Russian invasion of Ukraine

 so it’s time to toughen up, switch off the gas, and exert maximum pressure.

Has putin not already turned it off?

He had, citing maintenance requirements. However as time went on he was running out of plausible excuses for not switching it back on.

I don’t think western countries did it. The Russian denial followed the usual form, the form one sees when they absolutely have done it. If they really hadn’t done it and were being unfairly blamed, I think their denial would have been more outraged, more “no, really, this time it definitely wasn’t us!”

One way or another, the pipelines through Eastern Europe will be taken out in the next month or two.

I really can’t see the rationale for anyone blowing up the gas pipeline

The only one I see is if it’s a warning to Poland from the Russians that says “We can blow up gas pipelines. Don’t think the one you opened yesterday with Norway will save you this winter!”

Is hardly a coincidence that the Polish Norwegian pipeline just opened the day before.

Or maybe the Russian special forces are as incompetent as the rest of the Russian military and they meant to blow up the new pipeline and mistakenly blew up the wrong one

alioth wrote:

Russia has proved an unreliable supplier (there has already been several instances of them turning off the gas to Eastern European nations during the winter)

To be correct, this is not true.
Instead, Ukraine was an unreliable transit country.
There is no better word for it, they were stealing the gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_disputes

dublinpilot wrote:

The only one I see is if it’s a warning to Poland from the Russians that says “We can blow up gas pipelines. Don’t think the one you opened yesterday with Norway will save you this winter!”

Maybe I am too much of a finance guy, but for me this is an explanation: “European gas prices jump after Gazprom warns it could cut its last flows to Europe, amid worries about apparent Nord Stream sabotage”
Higher gas prices → more income for same or smaller volume.
So who’s interest is this?

That wiki article doesn’t read quite correct, with the stuff regarding “Autonomous Republic of Crimea”

The report I read yesterday said that they are encased in concrete.

Of course they are. We (civil engineers) call it a weight-coat. Depending on the installation method and water density, it can be quite a fine calculation. Too light, and the pipe floats (as a sewage outfall did off the Isle of Wight in Cowes week some 30 years ago – we fixed that with concrete mats). Too heavy and the pipe breaks or buckles while being installed (as the sewage pipe across Dublin Bay did in September 2001).

Calculating weight coat required for the circa 2 m diameter sewage outfalls which we pulled into the Marmara near Istanbul was near impossible because we had to take account of the pycnocline between dense/salty Mediterranean water and the less dense relatively fresh Black Sea water.

In WW1, Lt-Cdr Nasmith used the Marmara pycnocline to float, drift and rest all hands in submarine E11 at about 70 ft with engines shut down to avoid detection.

I don’t understand why we let ourselves become so dependent on Russian gas

Austrian politicians royally f—ed up this one. Coincidentally this aligned with their usual practice of copying german policies, but they’d have filled their pockets anyhow.

Kneelingers

Snoopy wrote:

Austrian politicians royally f—ed up this one. Coincidentally this aligned with their usual practice of copying german policies, but they’d have filled their pockets anyhow.

Kneelingers

In all fairness, many people thought for a very long time that Putin was someone one could do business with and the strategy of binding them into the economical system such that their wealth and economy was entwined with the EU appeared to many the one thing one could do to get Russia onto a Western path. It may have been based on the common mistake that others want to be like us, but seeing the reaction of the population in Russia when they got acces to all sorts of Western goodies as well as the right to travel e.t.c. was promising to say the least.

It is also quite well documented how Putin at the time had a very different outlook on things, tried to actually make good with the West and used his knowledge of German e.t.c to make anyone who would listen belive that he is a good guy.

Many who know him closer say he has changed dramatically over the last several years particularly following the uprising in Ukraine where the russia friendly president got deposed. Certainly warning signs were ignored, certainly the effort to stop the war in Donbass could have been pushed further by the UN and others, a 14 year old war, the Crimean annexion and other things were ample of warning of things to come, but the West was in denial and Putin played them well enough, until he himself lost that ability most probably during the Covid crisis.

So is it really reasonable or useful to blame people like Merkel or others who felt they were on the right track with economical integration? Clearly it turns out to be a misjudgement but did anyone until maybe 2-3 years ago really think that Russia would throw it’s whole economy away in favour of a nationalist war? I think there were very few who ever thought so. Remember when Medvedev was praised as a reasonable guy and even the softer version of Putin during his presidency? Now he is the guy who talks nukes all the time. This throwback situation which in fact is worse than ever before was simply not predictable to the extent that we are now.

So what is the point of this Monday morning quarterbacking, other than learn from it for the future, if there is any? What the West needs right now is to stand united while defusing the situation to an extent that finally some sort of stand down becomes even an option. This in a situation where facts are created which will get harder and harder to reverse?

Once the red line of nuclear or mass destruction weapons in use has been crossed, this will be even more difficult than it is now.