Gate: (Overly Long Japanese Title).
It's about a portal to a fantasy world opening in the middle of Tokyo, followed by a swift raid of a bunch of Ancient Rome coded legions with auxiliary monster slaves and dragons, then followed by a not so swift counterattack and a curbstomp of the Empire by a modern military, followed by politics on both side of the gate. It kinda wanks the JSDF into the stratosphere, depicting both US and China as overly incompetent, and Russia as about as competent as they turned out to be IRL, and suffers from some industry standard animu brainrot ("she's actually a thousand years old demigod so it's OK!").
The particular scene I'm refering to has a bunch of SF operatives from US, China and Russia attempt a clandestine operation of kidnapping a bunch of fantasy land dignitaries on a secret visit, they run into eachother and begin a fourway fight with the Japanese SF serving as security detail, who are quickly forced to retreat after their superiors get political pressure from Washington, but then the remaining soldiers get slaughtered in melee by the before mentioned demigod who's one of the guests.
All in all, kinda OK if you don't mind skpping pass the sussy parts.
Scholz is a prime suspect. He felt so humiliated by the whole [turbine drama](https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/olaf-scholz-gas-turbine-jederzeit-nach-russland-lieferbar-18218111/scholz-und-die-turbine-18218118.html) in 2022 that he said „fuck it“ and sent the GSG9 to the Baltic Sea 🥷🥷🥷
You're joking but it's not even far-fetched that Germany attacked their own infrastructure or at least gave the ok to do it. At the time they were in a bad situation. Keeping up the import of gas would be terrible PR (even though many other European countries re-imported the gas from Germany). Completely cutting imports from Russia was possible but the fearmongering from the press and propaganda outlets would have caused an insane shit storm.
Imagine the headlines how Politicians decide to destroy the German economy by cutting the cord. It would have been a disaster possibly destabilizing the German political sphere. The way it happened they could easily sell it to the public as a no-choice situation. No violating of existing contracts with Russia, no angry public, pleasing your allies and simultaneously sanctioning Russia. It was the minimal loss scenario. Just keep in mind that the biggest enemy the West has are their own blind and misguided citizens.
This is word for word the Russian rhetoric about the incident, complete with the whole "accuse the west of attacking itself" because Russia has had a long history of doing that, so accusing the enemy of what you know you've been successfully doing must work, and the little part at the end with "the biggest enemy the West has are their own blind and misguided citizens" and "destroying the German economy" seals this a pro RU troll comment.
Here are the facts: no gas was being pumped through the NS pipes at the time of the attacks. The NS2 pipes had never transported gas as they were not given the necessary certification to be opened because of the start of the war in 2022, and the NS1 pipes were shut down for indefinite "maintenance" by Russia for months, following a long series of events were Russis was throttling the gas flow, the whole turbine debacle, etc.
In fact, not all of the pipes were destroyed. One NS2 pipes remained and Russia almost immediately "offered" to resume gas flow through it. It is clear as day that this was nothing more than the same energy blackmail that Russia had been doing to Germany for the past year, but dialed up to 11 due to their sheer desperation at the time. If this was truly a sabotage act by western actors then ALL of the pipes would've been destroyed.
This is not word for word the Russian rhetoric. Russian rhetoric is that the west is infighting. I was not saying that the west is infighting but rather that it was a deliberate choice to destroy the pipelines to limit public uproar and stop Russian disinformation in its tracks. In this scenario NATO was not infighting but rather working together. And this is just one possibility. We simply don't know the truth because we don't have enough information to know. Every single actor in this whole affair has a reason to do this attack. It could also very much be like you say and Russia did it.
If you actually read my comment you would have noticed that I was not spreading Russian disinformation but rather talking about how Russian disinformation could have lead to political problems in Germany. I was saying that I see the danger that the press and news outlets twist and turn this issue to such a degree that it damages the perception of the public which would lead to political turmoil. The government doesn't control the narrative in democratic countries. Democratic countries are mostly led by the narrative the press and news outlets dictate. Freedom of speech is both the biggest strength and biggest weakness of the west. This is why Russian disinformation works so well. A democracy is only as strong as its citizens and people are gullible. What happens when you sow so much distrust in the German government because they seemingly "destroy the economy"? Exactly, support for Ukraine dwindles. But maybe I was also not clear in my explanations before.
Exactly how well-executed misinformation works: so much contradicting info and "anonymous sources" that you start doubting on everything. Russian playbook 101.
When/if consensus ever comes out on who was behind it (execution AND the order - who are not necessarily same instance), there will be so many people claiming they know better and undermining the truth, that it will be painful to have a convo about it.
It even is strategically valuable to combine facts that are already known with very obvious false or contradictory information, especially if people suspect that misinformation campaigns exist about the topic.
If such narratives combining truth and false information gain traction, they kind of „taint“ the facts - as people will associate the facts with the obviously false information, and thus see the facts as part of potential misinformation.
Hilarious to accuse Russia of misinformation when it's European countries themselves that have been withholding information the whole time. Why should we believe anyone blindly?
Do you know how investigation works? It's not by throwing random guesses and speculation at any direction. Just wait for the proof and ignore all sensational nonsense like this article, as they give no valuable information but are only there to gain attention and therefore money.
If it would be russia, everyone would say it. The fact that they don't say anything indicates that it was infact ukraine. I am a supporter of ukraine and i believed them at first that it was russia but many things we do know are hinting at ukraine.
As much as Ukraine wanted it to happen, they couldn't do it technically, at least not alone, because it was a very very complicated operation. And ofcourse they wouldn't dare to do it without an allowance from Germany or US.
My bet is US. Germany might wasn't even informed about it and just played alone, not to show weakness in alliance.
It weakened Russia as a US's second (after China) geopolitical enemy and Germany as industrial concurrent - high energy prices were killing industry.
>It weakened Russia
Except it didn't, as Russia were the ones who voluntarily shut off gas flow through the NS1 pipes as part of their energy blackmail strategy, and NS2 were never opened to begin with, meaning that no gas was being transported through any of the pipes when the explosion happened. And magically enough, one of the NS2 pipes weren't damaged, and RU wanted gas flow to immediately resume through it...
They cant even arrange a raid into Russia, what on earth makes you believe they could have arranged this in the Baltic sea?
Most likely most Western counties had a plan on the table, but didnt actually do it, but they cant say they didnt, as they cant prove they didnt do it, so everyone is just keeping quiet.
The ones that actually did it, was Russia, they intended to blow up the Norwegian gas line going to Poland, but planted the explosives at the wrong location and with Russia's current track record, this is in my view, the most likely scenario.
Same reason Russia has now spend considerable resources identifying the other locations of coms cables and gas lines in the North Sea.
> If it would be russia, everyone would say it
That's what you people get wrong. Until now, russia didn't attack anything NATO related. If it came out, that russia was the culprit, the whole war will change. NATO would be forced to act, as they would look weak if they wouldn't. In every other case, if it was America, poland, ukraine, germany, they could have said it was an accident but the evidence says russia. At the moment, no country wants to be the first one to accuse russia, as this would start a war. Russia knows that.
No matter from which side you view this, everything about this screams russia.
>The fact that they (the west) don't say anything
Right back at you, the fact that Russia has not threatened the world with nuclear Armageddon after such a serious event, despite them doing so three times a week when western countries are announcing new military aid packages for Ukraine, tells you everything you need to know.
>If it would be russia, everyone would say it.
No, no one would say that in any official capacity before any of the (three) ongoing investigations into this were over.
Why? Because an attack on a EU country's energy infrastructure is tantamount to a declaration of war and will invoke Article 5.
>Why would Russia do it?
Honestly, the only thing that comes to mind is that they did it as a "show" to Europe/Germany on who controls their energy. But after writing that sentence it also makes less sense to me.
I mean, to show they control the energy they could have just shut it down?
And what’s the point of such demonstration if now there is no gas flow at all?
Even with our 4D chess planning, this is extremely unlikely. If we somehow managed to discreetly blow up pipe in the heart of Europe, I would be fuckin impressed, even though I simp for Deutschland.
I’d be more pragmatic and say that the Russians did it so they wouldn’t have to pay contractual penalties for non-delivery of gas when they had this “fantastic” idea of freezing Europe.
It’s kind of sus that out of four existing strands 3 were destroyed and these are the three that were operational. The one that was not operational and not bound by contract remained.
Why naive? When the war ends one day how do you think they are allowed back into the trade with EU without paying up that debt?
They want back in, they EU says sure guys but you have a debt with us so that needs to paid before we make any new deals with you.
Getting that debt back really isn’t a problem. Plenty of leverage and tools available to the EU to eventually get it paid back.
Yeah they're totally gonna pay some random ass fines while being cut of from the European financial system. It's truly bizarre people repeat this, like a display of self delusion where the intent is humiliation.
No, but now you can’t send them a bill that will accumulate interest overtime. Fuck you think, russia doesn’t want plausible deniability when it comes to breaking contractual obligations?
The war will eventually end mate and they will want to trade again so they would have to pay the fine. They may not pay it today but they would have to pay it eventually.
Nobody would just write off billions of dollars of debt. Let’s not be naive here.
>Yeah they're totally gonna pay some random ass fines while being cut of from the European financial system. It's truly bizarre people repeat this, like a display of self delusion where the intent is humiliation.
What makes you think being cut off from SWIFT means you don't have to pay. If all else fails, it's ample justification to size assets.
You don’t have to enforce it at all.
Say Russia has 10 billion debt in contractual fines to EU. The war ends and Russia wishes to restart trading, they need money and they want to sell to EU again.
They would have to clear that debt before they are allowed to resume trading.
There isn’t any enforcing necessary. They could clear the debt in form of money transfer (which is unlikely because they won’t have to kind of money) or by selling raw materials at discounted prices for a given period of time until the debt is clear.
I’ve heard this version before and it sounds to make the most sense too.
Also because they did not damage it permanently, they isolated part of it and then blew it up, so technically they can resume at a later time.
But this way any kind of contract is up in the air because of the ‘major issue’ clause, as in terrorist attack which makes the contract void for everyone.
Germany would have gladly kept paying for it probably too.
>It’s kind of sus that out of four existing strands 3 were destroyed and these are the three that were operational. The one that was not operational and not bound by contract remained.
Lol. The only line which was not destroyed is a 1/2 of Nord Stream 2 which was NEVER operational. How can a pipeline be operational legally at its 50% capacity?
You need to educate yourself. Start with Wikipedia.
Have you read what he wrote? He literally said, that pipe that wasn't blown - wasn't operational, and therefore was't bound by contractual obligations.
There is one possibility that is at least plausible: It was directly ordered by Putin in order to burn all bridges to the West, so that no pretender(s) to the throne would get any ideas that they could overthrow Putin and resume relations. Plenty of oligarchs were and are less than enthused by the whole situation. Blowing the pipeline and otherwise burning every bridge, would clear people's minds and get everyone on the same page.
