They had Zero reasons to blow it up and very good reasons to keep it alive if and when the Germans wanted that gas again.
The only beneficiary of the pipeline going bust are the USA.
Ukraine and Norway are also beneficiaries. Ukraine because it reduces the risk of Germany getting squishy about supporting them and Norway because they’ve cornered the European natural gas market.
They're pretty good at improvisation. Odds are good that they could pull off such a thing if they were so inclined. You don't need a traditional submarine fleet to do something like this.
They're not at the top of my suspects list though.
So blowing the pipeline up is the better alternative.
On the other hand, this has cause many other countries to think the famous "what if we're next?", and switching from dollars to their local currencies, forming new alliances (either within BRICS or SCO) which seriously endangers the power of dollars and in turn euros.
Just that Russia did have credible motives, and that for Russia, blowing up the line anonymously is better than just saying "no more gas for Europe".
But given the stakes, they are not the only ones that have motives. And I never said otherwise.
They've already invaded a nation. What you're suggesting here is like a violent machine-gun toting bank robber in ski mask making sure to pay his parking bill before driving off, because he's worried about what other people might think of him.
Using international trade to coerce nations is a far lesser crime than invading them and leveling their cities with artillery.
so as opposed to now, someone will talk poorly about them? I dont quite know how putin would sleep at night if someone said he was a bad dude
Also, as soon as that pipeline got blown up, EU got forced to take much more expensive American liquid gas.
It's not hard to believe in and it makes 100x more sense than Putin blowing it up for funzies.
A famous journalist who believed obl was imprisoned by pakistan in 2006 and the assassination was staged, siria didnt use chemical weapons, and skripals weren’t poisoned by novichok. You see the pattern here?
This was reported at a simmilar timeframe (compared to the war) and from the same groups of people who said iraq had weapons of mass destruction, so not trusting them would not be that stupid... especially if you have better inside sources that "normal people" do.
I have news for you, US is NATO.
It does not care what it's "allies" say. And it will do all it can to make them toe the line.
And that line is: Russia is the enemy that needs to be dismantled and destroyed. You shall not deal with Russia, period.
Why is it difficult for you to understand this simple logic?
The “Russia did it” argument for Nord Stream is about internal politics. Putin’s war ruined the lifestyles of his elites, who spent most of their time in mansions and yachts in the West. All of that is gone now. It’s tempting for those elites to want to find a way to turn back the clock to February 23, 2022, get the gas money flowing again, and get back to the family villa in the Amalfi Coast. Like Cortes burning the ships to remove the temptation to mutiny, blowing up Nord Stream lets Putin close off this avenue.
Truth is you can tell a plausible story for a lot of actors to do it. But I lean toward the Russia hypothesis because they had less to lose if they got caught.
The US has spent immense political and literal capital on building a coalition to sanction Russia, which could all be undone if it got caught committing an act of war against Germany (no, phone spying is not the same, everyone does that to everyone). Besides, the benefits for the US are hazy, since Germany did not appear open to ever reactivating the pipelines. Why take such a huge risk to prevent something that didn’t appear likely to ever happen, let alone any time soon?
But if it was Russia, what is Germany gonna do to Russia that it’s not already doing? Maybe it would’ve sped up tank deliveries by a few months if they’d caught Russia red-handed, but tanks still happened eventually.
The idea that the US would risk making itself a pariah amongst its NATO allies, particularly right now does not seem believable to me.
That isn't enough to blame them for it of course, but to assume that Putin is not behaving logically because the alternatives are so "unthinkable" is misguided.
News for you: Everyone is spying on everyone else. Always have, always will be. Germany was also spying on the US. Spying, a.k.a having inside knowledge, is always a preference by all regimes. Whether one has the means to do it is another matter.
NATOS biggest financial backer, strongest military that is actually capable of something and projects force all over the world, financial power that can tell to Swiss banks how high to jump or else and tell other countries what they can sell and to whom.
Without the US NATO is irrelevant. I think your "US would risk making itself a pariah" statement is pure fantasy. There is zero risk for the US.