Nord Stream blast 'blew away 50 metres of pipe'
bbc.com
bbc.com
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.
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
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-...
The motivation should make sense, Russia makes sense, it was probably Russia.
And in regards to past Russian behavior even more realistic.
Wouldn't a rocketing hydrate plug likely blow a single hold in the pipe?
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.
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.
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
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss
Reed stated the United States added a Trojan horse to gas pipeline control software that the Soviet Union obtained from a company in Canada.[1] According to Reed, when the components were deployed on a Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, the Trojan horse led to a huge explosion.[1] He wrote: "The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."[1]
Also US has been against NS for a while https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/biden-meet-german-chancello...
Also interesting how US media tries to damage control https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESG14_DsUIA
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.
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.
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.
that stupid smirk on his face really makes it look like he's eager to blow it up
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.
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
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...
CIA ~paid troll~ damage control officer here...
Russia have done it because... You know... it must be Russia.
That's so obvious it's impossible to rationaly explain it otherwise.
The 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"
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.