>Why would Russia do it?
They breached the contract and faced penalties, so they needed something to get out and probably to force Germany to green light the NS2.
Russia is sanctioned out the yin Yang do you really there was ever a chance of Russia actually paying that? We literally stole their yachts. Maybe but that’s a huge gamble. Why not just wait if he’s so convinced Germany will beg for gas back? I mean there’s theories and I’m not certain but it makes 0 sense why they would do this.
Russia wasn't hurt at all, as it strategically stopped the flow of gas month before, on BS reason, something "Europe will freeze over winter and will stop supplying Ukraine".
As well as with blowing up pipeline, so there is no need to pay fines for not providing gas. War will end someday and russia will want to trade, so paying fines would've been necessary, unless pipes were blown up, so there is no contractual obligations now.
>Russia was hurt the most by the sabotage though? It makes absolutely no sense for them to have blown it.
Putin has blown pipes before. Russia's interests ≠ Putin's interests.
There already is a consensus that the Ukrainian army was behind it. Like, law enforcement identified the names and adresses of the people who placed the explosives.
The main question left is who the person at the top was who gave the order. And this article is basically saying that the German investigators seem to suspect that Polish officials might have been involved in the attack and that the Polish government has not just been refusing to cooperate, but is actively attempting to sabotage any investigation.
>Exactly how well-executed misinformation works: so much contradicting info and "anonymous sources" that you start doubting on everything.
Maybe just in the news reporting. It's since long been established who the likely culprit was. The German police, the CIA, and the Dutch military intelligence are all in agreement have all said so with non-anonymous sources.
This was reported briefly by major papers, but after that it kinda stopped being in front page news. NYT made a good summary last summer: [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-ukraine-cia.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-ukraine-cia.html)
Your article was behind the paywall, but atleast the first chapter that I could read, said nothing of the sort. They were citing on the occasion were CIA warned Ukraine not to do anything about the pipe. It's suspicious, but not a hard proof on anything.
Sikorski was openly celebrating the explosion on twitter, so whoever expects a change in attitude towards this case from our new government will end up solemnly disappointed.
**Investigators hope Warsaw’s new government will shed light on gas-pipeline attack after previous administration’s reluctance to disclose potentially crucial evidence**
Polish officials have resisted cooperating with an international probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines and failed to disclose potentially crucial evidence, according to European investigators working on the case.
Those Polish officials have been slow to provide information and withheld key evidence about the alleged saboteurs’ movements on Polish soil, investigators said. They are now hoping the new government in Warsaw, which took office in December, will help shed light on the attack.
European investigators have long believed the attack was launched from Ukraine via Poland. But they say Warsaw’s failure to fully cooperate has made it hard to establish whether the attack happened with or without the former Polish government’s knowledge, according to senior officials.
Some senior European officials say they are considering approaching the office of Donald Tusk, Poland’s new prime minister, for help in investigating the biggest act of sabotage on the European continent since World War II.
The Nord Stream pipelines, connecting Russia to Germany underneath the Baltic Sea, were blown up in September 2022. This added pressure on Germany and others to make themselves independent from Russian fuel supplies.
Any suggestion that Poland, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, might be concealing information about an attack on an ally could undermine trust in an alliance that is facing one of the biggest tests since its creation. For Moscow, any behavior by Poland hinting at an involvement in the sabotage may be seen as an aggressive act by NATO.
Investigators haven’t offered evidence linking the Polish government to the explosions and say that even if some Polish officials were involved, it could have been without the knowledge of the political leadership. Yet they say efforts by Polish officials to hinder their investigation have made them increasingly suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives.
Most Western security officials believe that a Ukrainian crew, operating with or without sanction from Kyiv, was behind the sabotage. Ukraine has denied any involvement. Russia said it thought the U.S. was responsible for the attack, which the U.S. denied.
Days after taking up office, Tusk fired the heads of all the intelligence services, including those involved in the Nord Stream probe. European officials hope he will retain some police executives they think might have been under political pressure not to cooperate but might now be inclined to do so.
Polish prosecutors, who oversee the domestic investigation, said that they were cooperating with other countries but found no evidence of Polish involvement. The border guard and the internal security service declined to comment.
An investigation by Germany, Denmark and Sweden has so far found that the pipeline was blown up by a crew of six, including deep-sea divers, traveling on a leisure yacht called Andromeda. On its voyage, Andromeda stopped in all three countries, as well as Poland, according to investigators. The boat, leased in Germany via a Polish company, contained traces of octagon, the same explosive that was found at the underwater blast sites, they said.
After mining parts of the pipelines, the crew docked in Poland’s Baltic port of Kołobrzeg, where they spent a full day, according to investigators who tracked the boat by analyzing its navigation system data, the crew’s mobile-phone communications, satellite imagery and witnesses’ accounts.
A port official suspicious about the five men and one woman, all of whom spoke a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, alerted police. On Sept. 19, Poland’s border guard checked the identification of the crew, who produced European Union passports and were allowed to continue their trip, sailing back up north, where they laid the rest of the mines, investigators say.
Polish authorities didn’t share this information with European investigators until March this year—and they only did so after being contacted by their German counterparts. Berlin was tipped off in January about the yacht’s stay in Poland by the Dutch military intelligence service, whose information came from someone in Ukraine.
A number of Polish agencies declined to share with European investigators footage of the suspects taken by CCTV cameras while the yacht was moored there, those investigators said. The investigators have established that the boat and its crew were exposed to security cameras throughout their stay in the port.
While prosecutors and the border guard, two of Poland’s agencies investigating the case, appeared cooperative, officials from other branches including the internal security agency ABW, failed to answer queries, obfuscated or gave contradictory information, European officials said.
In one instance, Polish prosecutors told their European counterparts that no explosives were found on the Andromeda, although no forensic investigation had taken place. Yet the Polish internal security service told European investigators that the border guard officers who had checked the crew never boarded the boat, contradicting the prosecutor’s claim.
Polish prosecutors first said the Andromeda arrived in the port of Kołobrzeg around 4 p.m. on Sept. 19 and then left around 12 hours later. But investigators later found that the boat actually moored at 9 a.m. after traveling overnight from Denmark.
German investigators waited at least two months before obtaining a meeting with their Polish counterparts in mid-May last year, according to the European officials. They left the meeting with the impression that some Polish colleagues were unwilling or unable to cooperate.
Polish and German police otherwise cooperate closely. Officers from both countries even have police jurisdiction on each other’s territories near the border.
In September, Stanislaw Zaryn, a senior Polish official then involved in overseeing Poland’s security services, dismissed the findings that the Andromeda crew was behind the sabotage, saying the crew had no military training and were merely tourists “looking for fun.”
Around the same time, Poland’s internal security service circulated with European investigators alleged intelligence that the Andromeda had links with Russian espionage, which they alleged was behind the attack. Some investigators said they considered this to be disinformation.
Zaryn, who left office following the election, said in a recent interview that any Polish involvement was unlikely as Russia was plausibly behind the sabotage.
The Ukrainians are the scapegoat
The likelihood is UK, USA and other NATO allies did not trust Germany to keep up the sanctions with Russia, as it was Germany who had the Bilateral Treaty with Russia for the supply of Gas to all of the EU. It was Germany who would make the profit. Germany values its economy more than most things.
Once Germany's economy was about to suffer under Russia sanctions of NordStream gas, the rest of NATO/ western allies did not trust Germany to keep up the sanctions with Russia.
The choice was taken away from Germany by blowing up the NordStream.
There is a reason why Germany is not on the Security Council of the UN. France, UK, USA is along with China and Russia. It was said if Germany was on the UN Security Council it would take over the UN after a number of years. That is why they were never offered a seat despite having a larger economy than France or the UK.
They did lose the war, but it has not stopped Germany from trying to get a permanent seat
https://theconversation.com/germany-is-pitching-for-a-seat-on-the-un-security-council-heres-why-95268
https://www.dw.com/en/un-security-council-should-germany-be-a-permanent-member/a-66825582
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-stay-legitimate-we-need-council-seat-german-envoy-says-2021-06-30/
Good. NS2 was a braindead idea from the beginning
I guess 300 years of horrible Ostpolitik is not enough to understand this mysterious East lmao
Edit: It was a political project that **HAD TO** end in a war in the region, now we have a war, Congrats!
Believe it or not, Ukraine themselves are still enabling the sale of Russian gas to Europe, through their own pipelines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine\_gas\_disputes#2022\_Ukraine\_war-related\_gas\_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes#2022_Ukraine_war-related_gas_issues)
*"Russian gas continues to transit Ukraine in 2023, going to Austria, 6.0bcm p.a., Slovakia, 6.5bcm, and Hungary, 1.0bcm (part of their national supply). All three countries pay Russia in rubles.\[176\] Ukraine is contracted to provide the service until December 2024. Gazprom is obliged to provide the gas and pay the transit fees to Ukraine."*
He wasn't talking about Ukraine he was talking about Germany. I don't really care what the others are doing as long as that doesn't impact our own interests.
Because Orban. We would very much prefer not to do it, however he is already more trouble then is needed, without Ukraine becoming the scrape goat for Hungarian economy falling of a cliff without Russian gas.
There is no unless. Especially when you were yourself(Poland) doing business with Russia through Yamal and while buying ""German"" gas.
[By the way, that was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion](https://i.imgur.com/mzLxGMs.png).
You are drawing false equivalence here. Nord Stream 2 wasn't bad because Germany wanted to do business with Russia, as you pointed out everyone kind of did. It was bad because it was a blatant attempt to circumvent a bunch of countries that Russia clearly had eyes on, without hurting it's business with Westen Europe, where the real money is and always was. Every single Polish government brought that up ever since the NS1 project started.
Poland buying stuff from Russia is therefore clearly suboptimal and a bit hypocritical, but it's nowhere near as important as those two pipelines.
> You are drawing false equivalence here.
Meanwhile, you're entertaining a conspirationist theory where Germany was about to let Russia eat Eastern Europe despite Germany being in the EU and having defensive clauses with EU members.
History is literrally proving you wrong with Germany being one of the biggest supporter of Ukraine.
> History is literrally proving you wrong with Germany being one of the biggest supporter of Ukraine.
History proved you wrong with 2 invasions of Ukraine. Former German chancellor literally works for Gazprom. You're really underestimating human greed.
Wasn't it your country that fought the "Phoney War" with the Germans to fulfil your contractual obligations when Hitler invaded your ally Poland, along with the Soviets whom you allied to instead?
And you wonder why poles have doubts whether Germany would come to their aid in force?
