For opportunity, consider that while setting up the pipeline needs a weird high-pressure residence and special training, blowing it up takes a fishing boat, scuba gear and underwater explosives. The equipment and training is cheap and available. So, those with opportunity is almost anyone. Practically, anyone with access to the Baltic Sea, boats, scuba equipment, underwater explosives; it doesn't have even to be anyone with military training, just skills in underwater demolition.
For motivation, consider who benefits from permanently reducing European dependence on Russian energy?
Resist going for "Clearly, Russia!". Just spitballing here, but why not a German opposition group? Norway? Poland? Any activist group opposed to EU dependence on Russia? Shit, why not Danish anarchists, for that matter?
It could be Russia who suddenly decided for some reason that sanctions will never end and blowing up the means of selling hundreds of billions of euros of energy to Europe is a better use of the pipeline. But before getting there, you have to explain why it wasn't any of the myriad other groups who did not have hundreds of billions of Euros riding on it.
The #1 reason I'm still leaning Russia nevertheless is because of an outside factor: Russia isn't screaming bloody murder about it.
If 3/4th of their pipelines had gone up and nobody in the Russian government was involved, Lavrov would already be on a plane to NYC and calling for an emergency UNSC meeting about a terrorist UK/USA attack against Russia's assets.
So far, the most they have produced seems to be a mealy-mouthed question on Zakharova's Telegram channel [0]. Given the Russian Foreign Ministry's modus operandi of blaming the West for anything and everything at the slightest excuse, this sudden quiet is extremely significant.
Russians screaming bloody murder => see? Russians are the ones who did it.
Russians aren't screaming bloody murder => see? Russians are the ones who did it.
If a Canadian pipe was blown up, the headlines would be different.
But I guess that kind of propaganda generation is semi-uncontrollable and just happens, with whatever seems to work bubbling up as successful (literal) memes replicating.
And there's probably similar people throwing stuff against the wall about why it was Russia until they find something with enough versimilitude that it sticks in the mind.
It also made me revisit the recent book "how to blow up a pipeline" as I had the same question when I heard that title. How can you justify the short term ecological damage against the long term. I assume it's possible, I just hadn't read an in depth argument on it. Interesting to read it and see if the author has been asked to comment yet.
edit, seems they have a film out, so now publicity stunt is a plausible theory:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/09/26/how-to-blow-up-a-p...
We are talking about cold water diving, at hypoxic gas depths, with usually low visibility. The dive would require several hours of decompression in the middle of a shipping lane. The density of the gas mean you can't even do mild exertion without severe risks of not returning to the surface alive. The explosions also occurred within a very short time frame (an hour if I recall) with a fairly large distance between, so you need multiple coordinated teams. And last, the weather conditions would need to be fairly specific in term of wind at those locations.
I would say its a bit like looking towards the amateur rocket community in order to explain a construct on the moon.
- The timing of the explosions doesn't require "multiple coordinated teams." It requires timers. Or, as is common with naval mines, an acoustic arming/triggering signal.
- Commercial diving happens several times deeper than 80m. Hundreds of meters, in fact.
- Saturation diving techniques mean a crew could be brought to the working depth inside the ship's chamber, transferred to a diving bell, dropped down to the pipeline, do their work, go back into the bell, be brought up into the ship, transferred into the ship's decompression chamber, and decompress.
- You're assuming such an operation would be based from the surface. If a nation-state was involved, who says they arrived or departed by surface ship? The Jimmy Carter is for exactly this sort of stuff. It was practically a sport for the USSR and US to tap undersea communications cables. We had the capability to do that without being undetected (including from systems that are designed to detect faults and tampering, but also deal with the cable armoring, as well as avoid very high voltages used to power in-line amplifiers) more than fifty years ago...but you think slapping some explosives on the side of a pipe is technically challenging to a nation-state, or even a commercial diving company that does oilfield work?
- You assume that explosives were planted by divers, and not, say, a submersible (see: Jimmy Carter) or ROV. In fact, you're assuming explosives were planted, and someone didn't use a smart torpedo of some sort.
One thing, though: I agree with others that it seems unlikely Russia would do this to themselves when, you know, they can just not supply gas into the pipeline.
One possibility: after Russia threatened using nuclear devices, both pipelines were blown up was either done to send a message - or as direct punishment for the fairly unprecedented threat to use nuclear weapons.
