Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Pete Dero]

^
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/

Europe was investigating leaks in two Russian gas pipelines that churned up the Baltic Sea with bubbles on Tuesday and raised concerns from Copenhagen to Moscow about sabotage on infrastructure at the heart of a European energy standoff.

[Pete Dero]

Georgia is beautiful this time of the year.

   


Satellite imagery from September 25, 2022 shows a large traffic jam of vehicles leaving Russia and attempting to cross the border into Georgia.

[Tripoli]

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/svt-avslojar-tva-explosioner-intill-nord-stream 

THere are reports from the Seismic institute of Sweden saying it detected two explosions magnitude 2.3 during the night in the vicinity of  the pipelines. Suspected Sabotage.

[Pete Dero]

^ this lines or at a depth of 80 meters (around 90 yards).

Not easy to reach, if this is sabotage.

[Con]

Maybe I am missing the obvious but who gains by sabotaging the pipelines now? 
The Russians lose a leverage tool forever holding the carrot out for future gas supplies
The Europeans lose a pipeline that they could fill storage today but they are almost at full capacity so It's impact is less than if this happened 6 months ago.
Any theories?

[Jarhead0331]

Maybe I am missing the obvious but who gains by sabotaging the pipelines now? 
The Russians lose a leverage tool forever holding the carrot out for future gas supplies
The Europeans lose a pipeline that they could fill storage today but they are almost at full capacity so It's impact is less than if this happened 6 months ago.
Any theories?

Russia may see damage to the pipeline by sabotage as a way to save political face by denying responsibility for cutting off gas supply while still causing Europe economic damage. i also would not rule out the involvement of a third-party who would like to see a further escalation of the conflict.

[Pete Dero]

And this happened the same day :

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-poland-gas-pipeline-opens-in-key-move-to-cut-dependency-on-russia
https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/09/26/new-polish-gas-pipeline-from-norway-to-reach-full-capacity-ahead-of-schedule/

Leaders from Poland, Norway and Denmark have attended a ceremony to mark the opening of the new Baltic Pipe, a key stage in the drive to wean Poland and Europe off Russian gas.

The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Norwegian shelf via Denmark and through the Baltic Sea to Poland. It is the centrepiece of a Polish strategy to diversify away from Russia that began years before Moscow's February invasion of Ukraine triggered a global energy crisis.

The flows from Norway along with supplies via liquefied gas terminals are central to Poland's plan. The country was cut off from Russian gas supplies in April, allegedly for refusing to pay in roubles.

[Tripoli]

And there's this: https://www.ptil.no/en/supervision/important-messages/2022/observations-of-unidentified-dronesaircraft-offshore/ and https://gcaptain.com/norwegian-regulator-warns-of-drones-spotted-near-offshore-platforms/

Operator companies [of drilling/Petroleum infrastructure] on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) have recently given warnings/notifications of a number of observations concerning unidentified drones/aircraft close to offshore installations.

Newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reported last week that unidentified drones had been observed at least at six Equinor installations, including at its giant oilfield Johan Sverdrup.

Last Tuesday, a drone was observed some 50 meters away from Equinor's Heidrun platform in the North Sea, breaching the 500-meter security perimeter, the newspaper reported.

"There have been observations of drones at some of our installations on the Norwegian continental shelf," a spokesperson for Equinor told Reuters, declining to elaborate.

[JasonPratt]

If it's sabotage, it would have likely been set up some time ago, to ensure escape by plausible actors.

80 meters is not deep for a sub (bringing divers) -- in fact dangerously shallow, unless there are deeper parts nearby. By 'dangerous' I mainly mean 'most liable to detection and interception'. If a sub set this up, NATO will almost surely know about its arrival and departure, whenever that happened (and proportionately more likely, the shallower the waters.)

Kind of ditto, except moreso, if a surface ship set this up: you have all the likelihood of sonar detection, plus all other surface forms of detection up to and including satellites.

Could (underwater) drones (sort of like advanced torpedoes) do this? Silent running in a leisurely route to the target, maybe near the surface for burst satellite location tracking and adjustment instructions (to avoid potential surface traffic spotting them), then diving for the final hit? Seems initially plausible, and least likely to be tracked back to the source -- though I realize it's hard to overestimate NATO tracking capabilities. 

Edited to add: I'm not talking about arial drones, per Tripoli's report above. Those have to be a different problem, since they couldn't transfer to underwater operation. (Unless we're getting into the weird UFO drone reports being recently acknowledged elsewhere, going in and out of the water!)

