Hmm. I still don't see a clear motivation for the U.S. There is indirect motivation, but I don't see a strong risk-reward equation. The U.S. is already "winning" the battle for strong EU commitment against Russia. I don't see a clear motivation for sabotaging U.S. partners and strong allies in order to "help them" stay committed.

My theory is internal Gazprom conflict, amounting to internal Russian conflict.

So far in 2022, we've had several suspicious fatalities at Gazprom including the "Director of Transport." I put it at roughly a half dozen high level people with ties to Gazprom. Could be oligarch backlash, "You want to fuck with us? Fine."

Also I'd assume that the larger Gazprom sphere of support and maintenance contractors have the technical chops to pull off sabotage of their own pipeline.

This self-sabotage logic is probematic. But *every* rationale is problematic.