It also has the side effect of taking any 'heat' off EU politicians to cave if energy prices soar and/or if people freeze in their homes. Russian gas is for the moment very much off the table. If those pipelines can be repaired, it won't happen overnight, or cheaply.
By the way - Baltic Sea is not an ocean.
Russia - doing it to try and place blame on US due to Biden comments in order to sow discord amongst NATO.
Poland - they have been really vocal against NS2, they have economic and political interests aligned with its destruction, they are right there .... and my buddy who works on Polish coast said that all the gas to make trimix in that area was bought up / consumed recently. He's a diver, thought it was weird as these are common gases but assumed it was because Ukraine war. Might not be related by the way.. If I was an invrstigative reporter I'd call all the gas supply / blending / diving companies in Poland and see what their oxygen, helium, and nitrogen stock looks like.
US - always possible that US and partners just said "this makes most sense to do this. It's a win worth it". Although honestly, I don't think the current admin has the cojones to do something like this. At least not without all of NATO involved. It's too brazen.
- colonel mustard with the candlestick. Somebody else
I'm rooting for the Danish anarchists. You basically just need underwater explosives and a boat. You hang the explosives on a long rope, throw it over board like an anchor, and drag it into the pipeline. When you hit the pipeline, you detonate the explosives.
I think that already happened in at least one other instance. [0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...
That's genius. The detonator would not have to be very sophisticated to magnetically detect the steel in the pipeline.
"The gas pipes are made of 4.1 cm thick steel, which is protected by an 11 cm thick reinforced concrete shell"
https://yle.fi/uutiset/74-20000414 (in Finnish)
Plus, motivations are wrong. The US catastrophically ends European energy dependence on Russia so that... it can compete with the Middle East and Russia and Canada on a more equal footing? Yeah, no. The US is not that desperate for cash.
The destruction of the pipeline happens simultaneous as Russia is in a direct conflict with Ukraine/Europe and is constantly flying drones at Norwegian oil platforms.
More likely the opposite. With the pipeline intact, German opposition could tell voters they will turn that gas on, something the present German government isn't willing to do. Now they can't, so the German opposition has less to offer.
The straits between the coasts of the southern Baltic sea are one of the most closely guarded waters in the world. There are at least 5 different nations (dk, se, de, pl, ru) coast guard assets with eyes on the region.
There is primary radar, secondary radar, seabed hydrophone arrays, surface vessels, submarines and airborne surveillance and satellites with eyes and ears on this region. And the surveillance has been increased a lot during this year.
Unless someone gets caught within a week, it's safe to assume that this sabotage was conducted by nation state level actors.
Even assuming all of these nations record the real-time location of every fishing boat, dinghy, yacht and tug-boat; and can play it back and analyze all of the data; and thereby backtrack to port of entry; and then crew; and then investigate all of the false positives within days. Implausible, but ok, assuming.
But they can find no one, or all the trails run cold. Your next go-to idea for the failure would be Russia or the US?
Come on. Aren't there other plausible reasons?
That said it is well within any Baltic state's or NATO country's "easy zone".
It would be very visible on an average sonar. (An average sonar is $500 or so.)
If you want to do it undetected you need to do it completely underwater, including ingress and egress, and that absolutely limits the potential actors.
US, UK, Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Germany (deep state), any nation betting on strategic LNG sales.
Or maybe it was Dr. No.
Realistically, it would have to have been a military operation. Causing explosions in the middle of the sea is rather difficult. And probably near impossible for your average terrorist group.
Personally, I suspect it's the US. It does have the earmarks of a Russia operation tho. It's just deniable in a weird way while they still get the credit for it.
However, what does Russia gain by reducing the dependency on Russian gas? Before they were trying to get Germany to open up Nordstream 2 since it's complete but now that's not possible. Gas prices go up but if you're ability to sell gas is limited that doesn't help much.
On the otherside are the US, who are well known for operating shady secret missions to affect geo politics in their favour. The fact it happened on the day another gas pipeline opens would make it seem like it's possible that someone wanted the other gas pipeline to become more popular and used instead.
PD: Also, we can try to not tarnish more the anarchists. Probably they would be the last guys to try to blow it .
Combine that with the US naval activity in the exact area around the time, and also the "anti"-mine "drills" they did there earlier this year.
The US knows that none of their vassals will ever openly accuse them, and for the Western media it was Russia anyways. So far it seems only that Polish MEP said outright that he thinks it was them, and cheered it on.
