Sabotage ? I’ll go with shitty craftsmanship.

When I was scanning the forum, I thought this thread might be about a scheme to sabotage the perfume and unmentionables counters at a major department store chain.

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Ok, ok. Thread title typo corrected...

---

---

"100% of the people who confuse correlation and causation end up dying."

I did that too

The talking head on BBC said only a major nation would have the resources to pull this off and that it had to be Russia. Could there be satellite images of boats in the area when it happened?

I guess what I don't get is why blow them up? Don't the Russians control them? Why not just not use them if you want to cut off the gas to Europe?

Talking head was saying it's a typical Putin threat, non-threat that the other new pipeline is at risk, communication cables, etc.

The Russians already shut the pipeline down. They haven't been pumping gas into it for months

Right, so why damage it? Is there some struggle going on between Gazprom and the Russian Govt.? Or it was just some way of threatening Europe and since they aren't using it anyway no skin off their back at the moment?

Apparently explosions were detected.

I think the US did it.

Why?

The LR eagerly anticipates ericMPro waking up, dusting off the Cheetos dust and spilled Mountain Dew Code Red, and explaining to us what the "op" is in this instance, and how it's tied to everything else going on in the world...

---

Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

My money is on Poland. They've been furious about both pipelines, and may have found this the perfect opportunity to disable them for good and not take any blame. Look also at the reactions of Polish people on Twitter.

I find it hard to believe a NATO country would risk getting caught doing that. Occam suggests the list is limited to Russia and Ukraine.

It’s definitely a curious situation, the thing about sabotage is the depth of the pipe,
On average 200’ deep that’s special diving.
It’s not a continuous pipe there are connecting sections.

"$12/gal gas by 31 OCT. Bread shortages. Count on it."

E

I heard a guy speculate the Russians could have sent something down the pipe to explode!

With pressurized gas in the pipe, would that not blow the entire pipe?

I have no idea, maybe the commentator who said it doesn't either?

That pipe, although shut down, was full of pressurized gas. I can't imagine it would be that easy to insert some kind of device into a pressurized pipe in such a way that it could crawl a few hundred miles then explode.

The sections which are 12m in length and I’m sure they way over engineered them dealing with pressure.With most systems failure happens at the connections.
Also when they lay the pipe they had to clear the path on the ocean of old bombs and mines from two world wars, there is a lot of stuff on the ocean floor.

From a negotiation perspective maybe it makes sense. A working pipeline that is currently shut off but could be turned back on, is a different bargaining chip than a pipeline that is off and will have to stay off until repaired.

I don't know a thing about undersea pipelines, but I would not be surprised if repairs can't be completed until after the winter season...which might reinforce the Russians' hand of trying to use cold weather/high energy prices in Europe as political leverage.

But if the Russians no longer have the option of turning the gas back on, doesn't that remove their bargaining chip?

It changes the nature of the bargaining chip. It certainly seems to reduce their options. But that may be useful to them somehow (if it's sabotage, and done by the Russians). Sort of a double down, "the only way out is to go deeper into the crisis" kind of thinking.

I don't know. It does seem like it would be counterproductive to the Russians. But maybe they don't want to get into a negotiation against the rest of the Western world. Maybe Putin likes to try to present stark options of (1) threaten to use nukes, and/or (2) freezing Western Europe with fewer available options to remedy that cold winter, as a way of trying to raise the stakes and bluff his way out of this.

intra Russia power play? Play nice or this is what happens?

Ukraine's pretty busy at the moment