The argument I remember goes something like this (and I could be remembering it wrong).
They claimed technical problems prevented them from fulfilling the amount of gas required by their contract for NS1 and NS2. Due to sanctions they essentially had to provide gas for free - or at least in exchange for money they were unable to spend or access.
The pipe blowing up potentially saved them from having to pay a penalty fee in the contract once the gas hadn’t been moving for X number of days.
Why would Russia be concerned about a contract? Reminds me of a story on something like Unsolved Mysteries....lady had her husband killed because she was a christian, and thus, didn't believe in getting a divorce, and wanted to be with another man (his best friend.) And his friend went through with it...
They left one pipe of NS2. It would have been a political victory for Putin with humiliation of the German government if they had switched to this instead of stopping gas imports via NS1&2 completely.
The Ukrainians are flying drones filled with explosives into Russian refineries and we still don't think it was just the Ukrainians taking out the Russian gas pipeline?
The pipeline had the additional complication that it was supplying heating fuel to Europe. Bragging about it to the Germans would have probably been a bad idea.
That's the thing though, at the time it wasn't supplying gas. Gazprom said it was having 'technical difficulties' (that the German equipment manufacturer denied) and had reduced the flows over time to zero to put pressure on the Europeans through high winter gas prices and low supplies.
Your broader point is correct though, admitting to blowing it up would be bad press to any party.
