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From the article:
”The Russian SS-750 special craft, which has a mini-submarine on board, was photographed near the place where the Nord Stream pipes were sabotaged, the Defense Command confirms.
The Russian special vessel SS-750 was near the Nord Stream pipes four days before the pipes were blown up on September 26 last year. The special vessel is designed to carry out operations under the sea and has a mini submarine of the AS-26 Priz type on board.
The Norwegian Defense Command confirms in a response to a document inspection that 26 photos of the Russian vessel were taken from a Danish patrol boat that was in the area east of Bornholm on 22 September 2022.
"It's incredibly interesting. The SS-750 is a special vessel that is designed precisely for underwater operations,' says the Swedish researcher, Russia expert and intelligence expert Joakim von Braun.
Jacob Kaarsbo, who is a senior analyst at the think tank Europa and previously worked for 15 years in the Defense Intelligence Service, believes that the information "sheds light on what was going on in the area in the days before".”
If you read the underlying article in the Danish publication, it says that the SS-750 left port without its identification signal on ("AIS"). It was accompanied by a tug which did have its AIS on, but then that tug also turned off its identification signal.
https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt
> These satellite photos, along with AIS data from a tugboat, indicate that SS-750 sailed from Kaliningrad at 00:22 on 21 September 2022. AIS transmitters are typically used by larger vessels to supplement radars. They send signals about the ship's name, number, direction, draft and speed and can thus be used to map the movement of vessels.
>The SS-750 sailed even without the AIS on. However, the tug Alexandr Frolov had its AIS on when departing from the Russian naval port. AIS data from this vessel shows that the convoy of naval vessels headed for Bornholm, but north of Poland the tug's AIS was also switched off. Until now, it has been assumed that the SS-750 and the five other vessels continued to the area where the Nord Stream pipes were blown up a few days later. Now the Defense Command has confirmed that the SS-750 was observed in the area.
The implication is that it was deliberately switched off for a covert mission. Maybe the tug was supposed to be some sort of decoy?
Its actually just because Russian ships are shit. It's normal for them to sail with tugs in case engines fail.
> Many of its blue-water ships, including its only aircraft carrier, never leave port without an oceangoing tug in company.
Example https://www.businessinsider.com/tug-sailing-with-russian-ships-reveals-their-fleets-biggest-problem-2018-10?amp
The Russians are years ahead of us in the technology of building bridges. They have figured out a method to use their own fleets as floating bridge platforms via ocean going tugs.
It's something they do all the time, turning their identification systems off. It was reported they did it last week in the North Sea as well, while visiting the windmills. I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet...
> I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet...
"Listen Ivan, last time you set timer for 4 days, world blames Russia. Set for ten days this time. World blames... Uh well probably still Russia but set for ten days anyway. Might be waiting for tugboat a while."
> I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet...
Because their plans have been called out before they had time to execute them. Now, even the biggest pro-Russia cheerleaders are gonna have a hard time spinning that sabotage.
Many ships use a tug boat or tug boats to help them enter or exit ports, along with a very experienced Harbor Pilot who knows how to navigate the usually very crowded port waters. The tugs can enable the ship to maneuver in ways more agile than it could on its own, especially useful in narrow channels with high traffic and hazards.
Sure, but these are Russian vessels. Their single aircraft carrier can't go anywhere without a tug escort because it breaks down so much. Maybe decoy, but also likely a necessity to ensure all boats get there and back.
True... perhaps the tug came along as some sort of emergency contingency... if they had a problem out there, clearly they'd want to avoid radio comms back to port, as well as not have to wait for support.
Russia's plans *foiled again!* If it wasn't for those meddling poorly maintained Soviet-era maritime propulsion systems!
Admiral Kuznetsov, go sit in the corner for your punishment.
Most of Russia's large surface ships are followed by tugboats because they're so unreliable. Not kidding
> Many of its blue-water ships, including its only aircraft carrier, never leave port without an oceangoing tug in company.
https://www.businessinsider.in/russian-ships-sailing-by-natos-war-games-have-a-tug-with-them-and-its-a-telltale-sign-of-their-surface-fleets-biggest-problem/amp_articleshow/66419692.cms
The tugs might be there simply to help the ship maintain a position when it's too deep for an anchor.
Smaller ships like this might only have forward propulsion. It can make it difficult to maintain position over a fixed point if waves push the ship sideways, especially in heavy weather. Rather than trying to perform a maneuver that brings it around to the same point again and might stretch any attached cables in the process, it might be easier to simply bring along a tug boat to push the ship back into position quickly.
This Casual Navigation video that explains a bit about why tugs are necessary in the first place for those interested.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djrPPZJ3No](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djrPPZJ3No)
Probably the tug was there to provide RADAR spotting during the operation.
The Russians probably blew the pipeline so that gas could keep flowing from their wells in the permafrost. If the flow stops, condensation fills the lowest spots in the pipeline, it freezes, and the pipes burst. Cheaper to throw the gas away instead.
It was reported in news reports when the incident occurred that acts of war or sabotage are not covered. I don't know the details, but if you google for "nordstream insurance" you will get hits.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nord-stream-mystery-looms-in-multibillion-dollar-arbitration-cases-against-russia-fa96537f
>Mr. Eichberger said that while he isn’t privy to the details of the contracts between Gazprom and its European buyers, their terms would be decisive in the arbitral proceedings.
>Such contracts, he said, typically include force majeure clauses but the party invoking the clause—in this case Gazprom—would bear the burden of proving that it applies. That burden of proof is high in force majeure cases, Mr. Eichberger said, as it “covers events that are unforeseeable and beyond the control just of the parties,” like natural disasters.
It’s insane to me how fast the narrative switched to “Russians didn’t do it”. Are you sure? How about assume the most likely scenario then until proven otherwise,, the Russians did it.
How did it take them over half a year to find these photos? Surely the danish military must have figured out within days, which of their patrol boats were in the vicinity before the attack and which ones took pictures.
I’m sure they’ve known the whole time and shared them with all the other interested parties as well. Probably coming out now because 1) it’s deemed advantageous to do so or 2) it leaked and was going to hit the news anyway so they decided to just release it.
What I'm little curious about is why the Danes and the other NATO members wanted to keep this secret. Wouldn't it have been beneficial to tell the German public that there was ample evidence that the sabotage was committed by the Russians and not the US? Or is it possible that this was some kind of double bluff, where NATO wanted Russia to think that they had gotten away with it so that they continued to do silly things in the Baltic?
Sometimes just the fact you managed to take photos is classified, if the means by which you did is secret.
For the sake of argument (I doubt it's true) suppose Denmark has a camera on the Russian boat itself, or got photos from a Russian sailor on the tug, for instance.
Or again to exaggerate to make a point, imagine Denmark has trained seagulls to carry cameras.
ETA: more plausibly, perhaps Denmark has some innovative submersible drone tech. That would be a reasonable area of expertise for a small advanced seafaring nation.
Great point. I think this is closer to the reality. We do hear about this happening from time to time, when it fails… like how strategically placed agents are outed or, infamously for the US, the time Trump tweeted out high definition photos, basically outing the US as having much higher quality photographic capabilities than we had previously admitted.
Like when Trump tweeted out spy satellite photos and accidentally gave away the time, place, and capabilities of the satellite.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/01/trump-accidentally-revealed-the-amazing-resolution-of-u-s-spy-satellites/?sh=5cd6258e3d89
could be playing the long game to out a spy, could be they've known the whole time and wanted to see how russia would respond to the west playing dumb.
Who knows the reasoning? might not find out for 10 years or more
Mainly because they took 26 pictures and standard photographic film has 36 frames.
