Who sabotaged the pipeline

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Who sabotaged the pipeline

I did. Because I felt like it!

The damage was done deep down. Too difficult to inflict by just human divers in wetsuits. It was a capital-intensive operation carried out by submersible manned craft, or by submerisible robots. Thats what the experts say. So it had to be by an actor with the resources of a nation. Not just rogue individuals, or some rogue terrorist group.

NATO and Russia are in a contest of wills over which will happen first: will the embargo cause Russia to collapse? Or will the coming of winter make western Europe cave in to get Russian natural gas to heat its homes?

At first glance it would seem that Russia couldnt be responsible because they already control the spigot of gas going through the pipeline. So why destroy their own pipeline, and why eliminate their own chief means of leverage?

Ukraine is fighting for its life against Russia, so has a motive to destroy a Russian asset, BUT also has a motive to NOT anger its friends in western Europe who get gas through the pipe. It just seems to risky a move for Ukraine to have done.

So at first glance there is only one actor who benifits much from this. And that is the USA. One might suspect that the US decided to force things along: deny Russia income from the gas, and to force it NATO European allies to NOT wait until winter, but to start getting their heating gas from non Russian sources right now! Lets all get with program RIGHT NOW folks! And keep a united front!

So the US seems to be the main suspect.

However...at second glance...not so fast. Russia may indeed have blown up their own pipeline - so the outside world would lift sanctions on Russia - to enable Russia to get the technology to fix the pipeline.


And if its a 'false flag operation' then anyone might have done it. Russia may have done it in some gambit to turn the NATO allies against each other.

So..for the moment I would say it could be either Russia, or the US.

Firstly, without considering motive, it would need to be someone with access to the Baltic Sea. That narrows it down to nine countries with Baltic coastline (one of which is Russia), plus the US, UK, France, and China who have the technology to sneak in. Theoretically there are more, but they'd find it much harder. I think Ukraine can be categorically ruled out as they don't even have access to the Med, let alone the Baltic.

I think you can then pretty quickly rule out everyone except Russia, because it would be harmful to all of them and they have no motive.

So that leaves Russia. They have a pretty clear motive: they want to signal that they are willing and capable of acting to sabotage other countries' infrastructure. They also have the opportunity and means. Finally, they're led by a batshit leader who has made lots of bizarre decisions so far in this war, including launching it in the first place. Removing Nord Stream reduces the motive for a coup against Putin by removing the possibility of future gas revenues.

Why does cutting off a major stream of revenue to Russia reduce the likelihood of a coup? Instead of INCREASE the likelihood of a coup?

I think it doesn't matter. But no matter what, it's politically convenient for Putin.

Out of interest how far down is the pipeline? If it's barely under the sea then I'm surprised it's not a huge target anyway. Even private individuals can just drop explosives on it if it's 100 meters down.

A private joker in a boat cant just toss lit sticks of dynamite over the side of his boat on to the pipeline and do much damage.

Its far from the shore - one source on UTube said its 200 meters down at the damaged parts, though I cant find other sources to back that up. But all sources seemed to agree that it had to have hit between 80 and 110 meters depth (240 feet and 350 feet). And the pipe is encased in a series of 24-ton concrete sections. Hard for a long scuba diving vandal to attack.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 02 Oct 2022, 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If terrorists can make hefty bombs then I imagine a target like a massive gas pipeline is perfectly within reach for them.

Realistically however a state would have probably attacked them.

Considering the timing, who had the best access and the benefits and problems it would cause to other countries, I'd say Russia's the most likely culprit. There's just no reason for European countries to do it, unless it was some separate radical group that actually had the resources, but I doubt it. As for someone outside Europe and Russia, I'd think it'd be difficult to pull off without leaving a trail, especially in times like these.

I suppose that in theory there's the possibility of it being an accident, but considering the timing... yeah, not convinced.

The sanctions were on the European side

There were demonstrations that week in Germany wanting nord stream 2 to be switched on.

Some say the US did it to take that option off the table, Biden did actually say he’ll make sure NS2 is never switched on regardless earlier this year.

I've read that most people think it was Russia and it was intended as a message to the West that Russia is prepared to cut off all energy supplies to Europe.

I buy the message, but I wonder if the intended recipient wasn't the west, but Russia itself - or at least the wealthy oligarchy that surrounds Putin and must be getting concerned about the future. Most of Russia's money comes from energy sales and this war has lit a fire under Europe to wean itself off Russian gas. They'll be able to sell it to the East but probably at a massive discount - and they'll need to build the infrastructure.

If oligarchs are getting jumpy, making noise to Putin that they really want this war over and to get selling gas to Europe again, is it possible that Putin blew it up to say "No, we're not going back to the old arrangements, so stop asking."

That makes more sense to me than anything else.

He did it.

That's pretty much the read of it I had as well.

It's an open question whether it was the US alone or rather other people acting on behalf of the US, but my read as to why anyone would want to sabotage the pipelines - it's to make the embargo either non-revocable or setting things up to where it couldn't be revoked by any parties who'd signed up for the Russian economic embargo.

As it is I'm wondering if there are any charities looking to help with the situation this winter (ie. we're pretty well insulated from all of this in the states and I think as many of us who can donate aid should). I'd figure as of next year it will be time for more big EU energy independence projects to start rolling out, there probably won't be enough to make a significant difference and my best guess is it's probably going to have to be Canada, US, or someone else with similar LNG capacities who can set up shop quick enough to ship more of it if for nothing else to at least shave some percentage of cost off for winter of 2023/2024. I keep hearing how expensive and difficult it is to ship LNG so it could be that even if that did happen it may not make a huge difference.

It doesn't cut off a major stream because the stream is already cut off.

All it does is cut off the possibility of a new regime being able to turn it back on by pulling out of Ukraine.

Biden is doing a pretty good impression of the Israelis whenever some prominent Arab is whacked, "we're not saying we didn't do it...".