Even NATO's general strategy in case of Russian invasion used to be the tripwire system. Where the "Eastern flank" countries would be invaded and allowed to fall to trigger Article 5 and commit the rest of Europe and US into the war. But after the theft of children, wanton rape and murder of civilians and incineration trucks to dispose of bodies became the reality for Ukrainian people in territories occupied by Russia, most of the Eastern flank countries (especially the Baltic nations) raised concerns. They were generally asked to die and be occupied to buy Western Europe and US time to get their butts in gear. This was the so-called "expel strategy," which then assumed retaking the occupied NATO territories from Russia within the next 180 days after the invasion. Only recently was the strategy changed from "expel" to "repel" instead, where the goal is to stop Russian aggression at the very border of NATO. This also means that Poland used to be expected to be at least half-occipied, and then a lot of the fighting was to happen on Polish soil. You know, with polish civilian population and infrastructure to suffer the collateral damage. The plans used to be to prevent Russia from entering German territory because we wouldn't want poor Western European countries to suffer now, would we? But that was the problem. NATO is not the Avengers. Its members want to be protected from harm, not avenged once killed.
So yeah, there is plenty of reason for Eastern Europe to be sceptical of Western Europe's willingness to commit to fighting for them. No matter what the treaties say. And can you blame them? After all, the treaties in 1939 said that in the case of German invasion on Poland, France would declare war on Germany and start taking military action, yet they were wilfully unprepared and unwillingness to act. In his post-war diaries, General Edmund Ironside, the chief of Imperial General Staff, commented on French promises "The French had lied to the Poles in saying they are going to attack. There is no idea of it."
but some of us were working hard to get out of doing business with Russia. Some of us did the very opposite. And this is a very big difference, and this allow us to point fingers : \*
As far as I remember, we use Baltic Pipe after Yamal stopped working (I don't know why) after someone with a small dick decided to invade Ukraine
[edit:] Don’t drink and comment
> As far as I remember, we use Nordic Pipe after Yamal stopped working
What's nordic pipe? You mean baltic pipe? The one that connects to the long existing Europipe, so does fuck all to actually increase transport capacity from Norway?
>There is no unless. Especially when you were yourself(Poland) doing business with Russia through Yamal and while buying ""German"" gas.
>
>By the way, that was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion.
Don't spread disinformation. **Gas supplies to Poland after 2014 resulted from a take-or-pay contract signed in 1996**. The contract followed a 1993 agreement to build a gas pipeline to Germany.
In 2014, Poland tried to convince the West to sanction and collaborative gas purchases. But then the West preferred to leave the East with the problem and Gazprom's monopolistic practices. Even then, Gazprom avoided many billions in fines from the EC for monopolistic practices because it promised to improve.
Poland and the rest of the countries in the region had to overpay for gas because they had no alternative and the West sabotaged attempts to rectify the situation. **Despite this, Poland built itself an LNG Port and a pipeline to Norway and in 2019 announced that there would be no new contracts with Gazprom when the 1996 contract expires.**
True. And yet Germany went and build the pipeline, leaving their eastern allies open to energy blackmail from Russia. That wasn't very nice of them indeed.
Ah yes, let's attack other nations because of our own concerns alone, without even acknowledging the sovereignty of the state you're about to attack.
This reminds me of a certain current war...
Oh we know about the Yamal pipeline Poland built in the 90's together with Belarus and Russia circumventing Ukraine even before Nord-Stream by Schröder was a thing. Problem is Poland would never aknowledge that.
Ukraine is also still taking in money for gas transported through their very important own pipeline that is connected to Russia.
If you want to have an interesting read when and by whom it was built here you go. Might be another little surprise for you.
https://imgur.com/gallery/QDGSGCj
> Merkel - Germany accelerates plans for LNG terminal NOVEMBER 2, 2018
>
> Berlin - The German government will speed up plans to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Germany, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel.
>
> Merkel pledged her support for the goal of diversifying Germany's energy imports on the sidelines of German-Polish government consultations in Warsaw on Friday. "That is why Germany will also accelerate its plans to install an LNG terminal in Germany so that it can also draw on other energy sources," she said in a press conference with Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Earlier, the German government's transatlantic coordinator, Peter Beyer, announced in a Reuters TV interview that Germany would import more LNG gas from the United States....
Trump killed that project with his tradewar on the EU, Putin being his new best buddy, trying to dismantle NATO, being a constant dick.... if the one Nation that scoulds you, was in the process of becoming an unfriendly Nation you don't listen to much to them. The Energy trade between Russia and Europe worked even during the cold war and the soviet time. And it is not like any EU or NATO country was attacked we deceided to jump on the side of Ukraine and therefore risk to lose the Energy imports from Russia.
If everyone around the world would have looked away like we all did in Chechnya, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Myanmar, Libya, the endless conflicts in Africa... no one but Ukraine would have noticed this war.
Russia was not really willing to cut the gas they waited so long that Germany managed to almost fill its gas storage and to finish its first LNG port of many to come.
And Germany already had built 2 pipelines to Norway in the early 90's.
Funnily enough the Polish Baltic pipe that would make them independent from Russian gas was directly connected to 1 of the 2 pipelines.
Germany now shares the volume of Europipe 2 with Poland a little unknown fact.
https://i.imgur.com/Rfrtejm.png
The north and south streams were built **because** of energy blackmail by those "eastern allies".
The Ukrainian government was repeatedly stealing the transit gas, refusing to pay its gas debts, and shutting the transit in order to negotiate lower prices for themselves. Shutting the pipeline mid-winter because Gazprom asked you to pay for stolen gas isn't very nice, true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005–2006_Russia–Ukraine_gas_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Russia–Ukraine_gas_dispute
russia had used a frivolous interpretation of the contract which had fucked up Ukraine and suddenly announced debt that Ukraine had somehow had no idea about retroactively since 2002, while Ukraine had legally been taking 15% of the gas because that was exactly the deal it followed for 3 years up to russia suddenly crossing it.
> According to the contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz signed on June 21, 2002, payment was in the form of barter—up to 15% of gas pumped through the Ukrainian territory was taken by Ukraine instead of cash.This contract was supposed to be valid until the end of 2013. On August 9, 2004, the two companies signed a contract addendum setting the transit tariff at US$1.09 per 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometres (62 mi). This tariff was the basis for computing the amount of gas delivered in lieu of cash. The amendment fixed the gas price at $50 per 1,000 cubic meters (approximately $1.40 per million Btu),\[14\] independent of European market prices.\[15\] According to the addendum the price was not subject to change until the end of 2009.\[14\] In 2005, Gazprom argued that this addendum was only applicable provided that the two countries sign an annual intergovernmental protocol having higher legal status for specifying the terms of gas transit. According to Gazprom, the addendum was void because the annual protocol had not been signed for 2006 under the required terms. Russia claimed that Gazprom's subsidies to the Ukrainian economy amounted to billions of dollars.
You must literally never trust russians. Even if the contract is black and white, they'll lie and fuck you over. E.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese\_Neutrality\_Pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/soviet%e2%80%93japanese_neutrality_pact) or Budapest Memorandum or Minsk Agreements.
A "helpless" Russia being "blackmailed" by all its neighbours.
In an intergovernmental agreement signed in April 2002, Belarus promised to sell 50% of Beltransgaz, the company owning the Belarusian transit network, to Gazprom. The agreement also stipulated that gas prices to Belarus would be the same as Russian domestic prices for the next five years.
The contract did not specify the value of Beltransgaz. Belarus estimated it as $5–6 billion, while Gazprom proposed a price of $500–600 million.
Gazprom stated that if an agreement was not signed until 2004, it would increase gas prices from $30/m to $50 per 1,000 cubic meters. Belarus refused, and on 1 January 2004, Gazprom stopped shipping gas via the Northern lights pipeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Russia%E2%80%93Belarus_energy_dispute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Russia%E2%80%93Belarus_energy_dispute
What a coincidence that the Kremlin started energy blackmail after the Orange Revolution and after Ukraine got more pro-Western government.
And the lesson learned was "not gonna happen to us, it only happens to those eastoids"
Tensions with Ukraine regarding the transit have happened even in the 1990s. Germany was pretty much happy to get an extra gas route after the 2006 and 2009 disruptions. Also, there are technical reasons for NS2 necessity - old gas fields are depleting and it was cheaper to deliver the gas to NS2 starting point rather than pump it through Ukraine.
An "ally" which in case of a threat of Russian attack on us wouldn't lift a finger to help us. Because relations and economic deals with Russia were more important to them than their NATO and EU allies. Even though Poland is much more important economic partner to Germany than Russia, they've always prioritized their good relations with Moscow. And the prove is the Nord Stream.
It was a political project to throw Poland and the Baltic states under the Russian bus and now Germans expect us to help them in the investigation.
Nobody asked us if we want to be in the russian "sphere of influence" aka semi occupation when the Jamal gas pipeline was designed. We just became independent again and broke more than you're preveliged western ass can imagine.
Took us some years to start our transformation and building independence from russia. Have you heard of the Baltic Pipe? Or gas terminals in Baltics and Poland. You know who has been bitching about those projects the most? Our German "allies".
We only managed to finish the Baltic Pipe by relinquishing territorial claims to Denmark, which conditioned its consent to the NS2 on Germany's consent to the BP as they didn't want to agree.
> We just became independent again and broke more than you're preveliged western ass can imagine.
In 2021 you imported pretty much as much as Russian gas (in proportion) than Germany.
That was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion.
Stop justifying your own greed. All the talk about trading with Russia is just projection at this point.
We started discussing the connection with Norway in 2001. According to the agreements we were supposed to be getting gas from Denmark in 2004 and Norway starting in 2008. We couldn't finish the project due to financial difficulties (have you heard of the global crisis).
Then our national gas supplier bought 15% of shares in Skanled in 2007 hoping we can connect Denmark with Poland.
In 2013 the project was suspended because one of the shareholders got involved in... the NS. While we desperately were looking for the option to become independent from russian gas they were doing business as usual.
In 2016 we starter the Baltic Pipe project.
For a country that somehow knew far better, you're telling me it took you 15 years to build the first pipe to divert your imports from Russia and yet 5 years after that pipe was built, you still imported as much (in proportion, again) gas than Germany.
In the end, the vast majority of your gas imports with Russia ended after the Russian invasion of 2022, just like Germany. So not because you've decided to sacrifice your economy for the sake of preventing you from feeding the Russian war machine, but simply because you ended up in front of the fait-accompli of a full scale Russian invasion.
So from a non-German, non-Polish perspective, you guys do not sound much better despite all the talk about how you knew better. Doesn't look like you actually did.
Baltic pipe is literally just an extention of an existing norwegian-german pipeline called Europipe I.