I think the much more likely explanation is that this was Russia or at least a faction within Russia. They are the actor that has already started a war in this area, has shown completely disregard for treaties and international law, and has been known to act irrationally (eg. by starting the war in the first place).
In particular the sentence "There's no way to know, but any explanation here requires someone to make a stupid strategic choice" and the depressing sentence after it.
I, personally, me, Rendall, think it'd be pretty good for Europe to get off the Russian tit and I know I'm not the only one. If I had an extra half-million burning a hole in my pocket and a ruthless, reckless nature, I just might spend that money to blow the Nord Streams and happily let Russia take the fall. Sure, Europeans would suffer through a cold winter, but Putin and the FSB sure as hell would be unsettled, and the Russians have now lost their leverage over Germany and Europe.
Ive been wondering why attacks on such a infrastructure is not more common - those pipes, internet cables, etc?
There have been “suspicious” accidental cable breaks, however.
I think also the way it was done. Attacks on two pipes for maximum effect and apparently large leaks.
Anyone except Russia would have an incentive to make an attack look small and boring, perhaps like a defect.
Official statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
> As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.
Interview quotes:
> "If Russia invades... again, then there will be longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." > When asked how he would do that, he responded, "I promise you we will be able to do it."
Dunno if they intended to "stop" Nord Stream 1 as well, but even with Russia messing with it and frequently stopping it, it was still a huge source of income for Russia thanks to exorbitant gas prices.
Now this is pure theory / speculation on my part, but, now that Europe has filled up their gas storage and has rapidly built new coastline LNG plants to accept shipments of LNG from the US, their dependence on Russian gas has dropped fast.
I can see some motivations why the US would have an interest in cutting it off. One, force stop the flow of money to Russia. I mean they could have used political means or financial incentives too, so it seems weird they would bomb infrastructure of their allies in their allies' national waters instead.
But two is to increase European dependence on American LNG shipments, which are currently highly profitable. I'm sure we'll see a big correction in gas prices this winter, depending on the weather, Nord Stream 1/2 or no though. Nothing as sustainable as the decades of Russian gas flowing into Europe.
Who stands to benefit from permanently ending European dependence on Russian fuel?
Norway? To conclude Norway (it's not Norway, but for example), one can simply point at the loss of a competitor. No weird 4D chess, no weird contorted motives. Direct, simple.
To conclude a German opposition group, one can simply point at the effect of the loss of the pipelines. Scholz government cannot heat Germans this winter, opposition gets to criticize the sitting government for over-reliance on Russia and such fragile infrastructure. Opposition wins the election. No weird 4D chess, no weird contorted motives. Direct, simple.
To conclude any one of the Baltic States (or Poland), one can simply point at the effect of the end of European dependence on Russian energy. It removes the most persistent barrier to implementing harsher sanctions, and a weaker Russia is less likely to invade them for a generation or two. No weird 4D chess, no weird contorted motives. Direct, simple.
Poland, for its part, has the added lucrative benefit of being the sole endpoint of the sole working trans-Baltic pipeline. No weird 4D chess, no weird contorted motives. Direct, simple.
To conclude anyone at all who support Ukraine, one can simply point that it weakens Russia's war effort, hastening an end to the war and making Russia more vulnerable to sanctions. No weird 4D chess, no weird contorted motives. Direct, simple.
To conclude Russia or Putin, one must explain how losing potential access to hundreds of billions of Euros benefits Russia or Putin. (Hint: it doesn't). Requires weird 4D chess, weird contorted motives. Not direct. Not simple.
1) Priors. Russia loves their clandestine operations to kill somebody or blow stuff up in europe. Be it weapons depots in Czechia or bulgaria, poisoning opponents with radioactive materials or nerve agents your various russian intelligence agencies are there for you. This happened recently, not some cold war stuff.
2.) You are forgetting to include the possible downsides for getting caught in your analysis.
* Russia: Basically none. They blew up their own pipelines. Strange, but they have done stranger things. They will deny it anyway and nothing would come of it.
* USA: Massive. The whole alliance against Russia would crumble over winter and Russia would have a much easier time evading sanctions. Anti US sentiment in europe would go through the roof.
Yes, it could have been Poland or the Baltics but 2:1 my money would be on Russia to sow discord, fear and distrust. Just think how fast that Biden statement was presented as proof for US involvement. Russia right now needs to try and reduce financial and arms aid to Ukraine, any economic considerations are probably secondary. Not saying that would be a good strategy, but that hasnt prevented Russia in the past.
