EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell believes Tuesday’s damage to the Nord Stream pipelines was deliberate sabotage, and has warned it will be met with a “robust” response.
Reports emerged on Tuesday of explosions from under the Baltic Sea with unusual leaks discovered on the Nord Stream 1 & 2 pipelines.
Danish PM Mette Fredriksen said that authorities insist it was a deliberate act, but added that there was “no information indicating who could be behind it,” despite Polish MEP Radoslaw Sikorski insinuating on Twitter that the US was responsible.
Also, the fact that Europe needs Russian gas and can get it right now (well, could) is the biggest card they have (had) to negotiate a de-escalation. By blowing it up, even by blaming someone else, they would only be burning their own bridge and ending any material reason Europe would have to return to peaceful relations with Russia. There’s literally zero benefit from a Russian standpoint to blowing up their own pipeline to Europe. On the other hand, who would benefit materially right away from this without repercussions? The US.
It’s gonna require some olympic-level mental gymnastics to somehow convince people that Russia did it to… own themselves, I guess.
If following this conflict has taught me anything, is they have olympic level mental gymanastics mastered to an art form. They have no ability to think rationally like this when it comes to Russia.
Don’t underestimate the mental gymnastic abilities of Westoids.
Seriously. It makes no fucking sense.
Unless you’re a dumb Western liberal who is divorced from material reality and just think Adolf Putin is just trying to be eeevilll.