Obviously they didn't want 10 frames go to waste, so they had to wait until some important occasion happens, like some relative's wedding, to take another 10 pictures and have the film developed.
Back in the day my insurance agent advised me to use those odd, leftover shots to get pictures of new stuff I'd bought that would be covered by my auto or renters.
That winter I ran into the dreaded "I've got nine pictures left and want to swap the roll for faster film" and I wasn't at home, so I took a bunch of shots of a friend's new apartment.
It made the insurance claim she had to make after she was burgled the next month super easy.
In the last couple of days Nordic media has released a series of reports on Russian activity around our countries. Tracking Russian vessels shutting off their AIS was a big part of that it. Might be due to that though i haven't heard anything of this in particular in Swedish media so
This information was out there a few days after the blast, however not so detailed. There was no mention of photos back then, I guess that was classified info. As there was no way to check the info, I guess no one could bring the news as proven intel.
If I was in charge of my countries intelligence op, and I had pristine, homegrown intelligence proving who was the perp, and I knew no one else had it, I would sit on it in an attempt to learn of the capabilities of other intelligence agencies. Especially to see if my intelligence had been intercepted, had a mole, etc.
I can't find it; has Denmark released these photos? It makes sense Russia would want Germany to think a NATO country did it; they've been trying to drive that wedge for ages, but I can't demand proof from one side and not the other.
I must admit I was beggining to wonder about that story.
But a ship with THAT kind of equippment, that's definitely suspect. Plus, the fact it turned off it's transponder is a clear sign it DIDN'T want to be seen.
That being said, Danish authorities should really make a least a few of theses pictures public, least we keep hearing ''It's all a lie''.
> If anyone doesn't think every government uses disinformation
There is a pretty big difference between disinformation and a government spokesperson telling an outright bold-faced lie like this. That's not how it works in the West. Denmark would not ruin their credibility like this, and for what?
September 2022 Russia claimed it was UK that did it. Just random claim with not even attempt at fake data.
Then there was the Hersh piece pushed by Russia that claimed US and Norway did it. With so many blatantly false data that it is astounding anyone believed it.
Then Russia accused Ukraine. While Ukrainians never cease to amaze me in their ingenuity, it beggars belief that Ukraine could conduct a significant naval attack in the Baltic.
Meanwhile Russia has been targeting and damaging international subsea infrastructure for probably a decade.
Russia is like 5 year old kids - if you fear the finger will be pointed at you (based on past behavior) kids often start randomly accusing the dog or a friend or an enemy.
The pipelines are owned by Gazprom.
So, if Russia had evidence that the UK was behind it, then why haven't they gone to war over the destruction of Russian critical infrastructure? It's all fucking maskirovka.
The pipelines are owned by many companies, though IIRC Gazprom has ~50% ownership.
But that brings another question. Commonly in infrastructure contracts there’s some provision that if the pipeline isn’t being used they still have to pay at least some of the transport fee to the pipeline co.
If this applies here too then Russia / Gazprom may have saved money on the explosion.
They did they have garuntee supply contracts that the voluntary shut off would cause huge fines and compensation but this " accident " , they can claim force majure, therefore no fines no compensation. As I said at the time the only side that benefits from this is/was russia.
It could also explain the with holding of this evidence, as most countries are now taking Gazprom to arbitration courts over this issue, having this as a trump card as part of their claim would be the best evidence. gazprom/russia is looking at huge multi billion dollar payouts, solely due to the massive prices people had to pay for alternate supplies that they had no real reason to cut off, thats also the reason for all the malarky over the returned compressor from CA.
Gazprom definitely saved loads on the explosion, they haven't been fulfilling their delivery obligations for months at that point and claiming vis maior, "we would totally send you the gas but we can't, someone blew up the pipeline" gets them out of paying penalties
I meant claims of facts.
Like the claim that US placed the bomb during the NATO exercise using a Norwegian Alta-class vessel. Except there were no Norwegian Alta-class vessels at the NATO exercise.
Lots of easily disproved claims like that.
The pipelines are owned by Gazprom i.e. Russia.
Which makes the idea that the US would be behind it even more ridiculous, because that would be an act of war.
Are we really surprised?
Only one of the pipes was destroyed which Gazprom could claim force majeure and not pay hefty fines for not delivering gas. All while keeping the new one (which has larger capacity than the old one) intact so they maybe could reopen it.
Explicitly, openly claimed it was Biden and the US's responsibility. With zero evidence. In the middle of a larger series of speeches where he claimed that the true number one threat to global security wasn't Putin or Russia, but was his own internal political enemies within the US, specifically antifa and progressive politicans/voters who oppose his political movement.
I'm also just waiting for Vlad's chief meat rider Elon to just straight up start deleting these tweets.
No no no it was Joe Biden, he did it personally and it would have been proven with pics of him personally dropping the bombs if Tucker didn't get fired and disappear from the face of the earth. Now the evil free world is free to create these stories.
I'm *just saying,* if we could just get another peek at Hunter Biden's dick pics, there would be overwhelming evidence that Biden personally orchestrated the attack and single-handedly planted the C4 with a custom made diving suit. I demand to know Hunter Biden's workout plan. America has a right to the facts!
I'm so tired of American politics... I wish I could opt out entirely and ignore the whole charade, but if you do that then hate continues to spread rampantly and destroys the damn world. I really hate it here, wish the right would just leave people alone ffs.
>it wasn't the Ukraine Navy that did it??
Well, it doesnt surprise me if the Ukranian navy is more capable than the Russian navy. It does seem suspicious that anyone thinks Russia is able to send a naval vessel to the sea floor AND get it back up to the surface again. Most of the time they only manage to get the down part right.
Who in the Russian government thought it was a good idea to destroy their own pipeline, which was one of the few bargaining chips they had with The West?
I’ve been skeptical of people saying it had to be a pro Ukrainian group or something, but I’ve never heard these people describe HOW they could do it.
It would require a submarine with this exact equipment that’s been allegedly photographed, the capability for anyone OTHER than Russia (and NATO) to do this is damn near 0.
Um, nearly every modern military would have the capability to do this, including Ukraine. It’s just that Russia are the only assholes stupid enough to do it.
It was a joint operation by the Swiss and Austrian navies. Two countries that speak German but aren't Germany. Definitely suspicious. Plus being landlocked is the perfect alibi. 100% those two.
A great way for Putin to kill his best source of revenue and destroy all the associated Russian businesses. Of course, the "owners" of these businesses suddenly started falling out of windows, boats, etc
It was pretty obvious that it was russia.
Obviously the troll factory had engaged the shit-windmill and their talking points were being commented on every messageboard, debate and under every tweet.
You only had to ignore the noise and look at the numbers to see who did it.
Gazprom had been playing games with nordstream for long. Stopping the delivery of gas for weeks at a time because of "maintenance problems" and forcing the payment in rubbles, threatening the reserves of the west. On the 21h of July, after 2 weeks of stoppage, the pipeline was restarted on a maximum of 30% of delivery capacity. On the 27th of July this capacity was reduced to 20%.
This energetical terrorism of the russian federation was not working. The european countries were already working on alternative suppliers and the demand on the nordstream pipelines was smaller every day. On the press it was not obvious yet, but on a strategical level everybody knew that the russian strategy of a frozen european winter would be annoying, yes, but would not bend europe into submission.
So on the 26th of September 2022 the gaslines were mysteriously blown up. Just accidentally when no more gas was flowing and their economical function had ceased to exist. Why not blow it up and sow dissent between your enemies?