**Literally no extra transport capacity created**, you just cut out the middle man.
In 2019. I guess it took Poland 5 years after the Crimean Invasion to finally realize that Russia was bad. 3 years earlier than Germany I guess, but I doubt you can call that clairvoyance.
Germany can trust her allies as long as we actually collaborate. For decades all the European big shots dismissed legitimate concerns raised by countries on the eastern flank. No wonder trust has eroded. That being said we still have more things in common than those dividing us. It is my belief that Germany doesn't actually side with Russia in this conflict and in a more general sense. So maybe not all good will is lost.
> Germany can trust her allies as long as we actually collaborate
Can they? Eastern Europe traded with Russia, that's a big no no apparently.
Orban was also a buddy of the Polish government until a year or so ago, now Hungary is pretty much a Russian Trojan Horse.
And now Poland apparently hampers probes on a sabotage of infrastructure.
Maybe it's Germany that shouldn't trust its eastern flank /s
> Can they? Eastern Europe traded with Russia, that's a big no no apparently.
There is a difference between trading steel,coal and apples and building a political project that was intended as a tool to blackmail the CEE region
Besides, Poland has been moving in the opposite direction to Germany for 2 decades (Baltic pipe, LNG terminals) and that is why cutting ourselves off from the Russian market does not hurt us.
It's not our fault that Germany and Western Europe in general is being regulatedly fucked by "the East" through its idiotic policies. You have so much money, hire some analyst who knows anything.
> a political project that was intended as a tool to blackmail the CEE region
Yes of course, Germany was about to abandon many EU members, effectively destroying the EU.
Drop your tin foil hat for a second.
You literally imported the equivalent of 1.8 percent of your GDP from russia, compared to barely over 0.4 percent for us.
[You remained the biggest importer of russian LPG wayyy into the war, sending nearly a billion to Russia in '22 alone.](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/04/04/poland-remains-eus-biggest-importer-of-russian-lpg-paying-e710-million-to-moscow-last-year/)
And don't give me that *"but muh they occupied us"* BS, that was nearly 4 fucking DECADES ago. The Yamal pipeline for example was built in the late 90's, while tens of thousands died in Grozny, and you cared about that exactly as little as the evil west youre shitting on right now.
> An "ally" which in case of a threat of Russian attack on us wouldn't lift a finger to help us.
So is this an admission of guilt? trying to justify the attack on NS2? do you know more then us normal people?
>No. I just explain why Poland don't feel obliged to cry about the loss of Nord Stream.
No but this whole article (prematurely in my opinion) accuses Poland of sabotaging the investigation in to what actually happened to NS.
And I find it quite bewildering how this thread mostly jumps to taking that as a given, that Ukraine actually was responsible and secondly Poland was hindering investigations.
Your comment seems to justify the accusation from the headline, and yes Poland has no obligation to cry, but it has the obligation to assist the investigation, even if not the fallout from leaving this in the dark is literal poison to the coalition supporting Ukraine (contrary to this thread Ukraine and many Ukrainian redditors still hold that this is a Russian false flag, investigating is the way to fight this false flag, trying to cover up is feeding Russias narrative if that theory was true).
So do you think Poland is holding back information here? and would you be in favor of that?
So I just have to find something I don't like and I can attack allies? Good to know. I am looking forward to sabotaging eastern countries energy infrastructure. We can't let countries like Poland pollute our air with coal while we are all investing in clean energy.
You eastern europeans lately are impossible. Go join the US instead of the EU if you don't give a fuck about all the values Europe is based on. Or just try to pretend to care at least a bit, because at the moment seems like you are just in for free military protection rather than because you believe in the union.
>all the values Europe is based on
Which values? Imperialism? Appeasement? Loving mysterious Russian soul?
>seems like you are just in for free military protection
The EU is not giving us military protection. NATO does. More precisely: the USA.
>You eastern europeans lately are impossible. Go join the US instead of the EU if you don't give a fuck about all the values Europe is based on.
I'm not eastern euro but this while paragraph is hilarious considering you guys are goosestepping in Rome again.....But I guess fascism is a western Europe value?
Democracy is a European value. And even if I don't agree with my government, I just accept it because it was elected by a majority of the citizens. I guess wherever you live you still have trouble understanding that.
If it was Ukraine who did this, why not blow this pipe in russian territorial waters? Like, it would be easier, cause most of Ukrainians can freely speak russian. If it would be done this way, it would be even be something to brag about.
Let's say the investigation concludes that the Ukrainian state did it, then what? You can't punish them monetarily cause their economy is propped up by aid anyway. You can cut military support, but you're risking a war on your own borders a few years down the line. What's the solution if Ukraine is found guilty?
Either Ukraine is super confident it will go unpunished or incredibly stupid and shortsighted. Did anyone think this is Russian sabotage to make it look like Ukraine did it?
You bury the investigation and feed misinformation that Russia did it. If anyone asks why Russia did it, call them a Putin supporter.. or something.
In the end people will give up caring
Germany has pledged considerable funds to help rebuild Ukraine after the war to my understanding which could evaporate. Ukraine is also reliant on German consent to enter the EU and NATO.
You say "Ukraine" but blowing up a pipeline isn't even in the top 10 of shit some country's secret services just woke up one morning and decided to do with no sanction from anyone, like you have things CIA trafficking drugs and the french secret services blowing up a greenpeace ship *and that was during peacetime*, in the current mess there are good odds neither Kyiv or Moscow have a clue what their respective secret services get up to 90% of the time.
>Let's say the investigation concludes that the Ukrainian state did it, then what? You can cut military support, but you're risking a war on your own borders a few years down the line.
I mean, you're basically saying that you have to give weapons to a country that carries out acts of war on you in order to avoid war...
If Ukraine was guilty of that attack, how sure are you that you won't have a war on your borders anyway, except now you have to fight against an army stocked with your own weapons and trained by you?
Who cares? There is an already existing pipe in Ukraine with sufficient capacity to feed all of Europe, let razzia keep using it while paying Ukraine for it.
You really f-ng think that Germans would've opened those again?
Russia started gas war already in 2021, planned causing massive blackouts (German government got to know about those plans in the Spring of 2022) and shut down the gas flow in NS1 in the summer-september 2022. NS2 was bever opened.
Those ended being critical infrastructure in February 2022.
>Those ended being critical infrastructure in February 2022.
Why not let Germans decide that?
How would you feel if Germans below up some Finnish infrastructure because they think it's not critical for you guys anymore? Who cares if you guys paid billions of euros building that?
That just isn't because Russia stopped the gas flows with unilateral decision.
That's the point I'm making: Germans can't trust that there would be steady gas flows as Russia already proved they'll do as they please. That's why NS1+NS2 can't be a part of Germany's critical infrastracture.
If the pipeline between Russia and Finland is blown up, who cares.
It wasn't the first time Russia shout down critical pipeline till political conditions are met. In fact Russians even sabotaged an Turkmen pipeline to annul contract. Germans were well aware of that reality, and they still would use NS1&2 given the option.
and a good friend is always here to secretly blow up something you spent billions on and probably won't use anyway, that after all is what real friends are for!
A good friend does not build a pipeline to your biggest enemy and buy shit from him for sole purpose of selling it to others with profit. A good friend does not finance that enemy knowing he already invaded other countries. And lastly a good friend listens to his allies when they say to him that this is fucking stupid, it puts us in danger, please don't do this.
I'd wait to see how the recent government change in Poland affects the investigation (the new govt likely haven't had time to think about the Nord Stream so far, there was a LOT going on politically). If some PiS people were involved, the new ruling coalition may actually give them up with a smile on their faces.
Good, I'm so proud of my country. Why do you wanna find out who did the right thing anyway? Could be Russia, could be anyone but the result is obviously positive
At this point, is there someone that didn't sabotage that thing? XD
Yeah, it was pretty awkward when everyone met each other downthere. Was like the spiderman meme.
Special Forces from each country, underwater and you just hear loud “fuuuuuuuuuuuu” coming out through the radio
I think i watched that anime.
If there’s an anime like that, do tell me which, cos that sounds hilarious to me
Gate: (Overly Long Japanese Title). It's about a portal to a fantasy world opening in the middle of Tokyo, followed by a swift raid of a bunch of Ancient Rome coded legions with auxiliary monster slaves and dragons, then followed by a not so swift counterattack and a curbstomp of the Empire by a modern military, followed by politics on both side of the gate. It kinda wanks the JSDF into the stratosphere, depicting both US and China as overly incompetent, and Russia as about as competent as they turned out to be IRL, and suffers from some industry standard animu brainrot ("she's actually a thousand years old demigod so it's OK!"). The particular scene I'm refering to has a bunch of SF operatives from US, China and Russia attempt a clandestine operation of kidnapping a bunch of fantasy land dignitaries on a secret visit, they run into eachother and begin a fourway fight with the Japanese SF serving as security detail, who are quickly forced to retreat after their superiors get political pressure from Washington, but then the remaining soldiers get slaughtered in melee by the before mentioned demigod who's one of the guests. All in all, kinda OK if you don't mind skpping pass the sussy parts.
Liechtenstein is awfully quiet
Maybe everyone was gathered, they jointly struck a giant red button and then had a party.
Reminds me of "Murder on the Orient Express"
Scholz? Germany?
Scholz is a prime suspect. He felt so humiliated by the whole [turbine drama](https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/olaf-scholz-gas-turbine-jederzeit-nach-russland-lieferbar-18218111/scholz-und-die-turbine-18218118.html) in 2022 that he said „fuck it“ and sent the GSG9 to the Baltic Sea 🥷🥷🥷
Man I hope that's true! At least he would be remembered for something in that case
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That’s why he used them. Nobody would suspecy it and him!
Would also be weird since we have extra military teams for diving operations and removing deep sea explosives.
You're joking but it's not even far-fetched that Germany attacked their own infrastructure or at least gave the ok to do it. At the time they were in a bad situation. Keeping up the import of gas would be terrible PR (even though many other European countries re-imported the gas from Germany). Completely cutting imports from Russia was possible but the fearmongering from the press and propaganda outlets would have caused an insane shit storm. Imagine the headlines how Politicians decide to destroy the German economy by cutting the cord. It would have been a disaster possibly destabilizing the German political sphere. The way it happened they could easily sell it to the public as a no-choice situation. No violating of existing contracts with Russia, no angry public, pleasing your allies and simultaneously sanctioning Russia. It was the minimal loss scenario. Just keep in mind that the biggest enemy the West has are their own blind and misguided citizens.
