zlacker

>>hungle+(OP)
It's a great story, but it's all unsourced and could be a decent Tom Clancy story at best. You could probably write a similar one with Russia or German agents as the key players and be just as convincing.

The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting that they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty weak place to build a large story.

What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing appears to be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct knowledge of the operational planning".

>>mmastr+fu1
> The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting that they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty weak place to build a large story.

I'd bet my last dollar that at least four nations had "blow up Nord Stream to force continued conflict" contingency plans.

Who did it? Germany, Russia, USA, Ukraine, or a curve ball from the one of the Nordic or Baltic states? We'll probably never know, and none of those answers would surprise me.

>>thwayu+Zy1
No man. This was not in the Russians’ geopolitical interests. And even if Germany wanted to divest itself of Russian gas, they would not have done so, in this way.

This was leaked at the time that it is now to send a message to the Germans.

>>lambda+NS2
I would be very very careful with your analysis of what is and is not "in the Russians' geopolitical interests." Almost every analysis based on "what was in the Russians' geopolitical interests" ended up concluding that Putin was not going to invade the Ukraine, because doing so was transparently a terrible idea[1]. And he did it anyway, because his calculations of what was in the Russians geopolitical interests were done differently. So before you opine on what the Russians might or might not have done based purely on your calculations of what is in the Russians interests, you need to show that your calculations are similar to Putin's in other ways. Without that, one should be really really skeptical that anyone is doing their calculations of what is in Russia's geopolitical interests the same as Putin.

[1]: Whereas analysis based on what Russia was actually doing was largely correct before the war. This is why there was such a large chasm between what the US was saying then- based on their ability to hack Kadryov's phones and hear what was being said at those levels, along with their satellites to observe what the actual Russian army was doing- and what the French and Germans were saying based largely on 'that would be a dumb thing for Putin to do'.

>>mandev+R33
Many, many realist analysts were of the opinion that Russia invading Ukraine was a possible outcome of the geopolitical moment.

It is now known that Putin's decision to invade was due to bad intel from his intelligence services that reported that Ukraine would not be able to mount significant resistance. In that light it was reasonably self-interest-pursuant.

Acting on incorrect information is not the same as being irrational.