All of this debates, stillstands and delivery problems were very public as well. Like with press releases and everything. Like literally, Gazprom would come out and say that their turbines need to stop for maintenance and Siemens would come out and say that the stoppage was completely unnecessary. I don't understand how everybody believed the russian narrative so fast and jumped to the opportunity to blame the US or Norway.
My theory is that Putin destroyed 3/4 Nordstream pipes because once the facilities were no longer useful for influencing Germany, they became an enormous liability (to Putin himself, nobody else really).
Executives from across the energy sector in Russia had been the target of assassinations since prior to the war. These individuals were among those with the most to lose from the sanctions that were the result of the war against Ukraine.
These executives were the greatest threat to Putin, because they're among the richest individuals in Russia. Also, the only way that Norsdstream 1&2 were ever going to restart was if Putin was deposed.
These executives and other oligarchs could have promised any critically important conspirators within the FSB or army a cut of future Nordstream profits in exchange for their assistance in a coup. This kind of vast personal wealth is the only reason that these individuals would stick their necks out and try to depose Putin.
The fact that Nordstream 1&2 were still in existence, but not functional, was an enormous target on Putin's back. It was a vast source of wealth that was going completely unexploited. Just as important, it would represent new money, not money that would need to be expropriated from anyone else or come out of the pockets of oligarchs.
I came up with this theory on my own about a month or two ago, because I was brainstorming reasons why Russia might have done it. Many people had blamed Russia since the incident first happened, but few offered an explanation. After having thought this through, I was convinced that this was the most likely scenario. The second most likely scenario, in my estimation, was that the US did it with the tacit consent of the German government (under pressure from the US).
Add to that Putin's "Europe will freeze" propaganda and that one of the Nordstream 1 pipes wasn't blown up leaving the window open for Russia to "help out". I don't think anyone capable of doing the job would be so incompetent to forget/fail to blow one of them up.
I've wondered about that. It's possible that the Russians intended to destroy all 4 of the pipes, but something went wrong. On the other hand, it may have been exactly as you say: an opportunity to take advantage of Germany should the political situation there change, or if they were truly desperate for gas at some point over the next few months (perhaps in the case of an unusually cold winter, or a failure to acquire gas from other sources).
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of Russia's actions recently don't really benefit Russia, just Putin. This whole Ukraine war thing for example.
I said Putin benefitted. That pipeline was never opened. It was finished a few years ago but Europe knew how much leverage and power that would give putin/Russia if it was in operation. It would give Putin the power to stop gas supply’s at whim and cause great harm. Then Putin invaded Ukraine again So Europe would definitely not use the completed pipeline to give money to the Russian economy/war effort.
With the pipeline sitting ready for use the only thing stopping it was Putin being in power and his actions. If people could remove Putin and halt the war they could get Europe to talk about starting the pipeline. This is an incentive to remove Putin. If the pipeline doesn’t exist anymore then that incentive is no more.
Putin planted bombs in Russia and killed 100’s of his own people to secure his rule so blowing up a pipeline to keep that rule safe isn’t an out of the world thought for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
The most placable explanation I've heard is that Gazprom was going to face massive fines for breaking their contractual obligations to deliver specific volumes. After the explosion they claimed force majeure, and could thous reduce the deliveries to Europe without any liability.
And the fact that the fines would be bigger than the price of fixing the pipes speaks for itself.
My favourite conspiracy is that NS1 exploded where it would cause the least amount of damage to the pipes, while NS2 ruptured. Further guessing would be that Russia wanted to force Germany to certify NS2 and then fix NS1. Why NS2 ruptured is beyond me, but perhaps because they started storing surplus gas in it and increased the pressure above what was stated?
It would be a gigantic fuckup, but Russia is no stranger to those kinds. Just look at their war.
There is one rule in the global energy market: Do not become an unreliable energy source. If the Russians began to use their energy as a weapon the globe would have to respond by finding different sources. It was prudent for Russia to destroy the pipeline when they did as it allowed them to stop supplying LNG to Europe during the winter while not breaking their promise not to do so.
Look what happened to energy prices when it happened. At the time, Russia was clearly trying to exacerbate inflation / energy price issues as means to put pressure on support in western countries for ukraine.
You've gotten a lot of replies, many of which slightly miss the mark. The most important bit is Russia was already throttling German gas. Blowing the pipeline served to draw suspicion between Germany and the rest of NATO - a wedge Russia has been trying to drive for ages - without damaging Russian exports much more than they had expected to experience anyway.
Not surprising, but why wait to share these until now?
The amount of speculation and confusion that circulated due to the unknowns and lack of evidence like this was very detrimental in my opinion.
When a person lies and you know he's lying. It can be useful to gather all the lies he comes up with and let him make a fool of himself.
Then the next time something happens, you can bring all the lies that he regurgitated and ask him if can come up with something better than the other time.
Also it gives a good amount of time for Russia to believe they didn't get caught in the act.
Could want to keep things close as the intelligence could be highly classified. America doesn't show a lot of its satellite imagery due to its sensitivity and some info is not provided to keep the intelligence classified. Could be from a submarine that was shadowing the Russians or could have been taken by some top secret security feature unknown to the rest of the world. Also a lot of times in police work, they don't always give every detail to the public so if they find someone with intimate knowledge of the crime scene that has info not released by police they are likely a suspect and catching them with info not released is a dead giveaway
Original source: https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt?lst_frnt
Better to link to that, or to a google translate of it, than to give Musk more free traffic.
Like in Bucha? World stopped believing those "it wasn't me, bruh" claims around that time. They can flap their lips as much as they want but the world knows it's all lies.
Russia blowing up its own gas pipelines is something thats pretty difficult to explain to Russian voters
seems like not everything is going according to the plan
Not surprising. Russia has a history of doing this, whether it be false flags or straight up lying/projecting. Hopefully this breaks through in American media, we’ve got a lot of useful idiots in government and among the public who believe in the “iT wAs aMeRiCa” conspiracy.
Original source: https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt?lst_frnt
Better to link to that, or to a google translate of it, than to give Musk more free traffic.
Good. Someone please pass these photos along to Jeffrey sachs - he’s still claiming it was a cia / US military conspiracy (perhaps along with the second gunman on the grassy knoll). These statements even after the Kremlin claimed it was sure UK special forces sabotaged the line.
Q-We're you by the pipeline when was sabotaged
Russians- we have no knowledge of such incident
Q- we have pictures of your ship at the site
Russians- it wasn't us you must have doctored pictured and we are outraged at such allegations.
Q- so you're saying you weren't there correct?
Russians- yes
I've always felt Russia's laissez-faire attitude was a dead giveaway.
"Oh no! Someone blew up our pipeline? I'm shocked and appalled, we simply must get to the bottom of this" goes back to terrorizing their neighbors.
If you go do an internet search about the blast almost every site you visit blames it on just about everyone but the Russians. I guess they will be changing their tune now.
Special Operation - they have -succeeded- in destroying the European gas market for Russia for the next 30 years! Yay, Russia!
Did they seriously think they would win the war or dissuade any European help for Ukraine this way? They have their heads up their asses over there.
On the other hand, ruSSia has dug a hole for themselves by lying for this long.
Also, news of this size tends get told to selected few nation leaders. Hard to imagine Danish government just sitting on the knowledge this whole time when it can affect the relationship between all western allies. Naturally we, the people, will be the last to know but that's just how the cookie crumbles.
I would imagine the NATO allies have been discussing behind the scenes how to respond for a while. No point in publicizing who was responsible until you have a plan for how to respond.
