The underwater explosions at the two Nord Stream gas pipelines this week are intriguing for many reasons.
As Dan Sabbagh in the Guardian noted:
It may never be possible to determine definitively whether Monday's underwater explosions at the two Nord Stream gas pipelines were the work of Russian sabotage, but it is certainly the way to bet.
The incidents took place close to – but just outside – the 12-mile territorial waters of Denmark's Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, the kind of calibration that might be expected from a state actor mindful of the country's Nato membership.
It may never be possible to determine definitively whether Monday's underwater explosions at the two Nord Stream gas pipelines were the work of Russian sabotage, but it is certainly the way to bet.
The incidents took place close to – but just outside – the 12-mile territorial waters of Denmark's Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, the kind of calibration that might be expected from a state actor mindful of the country's Nato membership.
He also notes:
But the fact remains that two undersea pipelines have been ruptured in a 24-hour period. They are designed to be tough: each section of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, the company's literature says, has a steel case 27 to 41mm thick, in turn surrounded by a concrete coating of 60 to 110mm.
One of the explosions measured 2.3 on the Richter scale, which Danish experts described as in line with a powerful bomb from the second world war. It is not therefore an entirely trivial incident, whose consequences were tellingly being talked up by senior Russian figures on Tuesday.
The response from the Kremlin would be entertaining if not for the seriousness of the circumstances.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, said: "This is an issue related to the energy security of the entire continent." However, Nord Stream 2 has never opened and the original pipeline was shut indefinitely for repairs at the beginning of September. So the EU's claim that there was no security impact was more believable in the first instance.
But the big problem for the Kremlin is that it has managed to generate three - presumably, unintended outcomes from this invasion. One, an effective military defeat due to the inability to achieve a victory and worse a situation where the conflict has dragged on. Many will take note, not least those on Russia's borders. This is a strategic and military disaster for the Kremlin. And worth noting once more about those in the Russian armed forces who have been coerced into this conflict and those many more who on foot of the effective general mobilisation will likewise be coerced.
Secondly, the consolidation and expansion of NATO. If Ukraine was indeed regarded as a 'proxy' (I use their language - I don't believe that to be the case, nor I suspect does Putin) too far by the Kremlin they went a strange way about dealing with the situation given that the outcome of this invasion has been Finland and Sweden banging on NATO's door to join and the de facto support for NATO from across the EU (and beyond). That's a geopolitical disaster for the Kremlin (one could add that it's fairly clear that NATO has extended some of its protections to Ukraine, but only on a limited basis. There is to be no significant or serious offensive actions against Russian territory. That too is a disastrous outcome for Moscow compared to the status quo ante).
But thirdly the wilful destruction of Moscow's largest energy market - that being Europe, the EU and individual European states. At one fell swoop Moscow has managed to destroy all trust in its bona fides as a supplier, to push EU states to seek other sources (not least, ironically, alternative and nuclear and in doing so perhaps mitigate some of the impacts of the climate crisis) and to ensure that it will never be a future supplier. This is an economic disaster for the Kremlin.
Any one of these would be challenge of huge proportion for any state facing them - and challenges without actual potential resolutions. That they all flow from the invasion of Ukraine tells us much about the sheer lack of insight into potential and/or likely responses.
But it is this last point about energy markets that makes the Kremlin's response to the Nord Stream 2 explosions so strange. Do they not realise that that particular bird has flown. Whatever else Russian gas is not going to be a major factor in the energy mix in Europe from here on out.
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