"The Russians did it" - source: "I think all Russians irrational and insane, therefore it makes sense".
Let's not forget that Nordstream 2 was requested by the Germans not the Russians. Yet the infrastructure belongs to Gazprom, which by the way isn't allowed to participate in the investigation. They lose leverage on Europe and they already had turned off the Gas tap anyway. It's not like anyone can force Russia to turn on the tap.
This makes absolutely no sense from a Russian perspective. The very fact that people can rationalize this by saying Russians are irrational evil monsters is not all that different from the Iraq war and quite frankly extremely disturbing.
And yes, while the person above rightly points out that the article is from 2021 the next half of the sentence hints at how this may still be some sort of proof for their behavior.
Here's Germans demonstrating to open NS2, which is now conveniently off the table[1]
They dramatically reduced the tap but the tap was still on at lower levels. Now it's almost nothing getting through.
It makes a weird sort of sense that Russia did it. It damages Russia enough that there is questions on if it was Russia. But Russia has more pipelines. They can use the fact they need to open up the one via Poland which they shut off because Poland refused to pay in Rubles as a way to get Poland to pay up with pressure from Germany. Germany kind of needs the pipeline working. With the higher gas prices they can substain selling 20% of their gas for 3-years.
While at the same time, I don't trust the US and I 100% they would do something and make it look like Russia did it to help build up tensions and get more countries to back Ukraine. The give Germany a warning of such attack, do it months later, then say "we told you so". This could help reduce Germany's reliance on Russia and give them less reasons to be so nice to Russia. And making it a more united NATO vs Russia.
Destroying the pipeline made perfect sense since otherwise Russian Gasprom would be required to pay a heavy fine for not delivering the minimal amount of gas stated in the contract. Sabotage that cannot be proved cancels that.
That's not really how the contract works. But I indulge you. Let's say ok you're right.
Who's going to fine them and how are you going to enforce those fines? They are cut off from the western financial system. The Biden administration induced a fake default which nobody takes seriously by not allowing the Russians to pay their creditors. The creditors are filing lawsuits against the US government.
Germany has nationalized Russian refineries, Russian gas storage, Russian Gazprom subsidiaries that had to be bailed out subsequently, because obviously the Russians weren't going to send more gas to a stolen subsidiary and the west froze 300 billion in foreign currency reserves.
What exactly were you going to do that you haven't done already and why do you think Russia would have cared?
No sorry, your reason makes absolutely no sense. There is not a single coherent thought in your fantasy.
> Who's going to fine them and how are you going to enforce those fines? They are cut off from the western financial system. The Biden administration induced a fake default which nobody takes seriously by not allowing the Russians to pay their creditors. The creditors are filing lawsuits against the US government.
From what I've seen, fines againist a supplier generally mean you pay them less later on. Germany would just pay the supplier less later and since there are multiple pipelines they will be supplies later.
And Russia isn't cut off exactly. Since half of Europe needs to be able to pay them. And Germany, for sure, still wants to pay them.
>This makes absolutely no sense from a Russian perspective.
But could make sense from Putin perspective, that bastard interests are not the same as the Russian people interests and I think it was proven without any doubt that Putin will do stupid shit so why would you give it a 0% chance that Putin did it? It will not affect his personal wealth, he can blame it on the evil Europe or US and he can reign his final days personally leading the war like a true mad dictator.
Let's not forget that Nordstream 2 was requested by the Germans not the Russians. Yet the infrastructure belongs to Gazprom, which by the way isn't allowed to participate in the investigation. They lose leverage on Europe and they already had turned off the Gas tap anyway. It's not like anyone can force Russia to turn on the tap.
This makes absolutely no sense from a Russian perspective. The very fact that people can rationalize this by saying Russians are irrational evil monsters is not all that different from the Iraq war and quite frankly extremely disturbing.
And yes, while the person above rightly points out that the article is from 2021 the next half of the sentence hints at how this may still be some sort of proof for their behavior.
Here's Germans demonstrating to open NS2, which is now conveniently off the table[1]
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/germans-call-nord-stream-2-050655816....