North Stream was the problem, not blowing it up

After four years, a Ukrainian man is set to stand trial in Hamburg accused of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines.

"I find it very unfortunate that this entire discussion has come to focus on who blew [the pipelines] up, rather than who built them," Heorhii Tykhyi told the BBC, forcefully.

He argued that Nord Stream had "untied Russia's hands" to go to war, because it no longer needed to transit Ukraine for its gas to reach Europe.

"Did we warn about this? We did," Tykhyi wanted to know. "Did anyone listen to us? No, no-one did."

load all comments

it_depends_man 14 points a day ago

That is why Ukraine, the US and Poland in particular all loathed it.

Let's be extremely clear, that Poland loathed it for a specific, different reason: There was and still is a pipeline from Russia to Germany, that is on land that goes through Poland. Which means there is a switch that Poland was in control of, that they could use politically, to threaten German Gas supply, independently of the diplomacy between Russia and Germany.

The thing they hated was losing that political leverage.

And let's also be extremely clear, that the US is also a Gas exporting country, who was against the deal, because they don't like Russia and have an economic interest in selling their own Gas.

Why Ukraine didn't like it should be obvious.

But anyway, fuck the BBC for downplaying the political and economic interest involved.

The basis for the EU started with a pact between France and Germany, exchanging coal and steel. They HATED each other. And look where we are now. Merkel was an awful chancellor. But building on and believing into a chance that things could work out similarly between Russia and Germany and the rest of Europe was not stupid.

Last year, he was arrested in Warsaw on a warrant issued by Germany but a Polish judge refused to extradite him.

In a dramatic twist, he ruled instead that a Ukrainian attack on Nord Stream, if that was what happened, would be a "just" act in a "bloody and genocidal war".

As one source close to the case put it to me: "The Poles don't like Ukrainians, historically, but they hate Russians and Germans even more."

Not a war officially involving Germany or Poland, at the moment. So, personal feelings over international law, huh? Anyway...

I don't particularly care about the outcome tbh, the damage is done, nobody will propose to rebuild it at least not during the war. The individuals did wrong, but they also acted on orders. It's not a case of a small theft where we're expecting personal moral improvement. Everyone knew the legal and moral implications.

And also, the only possible actors were the US and Ukraine. That was clear from day one, the "the Russians did it" was silly. Why would they have blown up their own pipeline? The other neighboring countries would have stood nothing to gain, but if they were found out it would have been a massive political problem, not worth any benefits.

Ukraine has their back against the wall, they try everything, which I think is fine from that point of view.

The US could have ignored the political fallout and had a political and financial interest to do it.

save

path: 0 26275383, hotness: undefined, score: 14, children: 5

robear 9 points a day ago

But building on and believing into a chance that things could work out similarly between Russia and Germany and the rest of Europe was not stupid.

Schröder ending up on the board of gazprom immediately after ending his chancellery kind of dispels the notion that nordstream was built for any reason other than massive German government corruption.

save

path: 0 26275383 26277980, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 3

it_depends_man 1 point a day ago

Sure.

But if that corruption had achieved a friendly Russia and peace in Europe, I could easily justify looking the other way in that case.

Look at the situation of the war: billions in damages, millions of dead. If I could trade that for a handful of corrupt politicians who get a fraction of what it's going to cost Europe to rebuild, I would, in seconds.

save

path: 0 26275383 26277980 26278107, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2

mapto 2 points 14 hours ago

Corruption never works this way... Unless you could give me one historical example when it did?

save

path: 0 26275383 26277980 26278107 26289456, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 1

it_depends_man 1 point 13 hours ago

Examples for corruption, and resource extraction related peace? There should be plenty, if that's what you mean. Maybe you'll count the united fruit related coup d'etat in guatemala. Afterwards there was "peace" and "cooperation". There certainly was corruption involved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

The oil situation in general? Idk what you would call the arrangement the rest of the world has with the gulf states.

save

path: 0 26275383 26277980 26278107 26289456 26290157, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0