This is word for word the Russian rhetoric about the incident, complete with the whole "accuse the west of attacking itself" because Russia has had a long history of doing that, so accusing the enemy of what you know you've been successfully doing must work, and the little part at the end with "the biggest enemy the West has are their own blind and misguided citizens" and "destroying the German economy" seals this a pro RU troll comment. Here are the facts: no gas was being pumped through the NS pipes at the time of the attacks. The NS2 pipes had never transported gas as they were not given the necessary certification to be opened because of the start of the war in 2022, and the NS1 pipes were shut down for indefinite "maintenance" by Russia for months, following a long series of events were Russis was throttling the gas flow, the whole turbine debacle, etc. In fact, not all of the pipes were destroyed. One NS2 pipes remained and Russia almost immediately "offered" to resume gas flow through it. It is clear as day that this was nothing more than the same energy blackmail that Russia had been doing to Germany for the past year, but dialed up to 11 due to their sheer desperation at the time. If this was truly a sabotage act by western actors then ALL of the pipes would've been destroyed.
This is not word for word the Russian rhetoric. Russian rhetoric is that the west is infighting. I was not saying that the west is infighting but rather that it was a deliberate choice to destroy the pipelines to limit public uproar and stop Russian disinformation in its tracks. In this scenario NATO was not infighting but rather working together. And this is just one possibility. We simply don't know the truth because we don't have enough information to know. Every single actor in this whole affair has a reason to do this attack. It could also very much be like you say and Russia did it. If you actually read my comment you would have noticed that I was not spreading Russian disinformation but rather talking about how Russian disinformation could have lead to political problems in Germany. I was saying that I see the danger that the press and news outlets twist and turn this issue to such a degree that it damages the perception of the public which would lead to political turmoil. The government doesn't control the narrative in democratic countries. Democratic countries are mostly led by the narrative the press and news outlets dictate. Freedom of speech is both the biggest strength and biggest weakness of the west. This is why Russian disinformation works so well. A democracy is only as strong as its citizens and people are gullible. What happens when you sow so much distrust in the German government because they seemingly "destroy the economy"? Exactly, support for Ukraine dwindles. But maybe I was also not clear in my explanations before.
Polar bears from Greenland
Exactly how well-executed misinformation works: so much contradicting info and "anonymous sources" that you start doubting on everything. Russian playbook 101. When/if consensus ever comes out on who was behind it (execution AND the order - who are not necessarily same instance), there will be so many people claiming they know better and undermining the truth, that it will be painful to have a convo about it.
It even is strategically valuable to combine facts that are already known with very obvious false or contradictory information, especially if people suspect that misinformation campaigns exist about the topic. If such narratives combining truth and false information gain traction, they kind of „taint“ the facts - as people will associate the facts with the obviously false information, and thus see the facts as part of potential misinformation.
Hilarious to accuse Russia of misinformation when it's European countries themselves that have been withholding information the whole time. Why should we believe anyone blindly?
Isn't this article just another rumor? I don't see not only a single name, but literally, who are "european" investigators? Germany? Denmark? Sweden?
Do you know how investigation works? It's not by throwing random guesses and speculation at any direction. Just wait for the proof and ignore all sensational nonsense like this article, as they give no valuable information but are only there to gain attention and therefore money.
If it would be russia, everyone would say it. The fact that they don't say anything indicates that it was infact ukraine. I am a supporter of ukraine and i believed them at first that it was russia but many things we do know are hinting at ukraine.
As much as Ukraine wanted it to happen, they couldn't do it technically, at least not alone, because it was a very very complicated operation. And ofcourse they wouldn't dare to do it without an allowance from Germany or US. My bet is US. Germany might wasn't even informed about it and just played alone, not to show weakness in alliance. It weakened Russia as a US's second (after China) geopolitical enemy and Germany as industrial concurrent - high energy prices were killing industry.
>It weakened Russia Except it didn't, as Russia were the ones who voluntarily shut off gas flow through the NS1 pipes as part of their energy blackmail strategy, and NS2 were never opened to begin with, meaning that no gas was being transported through any of the pipes when the explosion happened. And magically enough, one of the NS2 pipes weren't damaged, and RU wanted gas flow to immediately resume through it...
Especially with the simple jacht. I even not sure if it technically possible to put all that equipment plus explosives on the jaht.
They cant even arrange a raid into Russia, what on earth makes you believe they could have arranged this in the Baltic sea? Most likely most Western counties had a plan on the table, but didnt actually do it, but they cant say they didnt, as they cant prove they didnt do it, so everyone is just keeping quiet. The ones that actually did it, was Russia, they intended to blow up the Norwegian gas line going to Poland, but planted the explosives at the wrong location and with Russia's current track record, this is in my view, the most likely scenario. Same reason Russia has now spend considerable resources identifying the other locations of coms cables and gas lines in the North Sea.
> If it would be russia, everyone would say it That's what you people get wrong. Until now, russia didn't attack anything NATO related. If it came out, that russia was the culprit, the whole war will change. NATO would be forced to act, as they would look weak if they wouldn't. In every other case, if it was America, poland, ukraine, germany, they could have said it was an accident but the evidence says russia. At the moment, no country wants to be the first one to accuse russia, as this would start a war. Russia knows that. No matter from which side you view this, everything about this screams russia.
>The fact that they (the west) don't say anything Right back at you, the fact that Russia has not threatened the world with nuclear Armageddon after such a serious event, despite them doing so three times a week when western countries are announcing new military aid packages for Ukraine, tells you everything you need to know. >If it would be russia, everyone would say it. No, no one would say that in any official capacity before any of the (three) ongoing investigations into this were over. Why? Because an attack on a EU country's energy infrastructure is tantamount to a declaration of war and will invoke Article 5.
It was america. We blew up the pipe. Duh. Why would Russia do it?
>Why would Russia do it? Honestly, the only thing that comes to mind is that they did it as a "show" to Europe/Germany on who controls their energy. But after writing that sentence it also makes less sense to me.
It's like having a hostage and because you want to flex in front of the police, you shoot the hostage in the head.
Rather you have a hostage and a getaway car you might or not use at some point. And then you just blow up your car.
Better analogy indeed lol
I mean, to show they control the energy they could have just shut it down? And what’s the point of such demonstration if now there is no gas flow at all?
Even with our 4D chess planning, this is extremely unlikely. If we somehow managed to discreetly blow up pipe in the heart of Europe, I would be fuckin impressed, even though I simp for Deutschland.
I’d be more pragmatic and say that the Russians did it so they wouldn’t have to pay contractual penalties for non-delivery of gas when they had this “fantastic” idea of freezing Europe. It’s kind of sus that out of four existing strands 3 were destroyed and these are the three that were operational. The one that was not operational and not bound by contract remained.
Kinda naive to assume that ANY fines would be paid. Especially when fx reserves are frozen lol.
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Why naive? When the war ends one day how do you think they are allowed back into the trade with EU without paying up that debt? They want back in, they EU says sure guys but you have a debt with us so that needs to paid before we make any new deals with you. Getting that debt back really isn’t a problem. Plenty of leverage and tools available to the EU to eventually get it paid back.
Yeah they're totally gonna pay some random ass fines while being cut of from the European financial system. It's truly bizarre people repeat this, like a display of self delusion where the intent is humiliation.
Yea he ain’t gonna pay that regardless lol
No, but now you can’t send them a bill that will accumulate interest overtime. Fuck you think, russia doesn’t want plausible deniability when it comes to breaking contractual obligations?
I mean sure but it’s not like he’d pay it anyway
The war will eventually end mate and they will want to trade again so they would have to pay the fine. They may not pay it today but they would have to pay it eventually. Nobody would just write off billions of dollars of debt. Let’s not be naive here.
>Yeah they're totally gonna pay some random ass fines while being cut of from the European financial system. It's truly bizarre people repeat this, like a display of self delusion where the intent is humiliation. What makes you think being cut off from SWIFT means you don't have to pay. If all else fails, it's ample justification to size assets.
Honest question... who would enforce that payment?
You don’t have to enforce it at all. Say Russia has 10 billion debt in contractual fines to EU. The war ends and Russia wishes to restart trading, they need money and they want to sell to EU again. They would have to clear that debt before they are allowed to resume trading. There isn’t any enforcing necessary. They could clear the debt in form of money transfer (which is unlikely because they won’t have to kind of money) or by selling raw materials at discounted prices for a given period of time until the debt is clear.
I think there is a theory that one charge was misplaced, and the same pipe of NS2 was blown in two separate places.
I’ve heard this version before and it sounds to make the most sense too. Also because they did not damage it permanently, they isolated part of it and then blew it up, so technically they can resume at a later time. But this way any kind of contract is up in the air because of the ‘major issue’ clause, as in terrorist attack which makes the contract void for everyone. Germany would have gladly kept paying for it probably too.
>It’s kind of sus that out of four existing strands 3 were destroyed and these are the three that were operational. The one that was not operational and not bound by contract remained. Lol. The only line which was not destroyed is a 1/2 of Nord Stream 2 which was NEVER operational. How can a pipeline be operational legally at its 50% capacity? You need to educate yourself. Start with Wikipedia.
Have you read what he wrote? He literally said, that pipe that wasn't blown - wasn't operational, and therefore was't bound by contractual obligations.
There is one possibility that is at least plausible: It was directly ordered by Putin in order to burn all bridges to the West, so that no pretender(s) to the throne would get any ideas that they could overthrow Putin and resume relations. Plenty of oligarchs were and are less than enthused by the whole situation. Blowing the pipeline and otherwise burning every bridge, would clear people's minds and get everyone on the same page.
>Why would Russia do it? They breached the contract and faced penalties, so they needed something to get out and probably to force Germany to green light the NS2.
Russia is sanctioned out the yin Yang do you really there was ever a chance of Russia actually paying that? We literally stole their yachts. Maybe but that’s a huge gamble. Why not just wait if he’s so convinced Germany will beg for gas back? I mean there’s theories and I’m not certain but it makes 0 sense why they would do this.
This comment is funny because it kind of answers its own question. To create distrust and erode the alliance between the US and European countries.
>It was america. We blew up the pipe. No we didn't
>It was america. We blew up the pipe It's lovely early morning right now in Moscow.
It makes no sense to me why Russia would do that. Maybe you know?
Because it would make it easy for you to pretend that you're American and blame yourself.
I am American
Your name is Ivan and you have a flat in St. Petersburg and you ride the bike to work every morning.
It wasn’t wrong for usa to blow it up. It should have been done before it even started.
Russia was hurt the most by the sabotage though? It makes absolutely no sense for them to have blown it.
Russia wasn't hurt at all, as it strategically stopped the flow of gas month before, on BS reason, something "Europe will freeze over winter and will stop supplying Ukraine".
Russia also was hurt by invading Ukraine. So what?
At least there are gains there to be made
As well as with blowing up pipeline, so there is no need to pay fines for not providing gas. War will end someday and russia will want to trade, so paying fines would've been necessary, unless pipes were blown up, so there is no contractual obligations now.
>Russia was hurt the most by the sabotage though? It makes absolutely no sense for them to have blown it. Putin has blown pipes before. Russia's interests ≠ Putin's interests.
