction coating and a concrete steel outer coating between 60-110mm thick with corrosion protection... [2], far from the 'several inch thick pipes encased in a foot of concrete' you mention. They were also under high pressure, probably around 200 bar at point of attack [3]. Given that the pipes are at a depth of around 70 meters there this means they had an overpressure of around 193 bar so it would not have taken that much of a crack to cause them to rupture. Once ruptured the whiplashing effect - think what happens to a water hose when you turn open the tap but now with 193 bar of pressure behind it - would take care of the rest.
[1] https://wikiless.org/wiki/Underwater_explosion?lang=en
[2] https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/nord-stream-risk-of-...
[3] https://www.wermac.org/nordstream/nordstream_part3.html
The motivation should make sense, Russia makes sense, it was probably Russia.
And in regards to past Russian behavior even more realistic.
https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html
Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
https://twitter.com/GuyReuters/status/1582292909667516418
One of the theories I've seen espoused is that Russia is basically going "nice pipeline, shame if something happened to it" to the new Norway-Poland pipeline which was inaugurated about the time of the explosion.
I'm going to stop short of directly accusing anyone, but I will say that any motive for Russia to eliminate their economic leverage against a powerful NATO nation escapes me, whereas eliminating that leverage is in the apparent interest of every NATO member nation that wants to see Russia weakened, except Germany. Accusing Russia of this particular act of destruction doesn't make any sense.
I like the commenters trying to make sense of this event. Has any of the events in Europe up to this point made sense? One of Putin's goals is to fracture NATO, sowing this chaos furthers that goal. I don't think Europe has enough LNG terminals to accept more from the US, even if they could.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/dozens-lng-laden-shi...
So why do this? Because there are many other pipelines that Europe actually needs and is dependent on, mostly coming from Norway and Denmark: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeroen-Stolwijk/publica...
Blowing those up would actually cause a big problem for Europe and now they've been put on notice that it can happen.
Also I don't believe Russia has the technical ability to pull it off so professionally without strong proof being found by US.
Also even if we Europeans think it was the US we can't do much about it as we depend on US.
With shells and missiles. Not with covert operations under NATO fleet's nose.
According to your premise, NATO knows who did it.
Yet nobody saw anything, there are no past records going few hours back of some ship sailing to those spots? I mean US can spot very shallow speed boats of cocaine smugglers for a long time, so they use submarines from what I gathered.
One explanation would be that submarine, but - if I would be doing marine defense, I would be pinging / doing some other equivalent of radar checks very frequently. But maybe this is really difficult to do due ie shape of sea bottom, reach of such pings, animal protections, just pure costs etc.
It must be "La Datcha".
Talk me about investigative journalism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vbkFzQBo6w
That's very thick steel. Either a whole lot of explosives or some kind of shaped charge/explosively formed penetrator (widely used in oil drilling industry to blow holes in down-well pipe to allow oil flow) must have been used, with possible further damage caused by depressurization of the pipe.
As far as who did it and why? Russia seemed to be pushing Europe for a deal whereby if they went along with the annexation of the eastern provinces of Ukraine they'd open up gas supplies and end the looming energy crisis Europe faces, and a working Nordstream / Nordstream 2 pipeline was necessary for that strategy, so blowing up the pipeline derailed that strategy for months at least.
As to motive on the USA side, several officials in state and energy seem to view this as a 'tremendous opportunity' to shift European gas purchases away from Russian pipelines and towards US LNG tankers (price differential there), not sure how the Qatar gas output is affected.
Europe of course would have been better off pushing a lot harder for wind/solar/storage over the past two decades and getting off the Russian, American and Middle East fossil fuel teat that way, but to quote Jeremey Irons in Margin Call, "That is spilt milk under the bridge". So now what?
Furthermore Russia already has 1 pipe “down for maintenance,” so clearly limiting capacity is a huge bargaining chip for them.
I think it’s also worth considering Russia may have internal detractors from their current policies and blowing up a pipe removes it from the equation. It may have even been a warning to those internal detractors: “don’t speak up or we can take all the pipes off the table as bargaining chips.”
Russia benefits from the pipes being a high stakes game far more than the US.
But who knows. The CIA has done dumber things. I just don’t see the incentives for the US especially considering even if we could ship more LNG (it would take years) that would increase energy costs here. The Biden administration has to LOVE being isolated from the madness of Europes gas market at the moment, especially considering the elections and looming winter.
If "amount of nonsense" is your indicator, then literally every internet discussion on every divisive topic is "information attack". The HN guidelines specifically ask users not to post insinuations about this kind of thing without evidence, so when you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, please note that one.
There is no shortage of undersea infrastructure vulnerable to such attacks, not least bringing gas from Norway to the EU - look at exactly where the pipeline was blown. It is part of a pattern of strategic terror.
I don't follow this reasoning. The kind of expertise required to detonate a bomb underwater is likely something any developed country with a reasonably equipped navy/intelligence agency could pull off. Unlike something like Stuxnet, this seems rudimentary in comparison. As dysfunctional and diminished as Russia may be today, I don't think anyone assumed this was something they couldn't do.