Wasn't it the point of Nord Stream sabotage? https://brian-whit.medium.com/nord-stream-sabotage-a-look-at...
replies(5):
The exact reasons aren't entirely clear, originally they hated NS because it allowed Europe to ignore Ukraine in the gas trade which left them more exposed. By the time of the full scale war I would bet the reason was more "fuck Russia" than anything more carefully reasoned.
(Not saying that's the case here, all considered)
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/ukrainian-man-ar...
That they did it for their own motivations?
It seems at least as plausible that they did it because wanted to hurt Russia as it does that Washington ordered them to do it, to put it mildly. Washington has been supporting Ukraine during the war but has been rather reticent to support attacking Russian assets that are outside the territory of Ukraine.
Why would you conclude this where every intelligence and law enforcement agency that has looked into it and published a report has found the opposite?
Nobody remembers anymore that Pres. Biden himself said, “If Russia invades ... there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” [°] Nor that the very next day, a EU parliament member, and now Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski thanked the US for the sabotage [^]. Nor that the same day, a competing natural gas pipeline has opened, the Baltic Pipe [_].
None of this matters, because "Ukrainians bombed it". Because WaPo and WSJ said so. In a waterway that is heavily controlled by all kinds of NATO vessels. Where NATO had an exercise 3 months before that, called BALTOPS. Come on.
[°] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8
[^] https://archive.ph/20220927190022/https://twitter.com/radeks...
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-china-bless-v...
So Russia can now export gas, get foreign currency, and buy weapons with the money. I do not see any strategic wins here.
Additionally, China gets an economic boost. That is a sublime strategy.
"Nord Stream sabotage: Berlin issues arrest warrant for Ukrainian man"
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/14/n...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-known-about-nor...
The strategic win in bombing Nord Stream was that Ukraine finally got Europe on their side. Before NS was blown up many countries, especially Germany were sitting on the fence, reluctant to give Ukraine any help. They were hoping for Ukraine to lose the war quickly, then they would give Putin some slap on the wrist punishment, and return to "business as usual" with Russia. Nord Stream being destroyed removed the biggest incentive for doing that.
Do you have a basis to conclude that "every intelligence and law enforcement agency that has looked into it and published a report has found the opposite"? You exhaustively went through all Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies and read their reports? So you are quoting other news articles/interviews. Apparently their views differed. Ok.
1. Power of Syberia 1 throughput is not fully utilized.
2. China pays half of the EU price.
3. Power of Syberia 2 not be build in the near future. It's not the deal to actually do something. It's too continue further discussion.
Russian negotiating position is weak and Beijing knows that.
When the pipeline was sabotaged, no gas and no money were flowing anyway, which makes it even more absurd. There is a very high likelihood that the front lines would be in the exact same place if Nord Stream had not been sabotaged.
Except of course, the EU would have had more leverage in negotiating LNG deals with the US and Qatar rather than making emergency deals.
EDIT: Downvoted while the Ukrainian transit pipelines were open from 2014-2025 and yielded Russian transit fees. And while Nord Stream was built partly because Ukraine stole Russian transit gas in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...
But actually, by the time of the bombing the Russian gas was only flowing through Ukrainian pipelines. So Ukraine was ensuring "income to the Russian war machine", while Nord Stream was just costing them money; at most it could have been used as collateral in a loan.
It's like you're bending over backwards to make arguments in the direction you already decided you want it to go. Like you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole. If you already decided what you want to think then why do you need arguments?