The only conceivable motivation I can come up with for Russia would be a 4D-chess false-flag. If they were to already assume that there's no way the EU will give in to the gas blackmail this winter, blowing up the pipeline and sowing doubt on the US or Ukraine itself being behind it could be a way to divide support for Ukraine. However, it would be an extremely risky and expensive bet with no guarantee of it working.
Of course it does - Poland is entirely relying on the Norway to Poland gas pipeline, if that goes then a country of 50 million people has no gas this winter. Blowing up the Nordstream was(to me) a clear signal that EU needs to be careful or the Norwegian pipelines are going up next.
Like it makes no sense for them to invade with the state of their army, shell a nuclear power plant, dig trenches in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, waste rockets on civilian targets? Why are you assuming Russia to be a rational actor?
Damaging one pipe of NS2 makes it seem less obvious.
Why treat "Russia" as a unitary actor? By doing this, Putin takes away a major reason for deposing him - whoever takes over is not going to get those sweet, sweet Euro millions in return for stopping the invasion and withdrawing. It's a game-theoretic commitment device, on this view.
Likewise it's a mistake to treat Poland as unitary. It's likely that at least some people in Poland would like the West to commit to defending Ukraine, because if Ukraine falls, Poland suddenly borders the Russian empire. There is history between Poland and Russia.
And there are a bunch of Ukrainian refugees in Poland...they would also like the West to continue their support for Ukraine.
> Shit, why not Danish anarchists, for that matter?
Or Danish wind turbine manufacturers who want to force commitment to renewables?
Poland already has a border with Russia. But yes, we would very much prefer not to make it an even bigger one.
I mean, sure. I know you're being sarcastic in order to dismiss the "Anyone but Russia" theory, but do cast the net more widely than Russia or the US.
Do you think that someone intending to depose Putin will now not do it because the Nord Streams are gone?
Ya'll are really stretching. Sorry, but, consider who benefits directly from ending European dependence on Russian energy? If your first thought is "Russia" you... I just... don't know what to tell you.
I remember just before the war I would bid everything that Russia would in no way start the war. It just didn't make any rational sense. Who in sound mind would think to do it knowing that all the West [might/would] unite against you.
However rationality is being lost in personal agendas and Mafioso thinking of some sorts.
Now we see that after any Russian loss, be it a warship or loss of territory Russia responds with some pity attack against civilians. For example wasting expensive missiles to blow out a few floors of some high rise residential building. It is just hard to understand by rational western thinking.
However growing up in post-soviet country this kind of thinking is prominent amongst post-soviet mafias and similar sorts of groups - "if I can't have it nobody will". It is some kind of childish, failure to launch thing. "If I lost football match I will destroy the ball and that will show everybody". People grow out of it, thugs become thugs exactly for this reason - failure to grow up, lack of empathy because of family problems and etc.
Moreover you can see this in all the Russian army from the very top to the very bottom. What self respecting army would terrorize civilians after any push back. "We are retreating but we will put grenades under every pillow in every house in this village. That will show them". If this kind of thinking is prominent among all the population, all the army and etc. it starts to make more sense.
A simple "If we can't profit out of it we will blow it up and then you will know" starts to make sense.
Then you have "we can frame this on USA/Ukraine" because everybody knows "it is not in our interest".
Then you have Putin's interest - pipeline can become very profitable thing for the oligarch who gets rid of Putin and makes peace with the West. So it becomes a personal danger to Putin.
So it really could be Russia being Russia and Russian elite trying to "stay relevant" by their own (what west would call) crazy thinking.
People clearly do not treat Russia as a rational actor, given that everyone seems to assume Russia permanently ends European dependency on its fuel by blowing up their own equipment in NATO territory is the primary actual real go-to theory to be taken seriously.
I'm not trying to dismiss your speculations about mafioso-style thinking. I mean, assuming all of that is true, you still have only that to rely on versus Who benefits directly, materially and immediately by ending European dependence on Russian oil?
Your arguments are valid but what baffles me in this topic is why folks try so hard to find completely rational explanations for russian actions now. People with hurt egos do stupid things all the time. Look at the clusterf*k that is Ukraine, how they keep doing stupid things that hurt them on and on.