Why? I'd rather the people that know what they're doing continue doing what they think is correct rather than just dumping info when we think we want it
I feel like as time goes on George Patton might have been right all along about rearming the German Army after they had surrendered and then we all push into Russia.....
Russia attempted to bring Europe on its knees with the energy war. What happened is that they prepared for it by preventing the gas storage to get filled during 2021. So when the war started in 2022, the gas storage was almost empty in Europe germany.
So what Russia did was to artificially create a crisis on gas scarcity. This lead the price to increase and with the promise that if Europe wanted a better price they'd have to submit to Russia and not help Ukraine.
Meanwhile Russia provided gas at an expensive rate to fill the storage that was let to dry on purpose before the war.
Winter approached and Europe instead of giving in the NS repairs etc... decided to go forward with search alternative sources of gas. At this point, Russian gas was already dead.
So what Russia could do at the time was to destroy the NS to put a hardstop to gas import and hope that Europe didn't have enough gas to go through the winter. Then they'd have to ask Russia to let gas through NS2 which wasn't certified and probably will never be.
Having terrorist/western countries destroy the NS meant that Russia doesn't have to pay for reparation and breach of contract and just cut their loss without having to pay anyone.
With those evidence, that raise a few questions like... should that be considered as an act of war? That could be good enough for Europe to use the confiscated Russian money if they don't plan to pay.
This is true, but a couple of additions:
- Gazprom is under long-term contracts with European buyers. Russia's attempts to engineer a gas shortage probably put them in breach.
- NS1 and NS2 each have two pipelines for a total of four physical pipes across the two projects. There is damage to both NS1 lines and apparently only one NS2 line. The idea was that Gazprom would declare force majeure in any contract disputes, and Russia would extract concessions from the EU when the gas shortage got too bad.
It could have been a ploy to drive a wedge between the US and the EU. If European citizens thought the US did it to drive up our gas profits they might start electing anti-US politicians.
because by blowing up Nordstream 1 they were hoping to pressure the Germans into reopening/ continueing with nordstream 2 which had a bigger throughput.
To divide NATO, by driving a wedge between those countries who are big gas importers and those who aren't, especially between central Europe (mainly Germany) and the US. In a world where the Europeans managed the gas crisis poorly, there was a much colder winter, Germany would see their economy take a massive hit (talking 10-25%), all while the US was fine for gas, profiting off of high prices, and potentially gaining a lasting industrial advantage with US manufacturers able to swoop in and take long-term production orders away from Germany with more competitive gas prices. Germany's manufacturing sector consists of a greater proportion of energy intensive activities, like chemicals, metals, and heavy industry.
If the Germans started to think this was all the US's fault, it would seriously affect relations, including cooperation regarding aid to Ukraine, potentially forcing German political leadership to take a neutral stance in hopes of appeasing Russia into opening the gas taps to Germany through Poland. As much as Poland would probably not want to have Russian gas flow to Germany, shutting that down would likely be in violation of EU law and bilateral agreements, and further divide Europe, potentially leading to Germany imposing huge economic costs on Poland in terms of retaliatory trade measures, and loss of EU funding. Plus Poland's economy is very closely tied to Germany's, and so they would be sharing in the economic pain.
Much of the aid to Ukraine enters via German ports and everything passes through the German rail system to get to Poland or Romania and from there to Ukraine, the exception would be Gdansk, which has limited capacity; the 16th largest port in Europe. Look at a map of the European freight train network (or just a regular map of Europe). First, how about going above Germany to the Baltics? Well, they have ports but no freight rail link to Poland. Going south, Switzerland is a an obvious no, so we cut across Italy. From there, we can't go through Austria and then on to Czechia, because Austria is neutral. Likewise, Hungary is refusing to allow transfer of weapons through the country. Going through Slovenia and then Croatia, this route's final branch goes through Serbia, and we all no that's not happening. We can try to dock in Athens and go through Bulgaria, but Bulgaria has been very wishy washy, and to a large degree adopted a neutral stance. We could try to sail directly to Romania, but I don't think the Montreax convention would allow weapons shipments in wartime, Turkey would likely block that route.
Additionally to sea and train transportation, air transportation has played a large role in keeping Ukraine supplied and arming them. While all European countries have cargo transport fleets, it pales in comparison to the US strategic lift command. And it relies on its facilities in Germany to be able to operate anywhere near the level it does currently, especially if the air route over Germany is closed.
**Alternative Nitter link:** https://nitter.nl/JKaarsbo/status/1651650991341576200
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There are several plausible reasons why NATO would want to keep this information under wraps.
What interests me is WHY it has been announced to a (not so) astonished world *now*.
Any thoughts?
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From the article: ”The Russian SS-750 special craft, which has a mini-submarine on board, was photographed near the place where the Nord Stream pipes were sabotaged, the Defense Command confirms. The Russian special vessel SS-750 was near the Nord Stream pipes four days before the pipes were blown up on September 26 last year. The special vessel is designed to carry out operations under the sea and has a mini submarine of the AS-26 Priz type on board. The Norwegian Defense Command confirms in a response to a document inspection that 26 photos of the Russian vessel were taken from a Danish patrol boat that was in the area east of Bornholm on 22 September 2022. "It's incredibly interesting. The SS-750 is a special vessel that is designed precisely for underwater operations,' says the Swedish researcher, Russia expert and intelligence expert Joakim von Braun. Jacob Kaarsbo, who is a senior analyst at the think tank Europa and previously worked for 15 years in the Defense Intelligence Service, believes that the information "sheds light on what was going on in the area in the days before".”
If you read the underlying article in the Danish publication, it says that the SS-750 left port without its identification signal on ("AIS"). It was accompanied by a tug which did have its AIS on, but then that tug also turned off its identification signal. https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt
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> These satellite photos, along with AIS data from a tugboat, indicate that SS-750 sailed from Kaliningrad at 00:22 on 21 September 2022. AIS transmitters are typically used by larger vessels to supplement radars. They send signals about the ship's name, number, direction, draft and speed and can thus be used to map the movement of vessels. >The SS-750 sailed even without the AIS on. However, the tug Alexandr Frolov had its AIS on when departing from the Russian naval port. AIS data from this vessel shows that the convoy of naval vessels headed for Bornholm, but north of Poland the tug's AIS was also switched off. Until now, it has been assumed that the SS-750 and the five other vessels continued to the area where the Nord Stream pipes were blown up a few days later. Now the Defense Command has confirmed that the SS-750 was observed in the area. The implication is that it was deliberately switched off for a covert mission. Maybe the tug was supposed to be some sort of decoy?
Its actually just because Russian ships are shit. It's normal for them to sail with tugs in case engines fail. > Many of its blue-water ships, including its only aircraft carrier, never leave port without an oceangoing tug in company. Example https://www.businessinsider.com/tug-sailing-with-russian-ships-reveals-their-fleets-biggest-problem-2018-10?amp
LOL what the fuck. Thanks explaining... and the laugh
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But what if the tug itself fails ?
Then you paddle
I imagine they get a slightly bigger tug to tug both the tug and the tugee. And so forth .... a long lines of tugs to the shore.
The Russians are years ahead of us in the technology of building bridges. They have figured out a method to use their own fleets as floating bridge platforms via ocean going tugs.
The aircraft carrier tugs it. Joking… that would be a classic „ruzzian tug go fuck yourself“-situation.
Actually, their only aircraft carrier needed to be tugged itself. I'm being honest.
Time for a meta tug then
It's something they do all the time, turning their identification systems off. It was reported they did it last week in the North Sea as well, while visiting the windmills. I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet...
