Putin told reporters in Kyrgyzstan that the notion was "complete rubbish" and said he did not even know the pipeline existed. He also suggested the damage could have been caused by an earthquake.

Putin told reporters in Kyrgyzstan that the notion was “complete rubbish” and said he did not even know the pipeline existed. He also suggested the damage could have been caused by an earthquake.

  • tal
    1·
    1 year ago

    While I would trust Putin considerably less far than I could throw him, I have to say that the Finland-Estonia pipeline seems like a kind of odd target for the Kremlin. I don’t think that it has huge capacity, and if Russia is truly ready to start intentionally screwing with EU undersea infrastructure, I don’t see why they’d go small. You’d take out the pipelines from Norway. You’re gonna piss off the EU either way, so might as well maximize the leverage you get.

    googles

    Yeah. Norway moved like 116 bcm via pipeline last year. Estonia-Finland, the Balticconnector, can do 2.6 bcm. If you want to dick over the EU, you take out Norway’s pipelines, not Finland’s.

    According to WP, an Estonian Navy statement two days ago said that it looks like it might have had a ship anchor dragged over it, and a telecom cable was also damaged. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t an intentional move by the Kremlin to provide plausible deniability, but it’s compatible with being an accident. And ships do apparently manage to cause cable or pipeline damage now and then, so it’s not something unheard-of.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector

    On 10 October 2023, the Finnish government announced that the damage to the pipeline may have been deliberate and caused by “external activity”. A telecoms cable near the pipeline was also damaged. The leak is being investigated by the Finnish Border Guard and the Finnish Security Intelligence Service. Norwegian seismological institute NORSAR reported that it detected a “probable explosion” 40 km north of Paldiski (roughly where Balticconnector and Nord Stream intersect) on the 8 October at 01:20 local time, though a few days later investigators stated the damage “appears to have been mechanical, not an explosion”.

    On 11 October 2023, an Estonian Navy commander stated that Finnish images of the damage showed the pipeline’s concrete cover had been broken off and the pipeline was badly damaged on one side and out of position. A Finnish member of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats suggested that one possibility was that a ship’s anchor had dragged over the pipeline. Five large ships had been near the pipeline shortly before the incident.

    • Skua@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      It could be a retaliation of sorts for Finland joining NATO and Estonia being one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine relative to their GDP. Or it could be something as simple as that Balticconnector is really close to a Russian port. I don’t think that a thing you’ve said is wrong, just that there are a few other factors that might push Russia towards choosing Balticconnector over a Norwegian pipe

    • SHITPOSTING_ACCOUNT@feddit.de
      2·
      1 year ago

      Could be a small provocation or test to see what they get away with, a show of force (“remember, you’re vulnerable”) and as you said, plausible deniability.

      They can’t do any damage that would seriously disrupt the EU without making it extremely likely that Article 5 would be invoked and Russia would now be fighting an open kinetic war on many fronts.

      • tal
        1·
        1 year ago

        They can’t do any damage that would seriously disrupt the EU without making it extremely likely that Article 5 would be invoked

        Article 5, as defined in scope by Article 6, doesn’t cover infrastructure in international waters. It does cover vessels flying the flag of member countries in the North Atlantic area, which I assume includes the Baltic Sea, but pipelines aren’t vessels.

        https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm

        Article 6

        For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

        • on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;

        • on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

        I actually went looking a while back and there isn’t really anything in customary international law or treaties protecting pipelines in international water. I also found some articles stating that there really isn’t law on the matter. Undersea cables have a late-1800s treaty signed in IIRC Paris that was intended to cover telecommunications cables, but I expect probably also extends to power cables; undersea power transmission cables weren’t a thing back then, but the actual wording of the treaty doesn’t limit the treaty to telecom cables, just uses the term “cable”. But there was never a corresponding treaty signed for pipelines. Companies just started building them without first building up legal support for them.

        googles

        Yeah, here’s the cable treaty. From 1884:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Submarine_Telegraph_Cables