They don't have the infrastructure for that, and if they stop extraction it will be complicated and expensive to restart it later. So they're just burning it:
Why not consider those first, in turn?
https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/byford-d...
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-a-saturation-d...
The catch was the pressure of the environment, needing to be physically in peak shape (my uncle was an anomaly in lasting in the job until his late 40s), and the danger as he had several colleagues die on the job (worst I heard was due to the operators giving the wrong gas mix to the chamber). My uncle also definitely is a crazy man with a few screws loose, so that part checks out
> Saturation divers make up to $45,000 – $90,000 per month and over $500,000 annually. They receive “depth pay” which typically pays out an additional $1 – $4 per foot. Usually, it’s $1 per foot up to 100 feet, then it raises up to $2 per foot after that. Income is dependent upon the length and depth of their project plus tenure of the diver.
As it points out, it takes years of experience to get to this point.
> Many go into the commercial diving field with a money mindset, but no one earns a “quick buck.” You have to work your way up the career ladder and take orders from senior divers and maritime business owners.
> Nord Stream developed a high environmently-conscious logistic concept which guarantees that transport vessels have not to travel more than 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers). [...] This concept of short trips and environmentally friendly transport saves roughly 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide when compared against other options and the use of existing concrete coating plants.
-- https://www.wermac.org/nordstream/nordstream_part4.html
For comparison, each of the two Nord Stream pipelines can (well, could) deliver enough natural gas to create more than 150,000 tons of CO2 emissions per day.
Though maybe you prefer everyone die of cold until we have a solution to transition out of natural gas without returning to coal or wait 10 years to build more nuclear.
This is a misrepresentation: natural gas is used for a variety of purposes, with industry and home use approximately tied, varying by EU country. Germany for example, uses more natural gas for industrial purposes than heating homes.
>Though maybe you prefer everyone die of cold until we have a solution to transition out of natural gas without returning to coal or wait 10 years to build more nuclear.
This kind of personal vitriol doesn't belong on Hacker News.
Maybe not closing nuclear would have been enough.
Cool technology though.
I don't know what GP meant specifically, but.
Rational energy policy would have assumed that Russia would turn off its gas at some point. Eastern European countries, though, particularly the Baltics, tried to warn other countries that Russia would leverage any energy dependence to assert dominance. As it has.
I believe that's the "this" meant here.
Meanwhile we inexplicably struggle to figure out clean/cheap energy at scale.
I'm hopeful that battery research keeps advancing the game (moving from lithium to sodium could lead to significant price cuts IIRC).
It's not enough to wean us but it is headed in the right direction. I think the end of the Russian NG pipelines is going to help accelerate this so it could ultimately be a very good thing (but brutal to start with).
Always look on the bright side of life, ta da, ta da da da dee da!
What struck me, was that a few of you seriously think about the US as a contender for this attack. Does anyone has an recent example of the US being that hostile to friend nations?
I don't consider this 'recent'.
What came to mind in the meantime is the "spying on friends" that was published by Snowden. But there wasn't some physical damage done which I think marks a different boundary.
This narative was a little too quick, too widespread and too concise if you ask me. A lot of new-ish accounts quickly posted this version on all different English social media but I've yet to see it on Dutch, Belgian or French social media.
It reeks if you ask me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Russia was pretending to have "technical problems" with those pipelines, and now it conveniently blows up? They are obligated by contract to supply us with gas until 2030. Breaking the contract may lead to financial penalties. Wouldn't it be convenient if those pipelines were to suddenly break for unknown reasons, so you don't have that problem?
You know what would release them from their obligations in the contract? An "act of god", that would make the pipelines unusable.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-gazprom-decl...
What are we doing?
Post-Civilization: Building civilization to keep the hunger at bay
An inert gas like Nitrogen or Argon is probably too expensive, natural gas might be too dangerous when welding is still necessary. Seawater is probably too dirty and aggressive.
And as a related question: Should the pipeline fill up with sea water completely (for example because of large scale damage and loss of pressure) is it possible to make the pipeline usable again?
And then those three sections are welded together using an "air-tight habitat" surrounding them.
From what I've heard salt water getting into the pipe could make it really difficult to repair, and it might have to be scrapped altogether.
1 Russia? 2 Germany? 3 Poland? 4 Ukraine? 5 China? 6 India? 7 USA
Who said back in Jan/Feb that they would stop NS 2?
1 Blinken? 2 Biden? 3 Nuland? 4 All of the above
Cui bono