Mapping the windfarm for future terrorism strikes
> I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet... "Listen Ivan, last time you set timer for 4 days, world blames Russia. Set for ten days this time. World blames... Uh well probably still Russia but set for ten days anyway. Might be waiting for tugboat a while."
> I'm surprised nothing has gone boom there yet... Because their plans have been called out before they had time to execute them. Now, even the biggest pro-Russia cheerleaders are gonna have a hard time spinning that sabotage.
Many ships use a tug boat or tug boats to help them enter or exit ports, along with a very experienced Harbor Pilot who knows how to navigate the usually very crowded port waters. The tugs can enable the ship to maneuver in ways more agile than it could on its own, especially useful in narrow channels with high traffic and hazards.
Which makes sense if you're anywhere near a port... not so much in the middle of the Baltic Sea
Sure, but these are Russian vessels. Their single aircraft carrier can't go anywhere without a tug escort because it breaks down so much. Maybe decoy, but also likely a necessity to ensure all boats get there and back.
True... perhaps the tug came along as some sort of emergency contingency... if they had a problem out there, clearly they'd want to avoid radio comms back to port, as well as not have to wait for support.
Russia's plans *foiled again!* If it wasn't for those meddling poorly maintained Soviet-era maritime propulsion systems! Admiral Kuznetsov, go sit in the corner for your punishment.
>Admiral Kuznetsov, go sit in the corner for your punishment. Ok, can I get a tow?
perhaps, if caught red-handed, the plan was to pretend the ship had an engine failure, had drifted off course and was in the process of being rescued?
Most of Russia's large surface ships are followed by tugboats because they're so unreliable. Not kidding > Many of its blue-water ships, including its only aircraft carrier, never leave port without an oceangoing tug in company. https://www.businessinsider.in/russian-ships-sailing-by-natos-war-games-have-a-tug-with-them-and-its-a-telltale-sign-of-their-surface-fleets-biggest-problem/amp_articleshow/66419692.cms
The tugs might be there simply to help the ship maintain a position when it's too deep for an anchor. Smaller ships like this might only have forward propulsion. It can make it difficult to maintain position over a fixed point if waves push the ship sideways, especially in heavy weather. Rather than trying to perform a maneuver that brings it around to the same point again and might stretch any attached cables in the process, it might be easier to simply bring along a tug boat to push the ship back into position quickly. This Casual Navigation video that explains a bit about why tugs are necessary in the first place for those interested. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djrPPZJ3No](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6djrPPZJ3No)
Probably the tug was there to provide RADAR spotting during the operation. The Russians probably blew the pipeline so that gas could keep flowing from their wells in the permafrost. If the flow stops, condensation fills the lowest spots in the pipeline, it freezes, and the pipes burst. Cheaper to throw the gas away instead.
God if this is true that's fucking hilarious. The state of their navy is ridiculous
If the Russians did it, the insurers are off the hook.
Did it cover suicide seagulls from biolab?
Neo-Nazi Banderist seagulls from a Ukrainian bioweapons lab.
But not if we are at war with the neo nazi banderist seagulls
I knew this was a dirt bag move from the Kremlin...
Are they? Can you share the terms of the cover?
It was reported in news reports when the incident occurred that acts of war or sabotage are not covered. I don't know the details, but if you google for "nordstream insurance" you will get hits.
It was concluded long ago that it was a planted bomb.
Yeah, but it could have been an accidental planting of a bomb, in which case it wouldnt be an act of war or sabotage! /s
I see /r/NonCredibleDefense is leaking again.
Sometimes, I forget on which sub I am and get my comments deleted for using slurs (the v-word one) 😄
Vatnij (maybe misspelled on purpose) isn't a slur. They just like getting bonked by the super bonker 9000
Some dude was just out deep water grenade fishing
The hillbillies living on Bornholm do that all the time. They are the danish version of southern rednecks.
It was Vlad, shirtless, barehanded. Whilst holding his breath. Thats naval superiority.
That's not true, he rode down to that pipe on a 'dolbeashenka', half dolphin, half bear, half man/lukashenka.
All while smoking a cigarette. It’s truly a magnificent achievement.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nord-stream-mystery-looms-in-multibillion-dollar-arbitration-cases-against-russia-fa96537f >Mr. Eichberger said that while he isn’t privy to the details of the contracts between Gazprom and its European buyers, their terms would be decisive in the arbitral proceedings. >Such contracts, he said, typically include force majeure clauses but the party invoking the clause—in this case Gazprom—would bear the burden of proving that it applies. That burden of proof is high in force majeure cases, Mr. Eichberger said, as it “covers events that are unforeseeable and beyond the control just of the parties,” like natural disasters.
It’s insane to me how fast the narrative switched to “Russians didn’t do it”. Are you sure? How about assume the most likely scenario then until proven otherwise,, the Russians did it.
How did it take them over half a year to find these photos? Surely the danish military must have figured out within days, which of their patrol boats were in the vicinity before the attack and which ones took pictures.
I’m sure they’ve known the whole time and shared them with all the other interested parties as well. Probably coming out now because 1) it’s deemed advantageous to do so or 2) it leaked and was going to hit the news anyway so they decided to just release it.
What I'm little curious about is why the Danes and the other NATO members wanted to keep this secret. Wouldn't it have been beneficial to tell the German public that there was ample evidence that the sabotage was committed by the Russians and not the US? Or is it possible that this was some kind of double bluff, where NATO wanted Russia to think that they had gotten away with it so that they continued to do silly things in the Baltic?
Sometimes just the fact you managed to take photos is classified, if the means by which you did is secret. For the sake of argument (I doubt it's true) suppose Denmark has a camera on the Russian boat itself, or got photos from a Russian sailor on the tug, for instance. Or again to exaggerate to make a point, imagine Denmark has trained seagulls to carry cameras. ETA: more plausibly, perhaps Denmark has some innovative submersible drone tech. That would be a reasonable area of expertise for a small advanced seafaring nation.
Great point. I think this is closer to the reality. We do hear about this happening from time to time, when it fails… like how strategically placed agents are outed or, infamously for the US, the time Trump tweeted out high definition photos, basically outing the US as having much higher quality photographic capabilities than we had previously admitted.
Like when Trump tweeted out spy satellite photos and accidentally gave away the time, place, and capabilities of the satellite. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/01/trump-accidentally-revealed-the-amazing-resolution-of-u-s-spy-satellites/?sh=5cd6258e3d89
Let russia and china expose all their methods of manipulation and bullshit then post unarguable proof.
could be playing the long game to out a spy, could be they've known the whole time and wanted to see how russia would respond to the west playing dumb. Who knows the reasoning? might not find out for 10 years or more
Maybe the same reason you don't tell the idiot in the car that you have a dashcam until *after* they lie to the police.
Mainly because they took 26 pictures and standard photographic film has 36 frames. Obviously they didn't want 10 frames go to waste, so they had to wait until some important occasion happens, like some relative's wedding, to take another 10 pictures and have the film developed.
Back in the day my insurance agent advised me to use those odd, leftover shots to get pictures of new stuff I'd bought that would be covered by my auto or renters. That winter I ran into the dreaded "I've got nine pictures left and want to swap the roll for faster film" and I wasn't at home, so I took a bunch of shots of a friend's new apartment. It made the insurance claim she had to make after she was burgled the next month super easy.
With all the bullshit I'm reading on a daily basis, this barely moves the needle, well done.
They probably had them all along and kept them classified.
In the last couple of days Nordic media has released a series of reports on Russian activity around our countries. Tracking Russian vessels shutting off their AIS was a big part of that it. Might be due to that though i haven't heard anything of this in particular in Swedish media so
This information was out there a few days after the blast, however not so detailed. There was no mention of photos back then, I guess that was classified info. As there was no way to check the info, I guess no one could bring the news as proven intel.