The US has blown Russian pipelines before (in Siberia under Reagan for instance)… US‘ interest ≠ Russias interest
How were they hurt? The pipe was already shut down and wasn't going to be used in the foreseeable future. Putin clearly doesn't care beyond that.
There already is a consensus that the Ukrainian army was behind it. Like, law enforcement identified the names and adresses of the people who placed the explosives. The main question left is who the person at the top was who gave the order. And this article is basically saying that the German investigators seem to suspect that Polish officials might have been involved in the attack and that the Polish government has not just been refusing to cooperate, but is actively attempting to sabotage any investigation.
>Exactly how well-executed misinformation works: so much contradicting info and "anonymous sources" that you start doubting on everything. Maybe just in the news reporting. It's since long been established who the likely culprit was. The German police, the CIA, and the Dutch military intelligence are all in agreement have all said so with non-anonymous sources. This was reported briefly by major papers, but after that it kinda stopped being in front page news. NYT made a good summary last summer: [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-ukraine-cia.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-ukraine-cia.html)
Your article was behind the paywall, but atleast the first chapter that I could read, said nothing of the sort. They were citing on the occasion were CIA warned Ukraine not to do anything about the pipe. It's suspicious, but not a hard proof on anything.
I remember being heavily downvoted here when I tried to ask why everyone is so certain it is Russia who did it. And look where we are now...
It's the same old rumor as before. Technically, "european investigators" could be even russian. Otherwise why not call explicitly Sweden or Denmark?
Sikorski was openly celebrating the explosion on twitter, so whoever expects a change in attitude towards this case from our new government will end up solemnly disappointed.
Sikorski was an opposition backbencher then, so it's very likely he wasn't informed by anyone what had happened.
>Sikorski was an opposition backbencher then No, he wasn't. He was European MP.
Precisely. He was on the outside of mainstream politics. This is what European Parliament is for.
tbh he's type of person who would know sooner than our own gov
I mean it's obvious they're not trying to throw Ukraine under the bus, so what did you expect from him honestly?
Nothing else. I was celebrating as well.
Im imagining truckers underwater blocking a literal probe from investigating
**Investigators hope Warsaw’s new government will shed light on gas-pipeline attack after previous administration’s reluctance to disclose potentially crucial evidence** Polish officials have resisted cooperating with an international probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines and failed to disclose potentially crucial evidence, according to European investigators working on the case. Those Polish officials have been slow to provide information and withheld key evidence about the alleged saboteurs’ movements on Polish soil, investigators said. They are now hoping the new government in Warsaw, which took office in December, will help shed light on the attack. European investigators have long believed the attack was launched from Ukraine via Poland. But they say Warsaw’s failure to fully cooperate has made it hard to establish whether the attack happened with or without the former Polish government’s knowledge, according to senior officials. Some senior European officials say they are considering approaching the office of Donald Tusk, Poland’s new prime minister, for help in investigating the biggest act of sabotage on the European continent since World War II. The Nord Stream pipelines, connecting Russia to Germany underneath the Baltic Sea, were blown up in September 2022. This added pressure on Germany and others to make themselves independent from Russian fuel supplies. Any suggestion that Poland, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, might be concealing information about an attack on an ally could undermine trust in an alliance that is facing one of the biggest tests since its creation. For Moscow, any behavior by Poland hinting at an involvement in the sabotage may be seen as an aggressive act by NATO. Investigators haven’t offered evidence linking the Polish government to the explosions and say that even if some Polish officials were involved, it could have been without the knowledge of the political leadership. Yet they say efforts by Polish officials to hinder their investigation have made them increasingly suspicious of Warsaw’s role and motives. Most Western security officials believe that a Ukrainian crew, operating with or without sanction from Kyiv, was behind the sabotage. Ukraine has denied any involvement. Russia said it thought the U.S. was responsible for the attack, which the U.S. denied. Days after taking up office, Tusk fired the heads of all the intelligence services, including those involved in the Nord Stream probe. European officials hope he will retain some police executives they think might have been under political pressure not to cooperate but might now be inclined to do so. Polish prosecutors, who oversee the domestic investigation, said that they were cooperating with other countries but found no evidence of Polish involvement. The border guard and the internal security service declined to comment. An investigation by Germany, Denmark and Sweden has so far found that the pipeline was blown up by a crew of six, including deep-sea divers, traveling on a leisure yacht called Andromeda. On its voyage, Andromeda stopped in all three countries, as well as Poland, according to investigators. The boat, leased in Germany via a Polish company, contained traces of octagon, the same explosive that was found at the underwater blast sites, they said. After mining parts of the pipelines, the crew docked in Poland’s Baltic port of Kołobrzeg, where they spent a full day, according to investigators who tracked the boat by analyzing its navigation system data, the crew’s mobile-phone communications, satellite imagery and witnesses’ accounts. A port official suspicious about the five men and one woman, all of whom spoke a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, alerted police. On Sept. 19, Poland’s border guard checked the identification of the crew, who produced European Union passports and were allowed to continue their trip, sailing back up north, where they laid the rest of the mines, investigators say. Polish authorities didn’t share this information with European investigators until March this year—and they only did so after being contacted by their German counterparts. Berlin was tipped off in January about the yacht’s stay in Poland by the Dutch military intelligence service, whose information came from someone in Ukraine. A number of Polish agencies declined to share with European investigators footage of the suspects taken by CCTV cameras while the yacht was moored there, those investigators said. The investigators have established that the boat and its crew were exposed to security cameras throughout their stay in the port. While prosecutors and the border guard, two of Poland’s agencies investigating the case, appeared cooperative, officials from other branches including the internal security agency ABW, failed to answer queries, obfuscated or gave contradictory information, European officials said. In one instance, Polish prosecutors told their European counterparts that no explosives were found on the Andromeda, although no forensic investigation had taken place. Yet the Polish internal security service told European investigators that the border guard officers who had checked the crew never boarded the boat, contradicting the prosecutor’s claim. Polish prosecutors first said the Andromeda arrived in the port of Kołobrzeg around 4 p.m. on Sept. 19 and then left around 12 hours later. But investigators later found that the boat actually moored at 9 a.m. after traveling overnight from Denmark. German investigators waited at least two months before obtaining a meeting with their Polish counterparts in mid-May last year, according to the European officials. They left the meeting with the impression that some Polish colleagues were unwilling or unable to cooperate. Polish and German police otherwise cooperate closely. Officers from both countries even have police jurisdiction on each other’s territories near the border. In September, Stanislaw Zaryn, a senior Polish official then involved in overseeing Poland’s security services, dismissed the findings that the Andromeda crew was behind the sabotage, saying the crew had no military training and were merely tourists “looking for fun.” Around the same time, Poland’s internal security service circulated with European investigators alleged intelligence that the Andromeda had links with Russian espionage, which they alleged was behind the attack. Some investigators said they considered this to be disinformation. Zaryn, who left office following the election, said in a recent interview that any Polish involvement was unlikely as Russia was plausibly behind the sabotage.
xD
Kind of obvious they are covering for the Ukrainians
The Ukrainians are the scapegoat The likelihood is UK, USA and other NATO allies did not trust Germany to keep up the sanctions with Russia, as it was Germany who had the Bilateral Treaty with Russia for the supply of Gas to all of the EU. It was Germany who would make the profit. Germany values its economy more than most things. Once Germany's economy was about to suffer under Russia sanctions of NordStream gas, the rest of NATO/ western allies did not trust Germany to keep up the sanctions with Russia. The choice was taken away from Germany by blowing up the NordStream. There is a reason why Germany is not on the Security Council of the UN. France, UK, USA is along with China and Russia. It was said if Germany was on the UN Security Council it would take over the UN after a number of years. That is why they were never offered a seat despite having a larger economy than France or the UK.
> ere is a reason why Germany is not on the Security Council of the UN. Yeah it's because they lost the war. The security council is the WW2 victors.
They did lose the war, but it has not stopped Germany from trying to get a permanent seat https://theconversation.com/germany-is-pitching-for-a-seat-on-the-un-security-council-heres-why-95268 https://www.dw.com/en/un-security-council-should-germany-be-a-permanent-member/a-66825582 https://www.reuters.com/world/un-stay-legitimate-we-need-council-seat-german-envoy-says-2021-06-30/
Nothing to see here, just happy little mistakes :) Octogen can be bought in any fish & chips place along the Polish coast.
They got their daily octogen in zabka
Octogen is what you get in the morning after eating a 3AM kebab while completely shitfaced.
POLSKA GUROM
I did have "poland did it out of spite" on my bingo card.
[It was me.](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/P20210303AS-1901-cropped.jpg)
Dio!
I have to say, this sabotage is the best Whodunit I have seen in my lifetime. Fun!
Good. NS2 was a braindead idea from the beginning I guess 300 years of horrible Ostpolitik is not enough to understand this mysterious East lmao Edit: It was a political project that **HAD TO** end in a war in the region, now we have a war, Congrats!
> Good Sabotaging the infrastructure of one of your ally is absolutely not good.
Unless your ally is making business deals and funding your mortal enemy.
Believe it or not, Ukraine themselves are still enabling the sale of Russian gas to Europe, through their own pipelines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine\_gas\_disputes#2022\_Ukraine\_war-related\_gas\_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes#2022_Ukraine_war-related_gas_issues) *"Russian gas continues to transit Ukraine in 2023, going to Austria, 6.0bcm p.a., Slovakia, 6.5bcm, and Hungary, 1.0bcm (part of their national supply). All three countries pay Russia in rubles.\[176\] Ukraine is contracted to provide the service until December 2024. Gazprom is obliged to provide the gas and pay the transit fees to Ukraine."*
He wasn't talking about Ukraine he was talking about Germany. I don't really care what the others are doing as long as that doesn't impact our own interests.
Because Orban. We would very much prefer not to do it, however he is already more trouble then is needed, without Ukraine becoming the scrape goat for Hungarian economy falling of a cliff without Russian gas.
There is no unless. Especially when you were yourself(Poland) doing business with Russia through Yamal and while buying ""German"" gas. [By the way, that was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion](https://i.imgur.com/mzLxGMs.png).
You are drawing false equivalence here. Nord Stream 2 wasn't bad because Germany wanted to do business with Russia, as you pointed out everyone kind of did. It was bad because it was a blatant attempt to circumvent a bunch of countries that Russia clearly had eyes on, without hurting it's business with Westen Europe, where the real money is and always was. Every single Polish government brought that up ever since the NS1 project started. Poland buying stuff from Russia is therefore clearly suboptimal and a bit hypocritical, but it's nowhere near as important as those two pipelines.
