Wels wrote:Yes, as said before i am not sure.
Also "Der Spiegel" (german newspaper) reports that the CIA warned Berlin already in June of a Nordstream sabotage. Most probably they would not have done so if they intended to do it themselves..
Putin does not care for economy and needs of russian people
(he just has started to annihilate the russian economy's workforce pool for the coming thirty years, if anybody noticed).
So he now is "all in". He needs a destabilisation in Europe. So no more gas sales. If the European political unity cannot be shaken by him, he is toast.
So cut it all, no selling now, not in the future. Trying to sow dissent as you (XogGyux) wrote above. Putin is at a point of no return.
From another forum, psycho assessment of Putin:
" ... psychopath's logic. Cut the gas because "The subject [Europe/"The West", the rest of the world] is disobedient. It needs to be punished."
The harder, the better. Deep rooting narcissism, and offence/insult.
Any psychiatrist and psychologist must get bright eyes when reading his case. The KGB did not promote him beyond a certain rank because its analysts assessed him to be incapable to fully foresee the consequences, of his decisions and acting in the present.
From that perspective it is surprising that he was able to play with Europe for almost 20 years. The explanation for that however is less to be found in him, and more in the weaknesses of the Europeans."
To be clear, I don't necessary think this is the russians either, after all, Putin was comfortable enough just "faking" leaks before the real ones started
and this certainly removes the carrot from the view of the horse, now it is even harder to blackmail Europe by "If you don't do this I wont sell you any more gas" if the pipe is actually non-functioning, that blackmail becomes toothless as they couldn't physically restart delivery if they wanted. Although I think this is for NORD2 so who knows. I wonder if these things are insured, like some big pile of international insurance money, perhaps something that has not fallen into sanctions yet, I don't know.
What seems clear to me, if these pipes are destroyed/damaged beyond operation (and quick mending) it probably cements the already widening divide between west and russia. A "cool off period" like it happened during crimea seems even less likely if there are no means to "normalize" the situation. When europe finds another reliable supplier, and they undoubtedly will, Russia will be kind of fucked, it will take them a decade to pivot to other markets such as China and India in any meaningful way.