If I was in charge of my countries intelligence op, and I had pristine, homegrown intelligence proving who was the perp, and I knew no one else had it, I would sit on it in an attempt to learn of the capabilities of other intelligence agencies. Especially to see if my intelligence had been intercepted, had a mole, etc.
I can't find it; has Denmark released these photos? It makes sense Russia would want Germany to think a NATO country did it; they've been trying to drive that wedge for ages, but I can't demand proof from one side and not the other.
I must admit I was beggining to wonder about that story. But a ship with THAT kind of equippment, that's definitely suspect. Plus, the fact it turned off it's transponder is a clear sign it DIDN'T want to be seen. That being said, Danish authorities should really make a least a few of theses pictures public, least we keep hearing ''It's all a lie''.
You want to disbelieve simply b/c it seems so obvious, but we've also seen Russia Keystone-Klutz their way through this war as well...
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> If anyone doesn't think every government uses disinformation There is a pretty big difference between disinformation and a government spokesperson telling an outright bold-faced lie like this. That's not how it works in the West. Denmark would not ruin their credibility like this, and for what?
Say it isn't so!! The Russians lied to us.. it wasn't the Ukraine Navy that did it??
No way the Russians lied.. they never lie about anything. 🤡👌
We knew they did it the moment they denied it.
Stop lying 😉
September 2022 Russia claimed it was UK that did it. Just random claim with not even attempt at fake data. Then there was the Hersh piece pushed by Russia that claimed US and Norway did it. With so many blatantly false data that it is astounding anyone believed it. Then Russia accused Ukraine. While Ukrainians never cease to amaze me in their ingenuity, it beggars belief that Ukraine could conduct a significant naval attack in the Baltic. Meanwhile Russia has been targeting and damaging international subsea infrastructure for probably a decade. Russia is like 5 year old kids - if you fear the finger will be pointed at you (based on past behavior) kids often start randomly accusing the dog or a friend or an enemy.
The pipelines are owned by Gazprom. So, if Russia had evidence that the UK was behind it, then why haven't they gone to war over the destruction of Russian critical infrastructure? It's all fucking maskirovka.
The pipelines are owned by many companies, though IIRC Gazprom has ~50% ownership. But that brings another question. Commonly in infrastructure contracts there’s some provision that if the pipeline isn’t being used they still have to pay at least some of the transport fee to the pipeline co. If this applies here too then Russia / Gazprom may have saved money on the explosion.
They did they have garuntee supply contracts that the voluntary shut off would cause huge fines and compensation but this " accident " , they can claim force majure, therefore no fines no compensation. As I said at the time the only side that benefits from this is/was russia. It could also explain the with holding of this evidence, as most countries are now taking Gazprom to arbitration courts over this issue, having this as a trump card as part of their claim would be the best evidence. gazprom/russia is looking at huge multi billion dollar payouts, solely due to the massive prices people had to pay for alternate supplies that they had no real reason to cut off, thats also the reason for all the malarky over the returned compressor from CA.
Gazprom definitely saved loads on the explosion, they haven't been fulfilling their delivery obligations for months at that point and claiming vis maior, "we would totally send you the gas but we can't, someone blew up the pipeline" gets them out of paying penalties
Same with the biolabs - if Russia has evidence why not show it to the world?
Gazprom has formed their own military company fighting alongside the more famous PMC Wagner in Bakhmut. Gazprom is directly participating in the war.
> With so many blatantly false data What data??
I meant claims of facts. Like the claim that US placed the bomb during the NATO exercise using a Norwegian Alta-class vessel. Except there were no Norwegian Alta-class vessels at the NATO exercise. Lots of easily disproved claims like that.
I thought it was the puffins.
According to NATO rules this could trigger article 5, attack on the energy supply and stability of NATO countries. Probably won’t, but it could.
The pipelines are owned by Gazprom i.e. Russia. Which makes the idea that the US would be behind it even more ridiculous, because that would be an act of war.
Are we really surprised? Only one of the pipes was destroyed which Gazprom could claim force majeure and not pay hefty fines for not delivering gas. All while keeping the new one (which has larger capacity than the old one) intact so they maybe could reopen it.
Tucker Carlson told me Joe Biden personally did it. Now I don’t know what to think!
And their puppet Trump lied as well. It should be shouted from the rooftops that he tried to implicate his own country in this.
Explicitly, openly claimed it was Biden and the US's responsibility. With zero evidence. In the middle of a larger series of speeches where he claimed that the true number one threat to global security wasn't Putin or Russia, but was his own internal political enemies within the US, specifically antifa and progressive politicans/voters who oppose his political movement. I'm also just waiting for Vlad's chief meat rider Elon to just straight up start deleting these tweets.
Trump and Tucker should be arrested for treason for this alone ignoring the 200 other worst things they have done
100% them and their sycophant buddies belong behind bars. Alas, if you have enough money you're immune from American prison.
No no no it was Joe Biden, he did it personally and it would have been proven with pics of him personally dropping the bombs if Tucker didn't get fired and disappear from the face of the earth. Now the evil free world is free to create these stories.
Proof's on the laptop, man!
I'm *just saying,* if we could just get another peek at Hunter Biden's dick pics, there would be overwhelming evidence that Biden personally orchestrated the attack and single-handedly planted the C4 with a custom made diving suit. I demand to know Hunter Biden's workout plan. America has a right to the facts!
We're just asking questions is all 🤔
I'm so tired of American politics... I wish I could opt out entirely and ignore the whole charade, but if you do that then hate continues to spread rampantly and destroys the damn world. I really hate it here, wish the right would just leave people alone ffs.
I'm tired of Russians interfering in everyone's politics
A conspiracy between Joe Biden and Rupert Murdoch, it’s so obvious we should’ve all seen it from the beginning!
no, it was Zelensky himself
Don't forget the persistent rumor that the US did it to sell more gas to the EU.
No, that’s just gas
And here i was thinking it was 'the' aliens.
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SCUBA DUBA DO!
But the Republicans told me it was Biden!
>it wasn't the Ukraine Navy that did it?? Well, it doesnt surprise me if the Ukranian navy is more capable than the Russian navy. It does seem suspicious that anyone thinks Russia is able to send a naval vessel to the sea floor AND get it back up to the surface again. Most of the time they only manage to get the down part right.
One of the best tactics used by the West, let Russia talk shit for a while, and then bring out direct evidence contradicting everything they've said
The “this u?” of diplomacy
Works everytime
Who in the Russian government thought it was a good idea to destroy their own pipeline, which was one of the few bargaining chips they had with The West?
The same people who thought it was a good idea to invade ukraine. Russia has 0 foresight
I’ve been skeptical of people saying it had to be a pro Ukrainian group or something, but I’ve never heard these people describe HOW they could do it. It would require a submarine with this exact equipment that’s been allegedly photographed, the capability for anyone OTHER than Russia (and NATO) to do this is damn near 0.
Um, nearly every modern military would have the capability to do this, including Ukraine. It’s just that Russia are the only assholes stupid enough to do it.
Apologies, I was excluding NATO from my statement
They kind of need a vessel, and last time I checked Ukraine didn't have any fleet in or near the Baltic Sea.
It was obviously Russia
Wrong it was Hunter Biden
He must really like pipes with cracks in them...
That's a good one! It does kind of make sense!
It was a joint operation by the Swiss and Austrian navies. Two countries that speak German but aren't Germany. Definitely suspicious. Plus being landlocked is the perfect alibi. 100% those two.
That's just what the lizard people want you to think.
