Storytime with BT: Russia is ***hoe too (Part 1)

[BionicTiger]

I’m fascinated that this story has garnered essentially zero interest or coverage when it’s the exact thing people need to be paying attention to.

On October 7th (weird, right?) the Balticonnector LNG pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged. That pipeline also has a parallel line of telecom cables adjacent to it. Those were damaged as well at roughly the same time. Shortly before that occurred - a few hours - the EE-S1 comms cable between Sweden and Estonia was damaged. 4 of 6 fiber cable pairs were completely destroyed. 2 remain operational.

When the damage to the pipeline occurred - three events happened at basically the exact same time. 1) operators noticed a massive pressure drop in the line. 2) a small seismic event was observed by NORSAR and 3) the russian ship Sevmorput and the Chinese ship newnew polar bear crossed right over the area where the damage occurred. Those two ships stayed together into the waters of northern Norway which have a ton of underwater infrastructure. Norway responded by stepping up military presence and surveillance in what is already a relatively high traffic area.

The newnew polar bear was purchased by Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang and reflagged (hong Kong) in 2023. The sevmorput is one of 4 nuclear powered cargo ships ever built. It was built for Murmansk but is now owned by Rosatom - the state owned nuclear energy corporation in Russia. It’s a massive company (276,000 employees) involved in several different industries. Interesting and pertinent here are that it maintains a nuclear powered fleet of icebreakers active in the baltic and North Sea, and it has helped Iran with significant amounts of nuclear power infrastructure including building the power plant in bushehr on the Persian gulf. It is contracted to build 2 additional units outside of Bushehr but nearby on the gulf coast. Also provides about 20% of the enriched uranium needed by us nuclear power plants, and about 15% of Europe is served by utility companies that rely solely on rosatom for their enriched uranium.

 

[acwill07]

So Russia and China damaged it on purpose? To drive up the price of oil?

 

[BionicTiger]

So Russia and China damaged it on purpose? To drive up the price of oil?

They definitely damaged it on purpose. The device used is very large and buried right next to the lines at the spot where they were damaged. They are trying to recover it. Don’t know for sure why they did it. Definitely benefits both but not to the degree that the risk reward of doing it this overtly makes sense. Finland gets very little LNG from Russia. Most is imported from US. It is interesting that its Finland and Sweden that were targeted in light of recent events. Also interesting they knew to do it while the world was distracted by the breaking news rolling out of Israel.

My theory is that it’s a coordinated campaign of death by a thousand cuts by China and Russia where they are satisfied (for now) creating these isolated small episodes of destruction and chaos to drain resources and stress infrastructure instead of openly engaging developed, opposition nations and escalating things to open conflict. In short, they seem to be playing a long game. Again, for now.

 

[RuhRahTiger]

Interesting indeed. Hadn’t heard about this, thanks for the write up OP.

 

[Flying Elvis]

This story is similar to the treatment, or lack of coverage, of the rupture of the Nord Stream pipelines from RUS to western Europe last year. You hear occasional suggestions that the US did it, but there has been no real coverage. Its logical that the US might benefit from a more captive LPG market in western Europe if it happened, but I don't believe we have enough utterly ruthless neo-cons around anymore to do that type of wet work. And it does not fit the Green New Deal narrative of the American uniparty.

I would suggest watching the BBC if you want to find out what is actually going on the world. Its liberating.

 

[BionicTiger]

This story is similar to the treatment, or lack of coverage, of the rupture of the Nord Stream pipelines from RUS to western Europe last year. You hear occasional suggestions that the US did it, but there has been no real coverage. Its logical that the US might benefit from a more captive LPG market in western Europe if it happened, but I don't believe we have enough utterly ruthless neo-cons around anymore to do that type of wet work. And it does not fit the Green New Deal narrative of the American uniparty.

I would suggest watching the BBC if you want to find out what is actually going on the world. Its liberating.

It was fairly obvious when it happened to most that know Russia well that they were responsible for the Nordstream pipeline. I’d say it’s getting more and more obvious with the passage of time.

 

[Oakhurst Tiger]

It was fairly obvious when it happened to most that know Russia well that they were responsible for the Nordstream pipeline. I’d say it’s getting more and more obvious with the passage of time.

Why would Russia damage their own pipeline that had served to keep Europe reliant on their energy?

 

[Gwump11]

I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with mean tweets anymore.

 

[BionicTiger]

Why would Russia damage their own pipeline that had served to keep Europe reliant on their energy?

Because, Putin is arrogant and hubristic. Plus, in his mind, it was going to hurt Europe more. He was correct, to an extent. They knew that sanctions would limit flow to Europe anyways. It wasn’t actually in use at the time. It was filled to maintain pressure but closed off. It drives prices up, and they can still export it cheaply at elevated prices to any number of places even if Western Europe sanctioned them out entirely (they didn’t). On top of that - for Russia - fixing it is less a cost and more of a money laundering opportunity that certain European countries are more than happy to help them with.

 

[Walhalla Wildman]

Why would Russia damage their own pipeline that had served to keep Europe reliant on their energy?

One theory is that Russia did the destruction of the pipeline to get Gazprom out of a contract they had with Germany. The Russians had “voluntarily “ shut off the natural gas supply through the pipeline some time before the damage occurred. Gazprom had a contract requiring them to pay for the costs of replacement if the gas was shut off “voluntarily “. It quickly became obvious that the Germans were not going to be “blackmailed “ and that the company was going to be bankrupted by this contract. UNLESS the gas could not be delivered because of “circumstances beyond their control “. Blowing up the pipeline got Gazprom out of the contract. Gazprom is majority owned by the state. This is one possible explanation for why Russia might have done it.

 

[DW4_2016]

I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with mean tweets anymore.

How recently have you fvcked your sister?