The upshot here is: how plausible would undetected sabotage be in this situation?

Or, something like explosives being sent down the tube from an maintenance access point (similar to the pipeline nuke plan from The World Is Not Enough)? Since there's clearly gas in the pipes, and seems to have been there since the explosion, then I suppose the gas would have to be evacuated somehow first, then send the maintenance sleds down to rest at the target area, gas was turned back on, detonation. Probably undetectable in that case, though obviously this couldn't be done without attaining, or already having, control of the access point (and gas evacuation/return, assuming this couldn't be done with gas in the lines all the time.)

[JasonPratt]

Come to think of it: wouldn't someone have to turn off the gas first in any case? -- because the detonation would also detonate up and down the pipeline(s), causing catastrophic damage? That doesn't seem to have happened...?

[bobarossa]

Maybe I am missing the obvious but who gains by sabotaging the pipelines now? 
The Russians lose a leverage tool forever holding the carrot out for future gas supplies
The Europeans lose a pipeline that they could fill storage today but they are almost at full capacity so It's impact is less than if this happened 6 months ago.
Any theories?

Given Russia's incompetince, could they have been aiming for the Norwegian pipeline and got their own? 

Or maybe it was to show europe that the norwegian pipeline could be shut off at any time.

[Tripoli]

If it's sabotage, it would have likely been set up some time ago, to ensure escape by plausible actors.

80 meters is not deep for a sub (bringing divers) -- in fact dangerously shallow, unless there are deeper parts nearby. By 'dangerous' I mainly mean 'most liable to detection and interception'. If a sub set this up, NATO will almost surely know about its arrival and departure, whenever that happened (and proportionately more likely, the shallower the waters.)

Kind of ditto, except moreso, if a surface ship set this up: you have all the likelihood of sonar detection, plus all other surface forms of detection up to and including satellites.

Could (underwater) drones (sort of like advanced torpedoes) do this? Silent running in a leisurely route to the target, maybe near the surface for burst satellite location tracking and adjustment instructions (to avoid potential surface traffic spotting them), then diving for the final hit? Seems initially plausible, and least likely to be tracked back to the source -- though I realize it's hard to overestimate NATO tracking capabilities. 

Edited to add: I'm not talking about arial drones, per Tripoli's report above. Those have to be a different problem, since they couldn't transfer to underwater operation. (Unless we're getting into the weird UFO drone reports being recently acknowledged elsewhere, going in and out of the water!)

The upshot here is: how plausible would undetected sabotage be in this situation?

Or, something like explosives being sent down the tube from an maintenance access point (similar to the pipeline nuke plan from The World Is Not Enough)? Since there's clearly gas in the pipes, and seems to have been there since the explosion, then I suppose the gas would have to be evacuated somehow first, then send the maintenance sleds down to rest at the target area, gas was turned back on, detonation. Probably undetectable in that case, though obviously this couldn't be done without attaining, or already having, control of the access point (and gas evacuation/return, assuming this couldn't be done with gas in the lines all the time.)

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that the drones spotted in the North Sea were used to attack the pipelines.  I am suggesting that the same parties who likely sabotaged the pipelines, in what appears to be an effort to cut Western Europe's supply of natural gas, would have a similar interest in further reducing European supplies of gas by sabotaging other sources of gas, such as those that come from the North Sea.

[Windigo]

Industrial infrastructure espionage.... getting pretty James Bond out there.

It's my opinion that espionage/Psy Ops is Russia's greatest strength. Look at the troll farm activity in America.

[bobarossa]

Come to think of it: wouldn't someone have to turn off the gas first in any case? -- because the detonation would also detonate up and down the pipeline(s), causing catastrophic damage? That doesn't seem to have happened...?

Gas needs oxygen to burn so an explosion in the pipeline would not result in further damage.  Also don't think they need to evacuate the pipeline to run a sled down it.

Underwater drones would need a fiberoptic cable to operate under manual control.  Radio waves won't penetrate that deep (the reason subs use ELF for communications at shallow depths). 

[FarAway Sooner]

My guess is that, with determined operators (with expertise somewhere between a Dive Instructor who'd worked construction and a US Navy Seal) it'd be easy to park a boat 5 or 10 miles away, drop guys over the side with gear in a few minutes, have them ride SCUBA sleds to the site, plant explosives on a 48- or 72-hour delay, ride SCUBA sleds to some other boat, get picked up and quickly be on their way.  I've now exhausted my knowledge on this topic, so I'll shut up.