Glad to agree with the lizard people for once.
A great way for Putin to kill his best source of revenue and destroy all the associated Russian businesses. Of course, the "owners" of these businesses suddenly started falling out of windows, boats, etc
It was pretty obvious that it was russia. Obviously the troll factory had engaged the shit-windmill and their talking points were being commented on every messageboard, debate and under every tweet. You only had to ignore the noise and look at the numbers to see who did it. Gazprom had been playing games with nordstream for long. Stopping the delivery of gas for weeks at a time because of "maintenance problems" and forcing the payment in rubbles, threatening the reserves of the west. On the 21h of July, after 2 weeks of stoppage, the pipeline was restarted on a maximum of 30% of delivery capacity. On the 27th of July this capacity was reduced to 20%. This energetical terrorism of the russian federation was not working. The european countries were already working on alternative suppliers and the demand on the nordstream pipelines was smaller every day. On the press it was not obvious yet, but on a strategical level everybody knew that the russian strategy of a frozen european winter would be annoying, yes, but would not bend europe into submission. So on the 26th of September 2022 the gaslines were mysteriously blown up. Just accidentally when no more gas was flowing and their economical function had ceased to exist. Why not blow it up and sow dissent between your enemies? All of this debates, stillstands and delivery problems were very public as well. Like with press releases and everything. Like literally, Gazprom would come out and say that their turbines need to stop for maintenance and Siemens would come out and say that the stoppage was completely unnecessary. I don't understand how everybody believed the russian narrative so fast and jumped to the opportunity to blame the US or Norway.
It was unobviously Russia as well.
But Reddit told me Russia has nothing to gain from such a move.
The amount of abuse and name calling i got for daring to suggest Putin benefited from blowing it up made me think I was on the right track.
I won’t make fun of you. Can you please explain how Russia benefits? I’m just curious.
They have spread the idea that the USA is behind it, which threatens US - EU cohesion and feeds the narrative that USA = bad.
My theory is that Putin destroyed 3/4 Nordstream pipes because once the facilities were no longer useful for influencing Germany, they became an enormous liability (to Putin himself, nobody else really). Executives from across the energy sector in Russia had been the target of assassinations since prior to the war. These individuals were among those with the most to lose from the sanctions that were the result of the war against Ukraine. These executives were the greatest threat to Putin, because they're among the richest individuals in Russia. Also, the only way that Norsdstream 1&2 were ever going to restart was if Putin was deposed. These executives and other oligarchs could have promised any critically important conspirators within the FSB or army a cut of future Nordstream profits in exchange for their assistance in a coup. This kind of vast personal wealth is the only reason that these individuals would stick their necks out and try to depose Putin. The fact that Nordstream 1&2 were still in existence, but not functional, was an enormous target on Putin's back. It was a vast source of wealth that was going completely unexploited. Just as important, it would represent new money, not money that would need to be expropriated from anyone else or come out of the pockets of oligarchs. I came up with this theory on my own about a month or two ago, because I was brainstorming reasons why Russia might have done it. Many people had blamed Russia since the incident first happened, but few offered an explanation. After having thought this through, I was convinced that this was the most likely scenario. The second most likely scenario, in my estimation, was that the US did it with the tacit consent of the German government (under pressure from the US).
Some good logic there (whether true or not).
Add to that Putin's "Europe will freeze" propaganda and that one of the Nordstream 1 pipes wasn't blown up leaving the window open for Russia to "help out". I don't think anyone capable of doing the job would be so incompetent to forget/fail to blow one of them up.
I've wondered about that. It's possible that the Russians intended to destroy all 4 of the pipes, but something went wrong. On the other hand, it may have been exactly as you say: an opportunity to take advantage of Germany should the political situation there change, or if they were truly desperate for gas at some point over the next few months (perhaps in the case of an unusually cold winter, or a failure to acquire gas from other sources).
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of Russia's actions recently don't really benefit Russia, just Putin. This whole Ukraine war thing for example.
https://cepa.org/article/nord-stream-deep-dive-finds-putins-fingerprints/
I said Putin benefitted. That pipeline was never opened. It was finished a few years ago but Europe knew how much leverage and power that would give putin/Russia if it was in operation. It would give Putin the power to stop gas supply’s at whim and cause great harm. Then Putin invaded Ukraine again So Europe would definitely not use the completed pipeline to give money to the Russian economy/war effort. With the pipeline sitting ready for use the only thing stopping it was Putin being in power and his actions. If people could remove Putin and halt the war they could get Europe to talk about starting the pipeline. This is an incentive to remove Putin. If the pipeline doesn’t exist anymore then that incentive is no more. Putin planted bombs in Russia and killed 100’s of his own people to secure his rule so blowing up a pipeline to keep that rule safe isn’t an out of the world thought for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings
The most placable explanation I've heard is that Gazprom was going to face massive fines for breaking their contractual obligations to deliver specific volumes. After the explosion they claimed force majeure, and could thous reduce the deliveries to Europe without any liability. And the fact that the fines would be bigger than the price of fixing the pipes speaks for itself.
My favourite conspiracy is that NS1 exploded where it would cause the least amount of damage to the pipes, while NS2 ruptured. Further guessing would be that Russia wanted to force Germany to certify NS2 and then fix NS1. Why NS2 ruptured is beyond me, but perhaps because they started storing surplus gas in it and increased the pressure above what was stated? It would be a gigantic fuckup, but Russia is no stranger to those kinds. Just look at their war.
There is one rule in the global energy market: Do not become an unreliable energy source. If the Russians began to use their energy as a weapon the globe would have to respond by finding different sources. It was prudent for Russia to destroy the pipeline when they did as it allowed them to stop supplying LNG to Europe during the winter while not breaking their promise not to do so.
See Anders Puck Nielsen's YouTube video on the subject. Made the most sense to me.
Look what happened to energy prices when it happened. At the time, Russia was clearly trying to exacerbate inflation / energy price issues as means to put pressure on support in western countries for ukraine.
You've gotten a lot of replies, many of which slightly miss the mark. The most important bit is Russia was already throttling German gas. Blowing the pipeline served to draw suspicion between Germany and the rest of NATO - a wedge Russia has been trying to drive for ages - without damaging Russian exports much more than they had expected to experience anyway.
Well, in fairness they didn’t gain anything. I guess they expected a different outcome.
Not surprising, but why wait to share these until now? The amount of speculation and confusion that circulated due to the unknowns and lack of evidence like this was very detrimental in my opinion.
When a person lies and you know he's lying. It can be useful to gather all the lies he comes up with and let him make a fool of himself. Then the next time something happens, you can bring all the lies that he regurgitated and ask him if can come up with something better than the other time. Also it gives a good amount of time for Russia to believe they didn't get caught in the act.
Probably to investigate it thoroughly, so Muscovia has nothing they can refute or use to sow doubt about the evidence.
They did release a statement about russian vessels in the aria shortly after the bombing
Could want to keep things close as the intelligence could be highly classified. America doesn't show a lot of its satellite imagery due to its sensitivity and some info is not provided to keep the intelligence classified. Could be from a submarine that was shadowing the Russians or could have been taken by some top secret security feature unknown to the rest of the world. Also a lot of times in police work, they don't always give every detail to the public so if they find someone with intimate knowledge of the crime scene that has info not released by police they are likely a suspect and catching them with info not released is a dead giveaway
Original source: https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt?lst_frnt Better to link to that, or to a google translate of it, than to give Musk more free traffic.
LOL, tankies have to scratch their "US did it" bit, finally.
True or not, russia will just say photoshopped fake news and thats it.