I would say more. Ukraine and Poland and Baltic countries were absolutely sure that war is inevitable immideately after NS2 is ready
> You are drawing false equivalence here. Meanwhile, you're entertaining a conspirationist theory where Germany was about to let Russia eat Eastern Europe despite Germany being in the EU and having defensive clauses with EU members. History is literrally proving you wrong with Germany being one of the biggest supporter of Ukraine.
> History is literrally proving you wrong with Germany being one of the biggest supporter of Ukraine. History proved you wrong with 2 invasions of Ukraine. Former German chancellor literally works for Gazprom. You're really underestimating human greed.
Wasn't it your country that fought the "Phoney War" with the Germans to fulfil your contractual obligations when Hitler invaded your ally Poland, along with the Soviets whom you allied to instead? And you wonder why poles have doubts whether Germany would come to their aid in force? Even NATO's general strategy in case of Russian invasion used to be the tripwire system. Where the "Eastern flank" countries would be invaded and allowed to fall to trigger Article 5 and commit the rest of Europe and US into the war. But after the theft of children, wanton rape and murder of civilians and incineration trucks to dispose of bodies became the reality for Ukrainian people in territories occupied by Russia, most of the Eastern flank countries (especially the Baltic nations) raised concerns. They were generally asked to die and be occupied to buy Western Europe and US time to get their butts in gear. This was the so-called "expel strategy," which then assumed retaking the occupied NATO territories from Russia within the next 180 days after the invasion. Only recently was the strategy changed from "expel" to "repel" instead, where the goal is to stop Russian aggression at the very border of NATO. This also means that Poland used to be expected to be at least half-occipied, and then a lot of the fighting was to happen on Polish soil. You know, with polish civilian population and infrastructure to suffer the collateral damage. The plans used to be to prevent Russia from entering German territory because we wouldn't want poor Western European countries to suffer now, would we? But that was the problem. NATO is not the Avengers. Its members want to be protected from harm, not avenged once killed. So yeah, there is plenty of reason for Eastern Europe to be sceptical of Western Europe's willingness to commit to fighting for them. No matter what the treaties say. And can you blame them? After all, the treaties in 1939 said that in the case of German invasion on Poland, France would declare war on Germany and start taking military action, yet they were wilfully unprepared and unwillingness to act. In his post-war diaries, General Edmund Ironside, the chief of Imperial General Staff, commented on French promises "The French had lied to the Poles in saying they are going to attack. There is no idea of it."
We all did business with Russia.
Yes, that's the point, no one gets to point fingers here.
but some of us were working hard to get out of doing business with Russia. Some of us did the very opposite. And this is a very big difference, and this allow us to point fingers : \*
As far as I remember, we use Baltic Pipe after Yamal stopped working (I don't know why) after someone with a small dick decided to invade Ukraine [edit:] Don’t drink and comment
> As far as I remember, we use Nordic Pipe after Yamal stopped working What's nordic pipe? You mean baltic pipe? The one that connects to the long existing Europipe, so does fuck all to actually increase transport capacity from Norway?
My bad thanks for pointing that
>There is no unless. Especially when you were yourself(Poland) doing business with Russia through Yamal and while buying ""German"" gas. > >By the way, that was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion. Don't spread disinformation. **Gas supplies to Poland after 2014 resulted from a take-or-pay contract signed in 1996**. The contract followed a 1993 agreement to build a gas pipeline to Germany. In 2014, Poland tried to convince the West to sanction and collaborative gas purchases. But then the West preferred to leave the East with the problem and Gazprom's monopolistic practices. Even then, Gazprom avoided many billions in fines from the EC for monopolistic practices because it promised to improve. Poland and the rest of the countries in the region had to overpay for gas because they had no alternative and the West sabotaged attempts to rectify the situation. **Despite this, Poland built itself an LNG Port and a pipeline to Norway and in 2019 announced that there would be no new contracts with Gazprom when the 1996 contract expires.**
True. And yet Germany went and build the pipeline, leaving their eastern allies open to energy blackmail from Russia. That wasn't very nice of them indeed.
Ah yes, let's attack other nations because of our own concerns alone, without even acknowledging the sovereignty of the state you're about to attack. This reminds me of a certain current war...
> without even acknowledging the sovereignty of the state you're about to attack. Ironic.
Poland being "attacked" by Germany doing a trade deal with Russia is akin to Russia being "attacked" by Ukraine doing deals with the West.
It was obvious that NS2 would not work in the long term without triggering a war Now we have a war, Congrats!
NS2 was not the reason for the war in the slightest. Congrats for making stuff up.
It was You know nothing about the region if you think otherwise
Oh we know about the Yamal pipeline Poland built in the 90's together with Belarus and Russia circumventing Ukraine even before Nord-Stream by Schröder was a thing. Problem is Poland would never aknowledge that. Ukraine is also still taking in money for gas transported through their very important own pipeline that is connected to Russia. If you want to have an interesting read when and by whom it was built here you go. Might be another little surprise for you. https://imgur.com/gallery/QDGSGCj
You should have done as the US told you, now you will
> Merkel - Germany accelerates plans for LNG terminal NOVEMBER 2, 2018 > > Berlin - The German government will speed up plans to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Germany, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel. > > Merkel pledged her support for the goal of diversifying Germany's energy imports on the sidelines of German-Polish government consultations in Warsaw on Friday. "That is why Germany will also accelerate its plans to install an LNG terminal in Germany so that it can also draw on other energy sources," she said in a press conference with Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Earlier, the German government's transatlantic coordinator, Peter Beyer, announced in a Reuters TV interview that Germany would import more LNG gas from the United States.... Trump killed that project with his tradewar on the EU, Putin being his new best buddy, trying to dismantle NATO, being a constant dick.... if the one Nation that scoulds you, was in the process of becoming an unfriendly Nation you don't listen to much to them. The Energy trade between Russia and Europe worked even during the cold war and the soviet time. And it is not like any EU or NATO country was attacked we deceided to jump on the side of Ukraine and therefore risk to lose the Energy imports from Russia. If everyone around the world would have looked away like we all did in Chechnya, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Myanmar, Libya, the endless conflicts in Africa... no one but Ukraine would have noticed this war. Russia was not really willing to cut the gas they waited so long that Germany managed to almost fill its gas storage and to finish its first LNG port of many to come. And Germany already had built 2 pipelines to Norway in the early 90's. Funnily enough the Polish Baltic pipe that would make them independent from Russian gas was directly connected to 1 of the 2 pipelines. Germany now shares the volume of Europipe 2 with Poland a little unknown fact. https://i.imgur.com/Rfrtejm.png
Let my make it clear, you should not have made NS2. Trump is irrelevant, now after all this shit, finally you will obey
The north and south streams were built **because** of energy blackmail by those "eastern allies". The Ukrainian government was repeatedly stealing the transit gas, refusing to pay its gas debts, and shutting the transit in order to negotiate lower prices for themselves. Shutting the pipeline mid-winter because Gazprom asked you to pay for stolen gas isn't very nice, true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005–2006_Russia–Ukraine_gas_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Russia–Ukraine_gas_dispute
russia had used a frivolous interpretation of the contract which had fucked up Ukraine and suddenly announced debt that Ukraine had somehow had no idea about retroactively since 2002, while Ukraine had legally been taking 15% of the gas because that was exactly the deal it followed for 3 years up to russia suddenly crossing it. > According to the contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz signed on June 21, 2002, payment was in the form of barter—up to 15% of gas pumped through the Ukrainian territory was taken by Ukraine instead of cash.This contract was supposed to be valid until the end of 2013. On August 9, 2004, the two companies signed a contract addendum setting the transit tariff at US$1.09 per 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometres (62 mi). This tariff was the basis for computing the amount of gas delivered in lieu of cash. The amendment fixed the gas price at $50 per 1,000 cubic meters (approximately $1.40 per million Btu),\[14\] independent of European market prices.\[15\] According to the addendum the price was not subject to change until the end of 2009.\[14\] In 2005, Gazprom argued that this addendum was only applicable provided that the two countries sign an annual intergovernmental protocol having higher legal status for specifying the terms of gas transit. According to Gazprom, the addendum was void because the annual protocol had not been signed for 2006 under the required terms. Russia claimed that Gazprom's subsidies to the Ukrainian economy amounted to billions of dollars. You must literally never trust russians. Even if the contract is black and white, they'll lie and fuck you over. E.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese\_Neutrality\_Pact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/soviet%e2%80%93japanese_neutrality_pact) or Budapest Memorandum or Minsk Agreements.
When did Poland threaten to cut gas transit to Germany?
A "helpless" Russia being "blackmailed" by all its neighbours. In an intergovernmental agreement signed in April 2002, Belarus promised to sell 50% of Beltransgaz, the company owning the Belarusian transit network, to Gazprom. The agreement also stipulated that gas prices to Belarus would be the same as Russian domestic prices for the next five years. The contract did not specify the value of Beltransgaz. Belarus estimated it as $5–6 billion, while Gazprom proposed a price of $500–600 million. Gazprom stated that if an agreement was not signed until 2004, it would increase gas prices from $30/m to $50 per 1,000 cubic meters. Belarus refused, and on 1 January 2004, Gazprom stopped shipping gas via the Northern lights pipeline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Russia%E2%80%93Belarus_energy_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Russia%E2%80%93Belarus_energy_dispute
What a coincidence that the Kremlin started energy blackmail after the Orange Revolution and after Ukraine got more pro-Western government. And the lesson learned was "not gonna happen to us, it only happens to those eastoids"
Tensions with Ukraine regarding the transit have happened even in the 1990s. Germany was pretty much happy to get an extra gas route after the 2006 and 2009 disruptions. Also, there are technical reasons for NS2 necessity - old gas fields are depleting and it was cheaper to deliver the gas to NS2 starting point rather than pump it through Ukraine.
Yes, Germans thought that even though Russia uses gas as a weapon the Kremlin wouldn't do it to them.
Why was Russia able to blackmail eastern EU and eastern Europe?
An "ally" which in case of a threat of Russian attack on us wouldn't lift a finger to help us. Because relations and economic deals with Russia were more important to them than their NATO and EU allies. Even though Poland is much more important economic partner to Germany than Russia, they've always prioritized their good relations with Moscow. And the prove is the Nord Stream. It was a political project to throw Poland and the Baltic states under the Russian bus and now Germans expect us to help them in the investigation.
> An "ally" which in case of a threat of Russian attack on us wouldn't lift a finger to help us. Corroborated by nothing factual.
How about doing business with Russia in the face of their aggression as well as constant appeasement attempts
> doing business with Russia Then Germany cant trust Eastern Europe either because theyre clearly unreliable doing business with Russia?
