That is what I thought as well and I similarly discounted the likelihood that Russia did this but I have changed my opinion on this particularly because I don't think Germany is actually going to run into (a lot of) trouble this Winter and probably also not next winter. And if Russia agrees that this is likely to be the case and also that there is not likely going to be gas deliveries through North Stream in the coming years then destroying it could at least serve the purpose of increasing doubt and creating uncertainty especially if it could be pinned on other actors (i.e. the US).

Here is why I think Germany will be relatively ok:

German source on Zeit.de showing gas deliveries from other countries making up a big chunk of Russian deliveries and German gas reserves being almost full and gas demand being ~25% under the average demand in the past years (probably largely due to the price of course). https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/energiemonitor-deutschland-ga...

Additionally LNG terminals are due to come live in December (if there won't be delays).

The storage provides 2-3 months' worth of gas. It being full is not enough to ride out a rough winter without rationing. Meanwhile even with a new LNG container port they still have to pay through the nose for all that American LNG.

Germany will probably survive without a rash of people freezing to death but economically it is going to suffer very, very badly.

Maybe demand is lower because the price is ten times higher than 2020 levels.

It's all very odd. To me there are two telling things:

- Russia was very unbothered on day 1 of the explosion. Surely, someone blowing up _their_ pipe would have them up in arms about it? But no.

- It was the same day as the opening of a key pipeline between Norway and Poland. Feels like a "you think you have energy security?" moment.

But it's all speculation, ultimately...

>Russia was very unbothered on day 1 of the explosion.

On day 1 nobody except the culprits knew wtf was going on.

I wouldnt read too much into their hesitancy to comment.

Dunno. I mean, it's all speculation, and I see how it could be many other actors. But imagine someone blowing up a German wind farm, and the German government saying, "hmm". Russia is generally quick to anger.

Also the political risk for everyone else seems suicidally high.

> Also the political risk for everyone else seems suicidally high.

Yeah, the risk of getting caught would be non-zero.

Still pretty low.

Apparently the lack of evidence and motive doesnt prevent respectable news publications from blaming Russia either.

> America and Poland are the most likely culprits.

Whatever benefit any NATO agent might have from blowing up these pipes would be negated by the risk of getting caught.

Neither, the US or Poland would want a weaker more fractured NATO -- which would be the result if they got caught doing this.

In that sense, it even makes sense for Russia to be coy about it.

So how exactly would Russia get away with it undetected? Looking on a map, they would have been deep into enemy territory undetected before and after. That strains credulity to say the least.

All we hear from our esteemed journalists is how incompetent Russia is, until they need us to believe they snuck past everyone in the middle of war time undetected.

After Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany said it permanently won’t support the opening of Nord Stream 2. NS2 has been Putin’s number one priority for opening so he could deliver gas to Europe while sidestepping Ukraine.

Conveniently after the explosions, NS2 became one of the few working ways to get gas to Europe, and Putin offered to deliver gas via it. https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/10/12/putin-offers-t...

That’s way he blew up what he blew up. To force Europe’s hand on NS2.

All NS2 does is double NS1's capacity. It hampers Russia's ability to bypass Eastern Europe to have NS1 blown up.

I can think of at least three parties for whom this would be convenient. All of them publicly objected to NS2 and and none of them are Russia.

Half of NordStream 2 was blown up, too. Sloppy sabotage or brilliant misdirection? I wouldn’t know.