You can accuse Russia of anything you want in the current climate, and everyone will take you seriously regardless of evidence.
A) it was only partially destroyed
B) Russia offered to run gas through the remaining pipeline at a higher price, almost immediately after running campaigns pointing fingers at everyone else
Apparently with A whoever did it decided not disable it completely, and with B somehow Russia is extremely confident it won't be attacked again.
It's not a hard conclusion to reach that Russia bombed its own shutdown pipeline, while leaving it functional, in order to cause confusion amongst enemies.
It isn't as if someone flipped a switch. This is underwater explosives at considerable depth.
There is nothing self-evident in what you've laid out here but you sure seem to think that it is.
Asserting that you do not find it difficult to reach this conclusion does not make the conclusion you have reached, any less convoluted.
It is highly unlikely that A) the US with such lead time would fail to blow up all 4 pipes, and B) the US would bother when it had already handled the situation diplomatically.
https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-nord-s...
The only pipeline that was destroy was the one Germany had shutdown, Russia immediately began trying to poke Germany to open the other pipeline.
"Russia has been the one wanting all the pipelines open this whole time" Key word is "wanting", they were not getting it, Germany made is clear they were not getting it.
These bad faith arguments are why no one trusts the US anymore and everyone is getting on board with BRICS. The US lies and stabs you in that back no matter what.
Bad faith argument? Where does this nonsense about "everyone is getting on board with BRICS" come from? Who is "everyone"?
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/nord-stream-update-the-recovered
Holger Stark, the German investigative journalist who broke this story for Die Zeit. Stark has apparently told Hersh that “Officials in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark … decided shortly after the pipeline bombings to send teams to the site to recover the one mine that has not gone off”. He said they were too late; an American ship had sped to the site within a day or two and recovered the mine and other materials
They did however recover a smoke buoy
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/nord-stream-update-the-recovered
https://twitter.com/holger_stark/status/1638561100009549829
"But this is, at least in respect to our work at @DIEZEIT, complete BS. And if you write about me: call next time before you publish."
Your comment looks like an information operation itself. As far as I can tell, the only claims that the drones "tried to kill Putin" come from Russian state media.
> As far as I can tell, the only claims that the drones "tried to kill Putin" come from Russian state media.
Well, I was reporting what the news said, and it was definitely not the Russian media.
Losing benefit of the doubt doesn't mean you're guilty.
It just means when Russia accused the UK [1] of blowing up the pipeline you can't trust them. Or when Russia accuses the US [2] of blowing up the pipeline you can't trust them. It doesn't mean the US or UK didn't do it; it just means Russian claims are not evidence and you'd probably be better off just completely ignoring them so that it doesn't taint any opinions.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-british-nav...
[2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-09/russia-bl...
They might be doing this. I'd be tempted, if I were Putin. But it's pretty clear that 90%+ of all claims that Russia is doing this turn out to be malevolent information operations by our own side.
Example: Hamilton 68, supposedly a website that tracked Russian "information operations" on Twitter. Except it turned out to be pure, unadulterated garbage from a US think tank that was labelling Americans who worked night shifts as Russians. That didn't stop the media reporting it as "russian disinfo" for years, and when the truth finally came out, refusing to report on their own failed reporting and complicity.
There's tons of stuff like that. If a western source is making a claim about Russian misinformation, it's pretty much a dead cert thing that they're making it up.
Anyways I'm hardly savvy enough to know who did what and what was faked through the fog of war and all the war propaganda, but "If the Russians say down, they are disreputable invaders, so we must say up" is not a very good mode of analysis for teasing out the truth.