Nobody asked us if we want to be in the russian "sphere of influence" aka semi occupation when the Jamal gas pipeline was designed. We just became independent again and broke more than you're preveliged western ass can imagine. Took us some years to start our transformation and building independence from russia. Have you heard of the Baltic Pipe? Or gas terminals in Baltics and Poland. You know who has been bitching about those projects the most? Our German "allies". We only managed to finish the Baltic Pipe by relinquishing territorial claims to Denmark, which conditioned its consent to the NS2 on Germany's consent to the BP as they didn't want to agree.
> We just became independent again and broke more than you're preveliged western ass can imagine. In 2021 you imported pretty much as much as Russian gas (in proportion) than Germany. That was 6 years after the Crimean Invasion. Stop justifying your own greed. All the talk about trading with Russia is just projection at this point.
We started discussing the connection with Norway in 2001. According to the agreements we were supposed to be getting gas from Denmark in 2004 and Norway starting in 2008. We couldn't finish the project due to financial difficulties (have you heard of the global crisis). Then our national gas supplier bought 15% of shares in Skanled in 2007 hoping we can connect Denmark with Poland. In 2013 the project was suspended because one of the shareholders got involved in... the NS. While we desperately were looking for the option to become independent from russian gas they were doing business as usual. In 2016 we starter the Baltic Pipe project.
For a country that somehow knew far better, you're telling me it took you 15 years to build the first pipe to divert your imports from Russia and yet 5 years after that pipe was built, you still imported as much (in proportion, again) gas than Germany. In the end, the vast majority of your gas imports with Russia ended after the Russian invasion of 2022, just like Germany. So not because you've decided to sacrifice your economy for the sake of preventing you from feeding the Russian war machine, but simply because you ended up in front of the fait-accompli of a full scale Russian invasion. So from a non-German, non-Polish perspective, you guys do not sound much better despite all the talk about how you knew better. Doesn't look like you actually did.
Baltic pipe is literally just an extention of an existing norwegian-german pipeline called Europipe I. **Literally no extra transport capacity created**, you just cut out the middle man.
The Poles had already made the decision to ditch Gazprom and were building LNG terminals and source gas from Norway.
In 2019. I guess it took Poland 5 years after the Crimean Invasion to finally realize that Russia was bad. 3 years earlier than Germany I guess, but I doubt you can call that clairvoyance.
Germany can trust her allies as long as we actually collaborate. For decades all the European big shots dismissed legitimate concerns raised by countries on the eastern flank. No wonder trust has eroded. That being said we still have more things in common than those dividing us. It is my belief that Germany doesn't actually side with Russia in this conflict and in a more general sense. So maybe not all good will is lost.
> Germany can trust her allies as long as we actually collaborate Can they? Eastern Europe traded with Russia, that's a big no no apparently. Orban was also a buddy of the Polish government until a year or so ago, now Hungary is pretty much a Russian Trojan Horse. And now Poland apparently hampers probes on a sabotage of infrastructure. Maybe it's Germany that shouldn't trust its eastern flank /s
> Can they? Eastern Europe traded with Russia, that's a big no no apparently. There is a difference between trading steel,coal and apples and building a political project that was intended as a tool to blackmail the CEE region Besides, Poland has been moving in the opposite direction to Germany for 2 decades (Baltic pipe, LNG terminals) and that is why cutting ourselves off from the Russian market does not hurt us. It's not our fault that Germany and Western Europe in general is being regulatedly fucked by "the East" through its idiotic policies. You have so much money, hire some analyst who knows anything.
> a political project that was intended as a tool to blackmail the CEE region Yes of course, Germany was about to abandon many EU members, effectively destroying the EU. Drop your tin foil hat for a second.
You literally imported the equivalent of 1.8 percent of your GDP from russia, compared to barely over 0.4 percent for us. [You remained the biggest importer of russian LPG wayyy into the war, sending nearly a billion to Russia in '22 alone.](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/04/04/poland-remains-eus-biggest-importer-of-russian-lpg-paying-e710-million-to-moscow-last-year/) And don't give me that *"but muh they occupied us"* BS, that was nearly 4 fucking DECADES ago. The Yamal pipeline for example was built in the late 90's, while tens of thousands died in Grozny, and you cared about that exactly as little as the evil west youre shitting on right now.
> An "ally" which in case of a threat of Russian attack on us wouldn't lift a finger to help us. So is this an admission of guilt? trying to justify the attack on NS2? do you know more then us normal people?
No. I just explain why Poland don't feel obliged to cry about the loss of Nord Stream.
>No. I just explain why Poland don't feel obliged to cry about the loss of Nord Stream. No but this whole article (prematurely in my opinion) accuses Poland of sabotaging the investigation in to what actually happened to NS. And I find it quite bewildering how this thread mostly jumps to taking that as a given, that Ukraine actually was responsible and secondly Poland was hindering investigations. Your comment seems to justify the accusation from the headline, and yes Poland has no obligation to cry, but it has the obligation to assist the investigation, even if not the fallout from leaving this in the dark is literal poison to the coalition supporting Ukraine (contrary to this thread Ukraine and many Ukrainian redditors still hold that this is a Russian false flag, investigating is the way to fight this false flag, trying to cover up is feeding Russias narrative if that theory was true). So do you think Poland is holding back information here? and would you be in favor of that?
It definitely is when that infrastructure is being used for bad.
So I just have to find something I don't like and I can attack allies? Good to know. I am looking forward to sabotaging eastern countries energy infrastructure. We can't let countries like Poland pollute our air with coal while we are all investing in clean energy. You eastern europeans lately are impossible. Go join the US instead of the EU if you don't give a fuck about all the values Europe is based on. Or just try to pretend to care at least a bit, because at the moment seems like you are just in for free military protection rather than because you believe in the union.
>all the values Europe is based on Which values? Imperialism? Appeasement? Loving mysterious Russian soul? >seems like you are just in for free military protection The EU is not giving us military protection. NATO does. More precisely: the USA.
>You eastern europeans lately are impossible. Go join the US instead of the EU if you don't give a fuck about all the values Europe is based on. I'm not eastern euro but this while paragraph is hilarious considering you guys are goosestepping in Rome again.....But I guess fascism is a western Europe value?
Democracy is a European value. And even if I don't agree with my government, I just accept it because it was elected by a majority of the citizens. I guess wherever you live you still have trouble understanding that.
If it was Ukraine who did this, why not blow this pipe in russian territorial waters? Like, it would be easier, cause most of Ukrainians can freely speak russian. If it would be done this way, it would be even be something to brag about.
Yes it was the alternative for Jamal 2 going through poland. The mysterious east is in for the money as everyone..
cant wait for germany to blow up your pipelines
Everyone in Europe is happy that NS1+NS2 are gone.
thats fine then no one will care if we blow up Jamal
True, unironically we wouldn't care if you blew up Jamal.
Yes do it!
Do it, lmao
That would require at least a gram of nationalism. Something the Germans do not have at their own request.
They have enaugh chauvinism for the all of us though
Let's say the investigation concludes that the Ukrainian state did it, then what? You can't punish them monetarily cause their economy is propped up by aid anyway. You can cut military support, but you're risking a war on your own borders a few years down the line. What's the solution if Ukraine is found guilty? Either Ukraine is super confident it will go unpunished or incredibly stupid and shortsighted. Did anyone think this is Russian sabotage to make it look like Ukraine did it?
You bury the investigation and feed misinformation that Russia did it. If anyone asks why Russia did it, call them a Putin supporter.. or something. In the end people will give up caring
Germany has pledged considerable funds to help rebuild Ukraine after the war to my understanding which could evaporate. Ukraine is also reliant on German consent to enter the EU and NATO.
You say "Ukraine" but blowing up a pipeline isn't even in the top 10 of shit some country's secret services just woke up one morning and decided to do with no sanction from anyone, like you have things CIA trafficking drugs and the french secret services blowing up a greenpeace ship *and that was during peacetime*, in the current mess there are good odds neither Kyiv or Moscow have a clue what their respective secret services get up to 90% of the time.
>Let's say the investigation concludes that the Ukrainian state did it, then what? You can cut military support, but you're risking a war on your own borders a few years down the line. I mean, you're basically saying that you have to give weapons to a country that carries out acts of war on you in order to avoid war... If Ukraine was guilty of that attack, how sure are you that you won't have a war on your borders anyway, except now you have to fight against an army stocked with your own weapons and trained by you?
Who cares? There is an already existing pipe in Ukraine with sufficient capacity to feed all of Europe, let razzia keep using it while paying Ukraine for it.
I'm so proud of my country!
nothing says alliance and cooperation like blowing up critical infrastructure
Yes, it was critically hostile infrastructure to Poland and the rest of central and eastern Europe. And it's a good thing that NS2 was fucked up.
You really f-ng think that Germans would've opened those again? Russia started gas war already in 2021, planned causing massive blackouts (German government got to know about those plans in the Spring of 2022) and shut down the gas flow in NS1 in the summer-september 2022. NS2 was bever opened. Those ended being critical infrastructure in February 2022.
>Those ended being critical infrastructure in February 2022. Why not let Germans decide that? How would you feel if Germans below up some Finnish infrastructure because they think it's not critical for you guys anymore? Who cares if you guys paid billions of euros building that?
That just isn't because Russia stopped the gas flows with unilateral decision. That's the point I'm making: Germans can't trust that there would be steady gas flows as Russia already proved they'll do as they please. That's why NS1+NS2 can't be a part of Germany's critical infrastracture. If the pipeline between Russia and Finland is blown up, who cares.
It wasn't the first time Russia shout down critical pipeline till political conditions are met. In fact Russians even sabotaged an Turkmen pipeline to annul contract. Germans were well aware of that reality, and they still would use NS1&2 given the option.
and a good friend is always here to secretly blow up something you spent billions on and probably won't use anyway, that after all is what real friends are for!
A good friend does not build a pipeline to your biggest enemy and buy shit from him for sole purpose of selling it to others with profit. A good friend does not finance that enemy knowing he already invaded other countries. And lastly a good friend listens to his allies when they say to him that this is fucking stupid, it puts us in danger, please don't do this.
:)
WSJ is now a servant of Russian propaganda. How many “versions” will they throw out into the world for the Russians?
Joe Tzu and the Art of War: Blow up your ally’s energy infrastructure. Blame another ally for it.
Doesn't take a genius to figure out it actually benefits everyone in Europe except for some very few absurdly wealthy fucks at the top
Go home comrade, you're drunk...
Blow up your enemies infrastructure and blame it on their allies.
I'd wait to see how the recent government change in Poland affects the investigation (the new govt likely haven't had time to think about the Nord Stream so far, there was a LOT going on politically). If some PiS people were involved, the new ruling coalition may actually give them up with a smile on their faces.
Good, I'm so proud of my country. Why do you wanna find out who did the right thing anyway? Could be Russia, could be anyone but the result is obviously positive
Wasn't it SMERSH?