[chillwaves]

How does the US benefit?

Russia had already shut down the pipeline and proven to be unreliable partner, and facing heavy sanctions.

It's not like the US needed the pipeline destroyed in order to be in the position to supply LNG to Europe.

[fuoqi]

Are you serious? The NS/NS2 pipelines were a constant temptation for Germany and a good leverage for Russia. Before the pipelines got blown up we have seen quite sizable protests in Germany with demands to open NS2 and find some compromise with Russia.

By physically removing capability to transport gas from Russia to Germany, US not only secures fat margins for several years (at the very least until new LNG sources become available), but also significantly reduces probability of Germany acting independently in the near term, even if energy situation becomes critical. Don't forget that the gas storage numbers do not show the whole picture. A lot of energy-intensive industry got shut down and will not reopen in the near future.

[justapassenger]

Sizeable protests? That’s a slight overstatement.

Russia lost 99% of leverage the moment they attacked Ukraine. And they lost remaining 1% the moment the weaponized energy.

Germany was dumb, but it’s not that dumb to enter any agreement with Russia for any foreseeable future. It’s literarily like going back to loan shark for extra money, after they broke your legs last week.

[flanflan]

If the pipeline was shut off it could presumably be turned back on. If the pipeline was blown up that changes things. At a time when much of the world is looking toward China and Russia instead of the US, Europe has been forced to be more dependent on the US.

[bsder]

This completely ignores:

1) The PR disaster that would ensue if the US were caught doing this

2) The fact that the US does this sort of thing with submarines, not ships.

Whereas: we have Vladmir Putin who is looking at would be assassins who have a nice, ready-made source of cash if they take him out simply by turning the pipeline back on. And Putin will suffer neither PR nor diplomatic repercussions for blowing up the pipeline.

[Beltalowda]

But we can ask the same about Russia: how do they benefit? If there is any benefit to Russia then I'm not seeing it, beyond some vague and essentially meaningless chest-beating. And the pipeline was valuable to Russia, even when turned off, as it was a reasonably effective piece of leverage that's now just gone.

I'd be surprised if the US was involved because the thing could backfire massively it were to come out they were behind it, and it's just not worth the risk. But Russia is not really an "obvious" suspect either IMO. My best guess is that it's an irrational act from an irrational regime (Putin) as a kind of "fuck you".

[Espressosaurus]

It might help factions within Russia, or hurt factions within Russia. Not everything is about benefit for the country; in fact many things aren't. For example: continuing the war in Ukraine is beneficial to Vlad, or at least he must think it is to continue it over admitting defeat and withdrawing.

I can imagine Vlad or a faction aligned with him thinking this severs the ability for someone else displacing him to just turn on the taps, retreat out of Ukraine, and say "lol, whoops, our bad".

So the benefit may be to factions within Russia, even if it's detrimental to Russian economic capabilities.

[borissk]

Russia had long term contracts to support gas to many European countries. They stopped supplying gas, meaning the other parties on those contracts can sue them for many billions of dollars. But if the pipeline is destroyed it's not Russia's fault - no need to pay.

The fact that out of 4 pipes 3 were destroyed and one was left impact IMHO strongly points to Russia doing it - any other country would destroy all 4.

[7e]

Russia doesn’t need to benefit. The sabotage just needs to influence or weaken some Russian obliarch subject to Putin’s whims.