Auric Goldfinger: Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."

-- Ian Fleming

Without a doubt US American sabotage.

During the days and weeks leading up to Russia's move into Ukraine, the US rhetorized over and over again about Nord Stream. All the time the main issue was that the EU must not buy LNG from Russia, it must agree to USAs "energy dominance" politics and buy LNG from them and only them.

This is a way to make sure that when winter comes, the EU has nowhere to go for LNG but to the US.

It's getting more and more clear that the one major obstacle to true US hegemony is not Russia or China, it's the EU with its strict principles, laws and regulations, and that the US is working hard to wear down this resistance and force the EU into dependence and coerciveness.

This is front page news in Denmark. Prime minister says "hard to imagine it happening by random", just short of declaring it a deliberate attack.

I don't think this was some kind of psy op to drive a wedge between NATO countries as there aren't any benefits from that in the current situation. The only situation my tin foil hat could imagine this being useful is in the event of much stronger tension (like the constant threat of using nukes). This would need a coordinated reaction in which distrust could be fatal. For supplying weapons or sanctions that distrust is not doing much as politically Germany and its allies are more or less on the same page.

However, the blown pipes limit the movement of the German government. It is more stable towards protests if a cold winter occurs as there is no option left to appease Russia as the restrictions in the gas sector aren't a product of a revertible decision anymore. Being cold can't be ignored, which a war in Ukraine can be. In addition, any half-baked compromise Russia could offer accompanied by influencing Germany's opinion with gas isn't an option anymore.

In the end, this could even benefit Germany which lacks clear and brave decisions of its leaders. Not deciding if you want to evade the wall you are driving onto right or left eventually leads to crashing into it

Rupture of the pipes is visible on seismic recordings: https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/7054...

I bet my left nut that in 50 years we'll learn it was a US operation

https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=95

> before Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Do we really need to smooth "Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24"?

The amount of propaganda on these Russia related threads is concerning. Especially after this recent news

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/27/23374819/meta-russian-inf...

Who would benefit from this?

On related note we had this Sunday evening power outage in big part of Prague, lasting around half an hour (second one in less than 4 months, previous lasted around 40 minutes and was due to some power station equipment failure, some gas insulation or something).

Funniest thing is the cause for this Sunday outage - power company spokesman said it was caused by (NOT hot air) balloon crashing into powerlines!

So never underestimate coincidence (Bulgarian lottery) and/or incompetence, though it was most likely Americans, if we are serious.

Possibly related, but already flagged to death. Strange, innit? ;>

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32994573 pointing to:

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/7054...

>The Russian submarine that caught fire and killed 14 may have been designed to cut undersea internet cables

>"The Russians talk about these ships in this program doing bathymetric research and deep-ocean research, meaning they do stuff on the sea floor," Bryan Clark, a former US Navy officer and a submarine warfare expert, told Business Insider. "If they are doing research on the sea floor with a military submarine, they are probably also able to interdict or disrupt undersea cabling or other undersea infrastructure, like pipelines."

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-submarine-losharik-un... (2019)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Losharik

UPD Thread from a submarine expert:

https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710

The only thing that will put this pipeline back into operation is rehabilitation of Russia, which will involve unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine, apology, $350bn of reparations, and a war crimes tribunal.

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32993116

Biden himself told they would do it, and "promised they have ways to do it" (from ca 1:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8&t=82s

So what's next? Will newly opened Baltic pipe be blown up too by Russia in retaliation for this attack that many people here are suggesting was implemented by USA (directly or indirectly).

It makes complete sense to put Europe in deeper hole.

Can anyone inform me why there is gas in both the pipes when they are in maintenance/not yet in use/no gas is being delivered by russia. Do they always have to be filled with gas for some reason?

Quick Question: Didn't Russia already turn off all of the actual flow for these? I mean technically it was the Russian gas company ~~sighting~~ citing urgent maintenance rather than Putin himself with a big spanner. But either way, flows were at <1% capacity right?

I'm curious about the impact of such leaks in terms of CO2 equivalent emissions Another article mentions 117 million cubic meters of natural gaz in Nord stream 2[0].

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/gas-leak-detected-near-nord-...

Great timing to close off gulf of Finland to Russian vessels while “investigation” is going on.

this is also why we can't have nice things. spend billions of dollars on an undersea pipeline and someone will blow it up to achieve a geopolitical objective.

Any shared dependencies between the pipelines?

Maybe just a time sensitive maintenance task that was neglected due to current state of affairs?

I think the Russian explanation is simple enough and don't believe we have to put tinfoil hat for this.

We knew that this would be the result of sanctions on western tech and knowledge. I've met and talked a lot with a Russian/Khazak "oil engineer" (asylum seeker, hosted by my mom) and to be honest, his knowledge in thermodynamics was abyssimal and wouldn't qualify for "system dynamics 201" (loose translation, sorry) in my country. I know there was difficulty with the language but even mathematic objects (tensor specifically, he knew what a matrix was) escaped his knowledge. He was probably a very good plumber and technician, able to repair a lot of mechanical issues (he found work in a garage), but the fundamental seemed very shaky in my western view.

I think that if trully skilled workers left, and western monitoring and support are hit by sanctions, any issue like this is very likely to happen on its own and stand to happen more and more as the months pass.