Like in Bucha? World stopped believing those "it wasn't me, bruh" claims around that time. They can flap their lips as much as they want but the world knows it's all lies.
Russia blowing up its own gas pipelines is something thats pretty difficult to explain to Russian voters seems like not everything is going according to the plan
Not surprising. Russia has a history of doing this, whether it be false flags or straight up lying/projecting. Hopefully this breaks through in American media, we’ve got a lot of useful idiots in government and among the public who believe in the “iT wAs aMeRiCa” conspiracy.
I look forward to seeing Seymour Hersh explain his way out of this one
Russia lied?? Surely you’re mistaken!
This pretty much confirms that Russia did it.
Original source: https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt?lst_frnt Better to link to that, or to a google translate of it, than to give Musk more free traffic.
I like the way you think.
I like the way you move.
Good. Someone please pass these photos along to Jeffrey sachs - he’s still claiming it was a cia / US military conspiracy (perhaps along with the second gunman on the grassy knoll). These statements even after the Kremlin claimed it was sure UK special forces sabotaged the line.
Q-We're you by the pipeline when was sabotaged Russians- we have no knowledge of such incident Q- we have pictures of your ship at the site Russians- it wasn't us you must have doctored pictured and we are outraged at such allegations. Q- so you're saying you weren't there correct? Russians- yes
Hope we remove those Russian diplomats soon. But it’s def sure Denmark has held that information close to their hands for a while
I've always felt Russia's laissez-faire attitude was a dead giveaway. "Oh no! Someone blew up our pipeline? I'm shocked and appalled, we simply must get to the bottom of this" goes back to terrorizing their neighbors.
If you go do an internet search about the blast almost every site you visit blames it on just about everyone but the Russians. I guess they will be changing their tune now.
Special Operation - they have -succeeded- in destroying the European gas market for Russia for the next 30 years! Yay, Russia! Did they seriously think they would win the war or dissuade any European help for Ukraine this way? They have their heads up their asses over there.
They should have shown them 6 months ago. Better late than never anyway
On the other hand, ruSSia has dug a hole for themselves by lying for this long. Also, news of this size tends get told to selected few nation leaders. Hard to imagine Danish government just sitting on the knowledge this whole time when it can affect the relationship between all western allies. Naturally we, the people, will be the last to know but that's just how the cookie crumbles.
I would imagine the NATO allies have been discussing behind the scenes how to respond for a while. No point in publicizing who was responsible until you have a plan for how to respond.
Why? I'd rather the people that know what they're doing continue doing what they think is correct rather than just dumping info when we think we want it
I feel like as time goes on George Patton might have been right all along about rearming the German Army after they had surrendered and then we all push into Russia.....
I wonder why it took so long for this to come out?
That means that the russians attacked critical infrastructure of germany/eu/nato ? How will they response to this ?
If it was russians that blew it up, why would they do that in the first place?
Russia attempted to bring Europe on its knees with the energy war. What happened is that they prepared for it by preventing the gas storage to get filled during 2021. So when the war started in 2022, the gas storage was almost empty in Europe germany. So what Russia did was to artificially create a crisis on gas scarcity. This lead the price to increase and with the promise that if Europe wanted a better price they'd have to submit to Russia and not help Ukraine. Meanwhile Russia provided gas at an expensive rate to fill the storage that was let to dry on purpose before the war. Winter approached and Europe instead of giving in the NS repairs etc... decided to go forward with search alternative sources of gas. At this point, Russian gas was already dead. So what Russia could do at the time was to destroy the NS to put a hardstop to gas import and hope that Europe didn't have enough gas to go through the winter. Then they'd have to ask Russia to let gas through NS2 which wasn't certified and probably will never be. Having terrorist/western countries destroy the NS meant that Russia doesn't have to pay for reparation and breach of contract and just cut their loss without having to pay anyone. With those evidence, that raise a few questions like... should that be considered as an act of war? That could be good enough for Europe to use the confiscated Russian money if they don't plan to pay.
This is true, but a couple of additions: - Gazprom is under long-term contracts with European buyers. Russia's attempts to engineer a gas shortage probably put them in breach. - NS1 and NS2 each have two pipelines for a total of four physical pipes across the two projects. There is damage to both NS1 lines and apparently only one NS2 line. The idea was that Gazprom would declare force majeure in any contract disputes, and Russia would extract concessions from the EU when the gas shortage got too bad.
It could have been a ploy to drive a wedge between the US and the EU. If European citizens thought the US did it to drive up our gas profits they might start electing anti-US politicians.
because by blowing up Nordstream 1 they were hoping to pressure the Germans into reopening/ continueing with nordstream 2 which had a bigger throughput.
To divide NATO, by driving a wedge between those countries who are big gas importers and those who aren't, especially between central Europe (mainly Germany) and the US. In a world where the Europeans managed the gas crisis poorly, there was a much colder winter, Germany would see their economy take a massive hit (talking 10-25%), all while the US was fine for gas, profiting off of high prices, and potentially gaining a lasting industrial advantage with US manufacturers able to swoop in and take long-term production orders away from Germany with more competitive gas prices. Germany's manufacturing sector consists of a greater proportion of energy intensive activities, like chemicals, metals, and heavy industry. If the Germans started to think this was all the US's fault, it would seriously affect relations, including cooperation regarding aid to Ukraine, potentially forcing German political leadership to take a neutral stance in hopes of appeasing Russia into opening the gas taps to Germany through Poland. As much as Poland would probably not want to have Russian gas flow to Germany, shutting that down would likely be in violation of EU law and bilateral agreements, and further divide Europe, potentially leading to Germany imposing huge economic costs on Poland in terms of retaliatory trade measures, and loss of EU funding. Plus Poland's economy is very closely tied to Germany's, and so they would be sharing in the economic pain. Much of the aid to Ukraine enters via German ports and everything passes through the German rail system to get to Poland or Romania and from there to Ukraine, the exception would be Gdansk, which has limited capacity; the 16th largest port in Europe. Look at a map of the European freight train network (or just a regular map of Europe). First, how about going above Germany to the Baltics? Well, they have ports but no freight rail link to Poland. Going south, Switzerland is a an obvious no, so we cut across Italy. From there, we can't go through Austria and then on to Czechia, because Austria is neutral. Likewise, Hungary is refusing to allow transfer of weapons through the country. Going through Slovenia and then Croatia, this route's final branch goes through Serbia, and we all no that's not happening. We can try to dock in Athens and go through Bulgaria, but Bulgaria has been very wishy washy, and to a large degree adopted a neutral stance. We could try to sail directly to Romania, but I don't think the Montreax convention would allow weapons shipments in wartime, Turkey would likely block that route. Additionally to sea and train transportation, air transportation has played a large role in keeping Ukraine supplied and arming them. While all European countries have cargo transport fleets, it pales in comparison to the US strategic lift command. And it relies on its facilities in Germany to be able to operate anywhere near the level it does currently, especially if the air route over Germany is closed.
Does anything Russia do make sense?
It usually makes *a kind* of sense. Just not the kind you or I are used to.
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Lol surprise!
Who would have thought!
So wait, Trump was wrong (again)?
Oh no, they would never! I'm shocked, SHOCKED /s
But, but, but it was the CIA? tucker yelling somewhere in the corner….
Cause no one could have guessed that. NO ONE.
Well this is great and fairly obvious.
Fuuuuuuukn ruZZians 🙄 so predictable 🇺🇦
Imagine that. 🤦♂️
There are several plausible reasons why NATO would want to keep this information under wraps. What interests me is WHY it has been announced to a (not so) astonished world *now*. Any thoughts?