01/10/2022
Some of you have wondered, why an earth would Russia destroy its own infra (Nordstream). The question itself is the answer: all eye balls on the gaspipe and national security > the attention is drawn to something else than Ukraine. Besides:
- If a country is willing to kill it's own citizens the way Russia does, why infra would be some special exception?
- If Putin is ok with using terrorist attacks against Russia's own citizens, why infra would be such an impossible idea? Remember how he rose to power? By blowing up apartment buildings and claiming it was a terrorist attack.
- RU is not good at waging conventional war. It's best at hybrid operations and hybrid war. Sometimes psychological impact is worth all the money burned. Now it obviously is.
- All the discussion circles around the nukes even though RU hasn't used all the escalation steps before the nukes (bio weapons, testing nukes). We also forgot eco terrorism from the escalation list. Before you can use eco terror as a deterrent, you have to give a sample.
- Last week Putin was ridiculed in the West. This week nobody is laughing at Putin. Masterful change of narrative I say.
For Finns: watch the A-talk -episode (In Finnish, Risto EJ Penttilä explains this very eloquently.) Link in the comment section.
- Already years back one of the security concerns about the Nordstream was that RU could justify its military presence in the Baltic State by saying that they need to secure the pipes. The terror attack indeed gives them now that "justification".
- Russian maskirovka by excellence: our focus is now on the national security. We do have limited resources when it comes to security personnel and Russia loves to make us thinking about it.
- Plausible deniability, Russia's favourite thing!
- Russia's military force is already destroyed in Ukraine. By moving our gaze to the sea they remind us about the subs (nobody has been talking about Russian submarines for ages.)
Think how badly the flag ship Moskva hurt them. Is it really a bad idea to get everyone talking about something that should be working?
- Last, but not least: In the West we think it's insane to blow up your flag ship business which was to attract enterprises to do business with RU. But Putin is almost 70. His tombstone project is not to restore economical ties with the West.
>Who would remember that in 100 years? Nobody. His tombstone project is to restore Russia's might which equals with the fear of Russia. In that game pipes can go.
Yes, desperate this might, but not insane.
The pic is from Stravanger, Norway. Norway is reinforcing oil and gas security, of course