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I think Nordstream is more of a special case. It was clandestine, but definitely not terrorism. It was an attack on enemy infrastructure in pursuit of an actual, real-life shooting war. One can argue that it was a bad (or good) idea, or that it was/wasn't effetive, or even that its externalities were beneficial in the long term, etc...

But it's not really in the same category as casually cutting internet lines to your peacetime competitors out of pique or whatever.

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RandomThoughts3 4 days ago | parent [-]

Nordstream is also special because its destruction was not aligned with Russia interests. It limited Europe capacity to import Russian gaz lifting one of the reason which might have made the EU reluctent to fully support Ukraine (and causing a major economic crisis in Europe as a side effect).

Between this and the coyness of most European countries governments at the time to comment on investigation, it's not too far fetch to think that Ukraine might be involved.

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rurban 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage? Not Russia, nor Ukraine, but the USA. Their gas replaced Russian gas imports.

	▲	aguaviva a day ago \| parent [-]
		The sabotage happened after a simple political decision had been made to turn it off (more accurately to "suspend its certification", as it had yet to actually enter service). So there was never any "need" for sabotage. In any case the sabotage as such had no effect on gas imports. Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage? At the end of the day -- nobody of course, as the whole idea that the sabotage could bring any significant strategic benefit (even in terms of the "psychological" front) was pretty much braindead from the start. Meanwhile all it seems to have brought to the table was added instability, more paranoid thinking all around (in addition to the quite substantial methane release). But it's definitely easy to see why (at least some of) the Ukrainians thought their side could gain something from of it; or they may not have been thinking in terms of any specific strategic advantage, but rather simply spite. Either way -- the decision was made, and the job was done.

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ajross 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The problem with Nordstream conspiracies was in fact that you could easily finger anyone as responsible, absolutely including Putin. The benefit to Putin (not "Russia" per se) is that it eliminated the revenue source from gas sales to Europe in the immediate term, and thus made "end the war now" less attractive to his domestic power base (because it wouldn't make them any more money for a few years).

A coup from disaffected underlings unhappy with the status of the Ukraine war is hardly a weird theory. He's fought off one already!

	▲	RandomThoughts3 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Pointing that Ukraine benefited most from the sabotage is not a conspiracy theory. It would be if there was another significantly more likely explanation but there isn’t. Russian involvement is a bit far fetched to me. It severely limited their ability to export at a good price when gaz sell is how they finance the war in the first place, and removed their main pressure point on Europe therefore making the war considerably harder to win. A third party would be more likely (there is a long list: could be the USA, a European country which wants the block to align strongly with the USA, or another power benefiting).