Who gains from the pipelines being destroyed?
As I understand they were encased in concrete. So only a nation with submarines could probably damage them, undetected. But to what purpose?
The obvious thought is the Russians. But they would surely want them to be turned on again after the war to replace the lost income. And their strategy to split Europe so that it wants to end the war so the gas can be turned back on, is nullified if the pipeline can’t be turned on without major work.
So which state with submarines, would gain from this?
How deep were they?
dublinpilot wrote:
Who gains from the pipelines being destroyed?
It’s an excuse to close it down, and to make a point. I think they are at 100m or so. Could still be an accident though.
Update: according to a seismologist at Uppsala University, one of the explosions corresponds to more than 100 kg of dynamite. There were three explosions. Smells a bit Putin over this IMO.
I am sure it’s not an accident but 100m is easily reached with trimix diving from a small diving boat, a fishing boat, etc. You don’t need a submarine to do this.
If the Donbas area population is mainly ethnic Russian and wants to be part of Russia, then the democratic choice is to let them be part of Russia.
We in the UK should remember the Irish Independence War, which ended just over 100 years ago. No mention I’ve seen in UK media of these historic anniversaries.
Most of the population had already left.
Also the voting was done under obvious coercion.
So the referendum is meaningless.
From here, the damaged pipeline was for carrying Norwegian gas to mainland Europe, so Russia has an obvious motive, but so does Ukraine.
Maoraigh wrote:
If the Donbas area population is mainly ethnic Russian and wants to be part of Russia, then the democratic choice is to let them be part of Russia.
That is true, but you can’t do it the way Russia did it.
Peter wrote:
From here, the damaged pipeline was for carrying Norwegian gas to mainland Europe, so Russia has an obvious motive, but so does Ukraine.
No, the damaged pipelines were carrying Russian gas. The article mentions a different pipeline from Norway.
From here, the damaged pipeline was for carrying Norwegian gas to mainland Europe
I don’t think that’s correct. The Norwegian pipeline is separate, but was only recently opened. It might well be the case that the Russians are trying to say “look we can destroy that other pipeline too. So don’t think that is going to solve your energy problems!”
Of choose that would be an attack on a NATO state. Probably not a good idea for Putin. His problem (and ours) is that he is quickly running out of good ideas.
That is true,
I don’t think it is true; for example would Sweden run a referendum allowing its border regions to break away? I am sure it would not. No country would allow that. Also I doubt Norway etc would be happy to redraw its borders to suit the reduced-size Sweden 
There are also economic challenges. Ireland could not absorb the “£9BN/year social security package” known as N. Ireland, unless Brussels paid for it (which I am sure Brussels would be delighted to do, and will have to do once the catholic population in the north produces enough excess chiildren to shift the support towards the south). And who would pick up the tab for the wasteland which an independent Scotland would be?
As Cameron found out, one has to be careful with referendums, unless carried out at gunpoint
But that’s a different topic entirely.
It may well be that the Ukraine situation will eventually be settled with a redrawn border. To be totally cynical, it would be a handy opportunity to “do a Yugoslavia” and get rid of some troublesome populations, who will for sure really appreciate living in Russian-controlled rubble (which Russia isn’t going to rebuild) and with their washing machines stolen 
Ukraine would need to get a lot in return e.g. NATO membership, heavy arming (they know Russia will prob100 have another go), and the return of the ~1M of its people who have been kidnapped to Russia.
But now is not the time for Ukraine to do such a deal. For a start they do not want it. And one never does concession deals when things are moving forward, even if slowly.
