I hold open the possibility that Russia did this themselves.

They have certainly watched all these Western threats to the pipelines carefully, like this exercise and Biden's veiled remarks. These were aimed at Russia's benefit from their energy relationship with Europe. But the calculus is now much different. Russia has new customers for their energy and plenty of money from sky-high prices for it.

Now the pipelines blow up and they just shrug their shoulders and say, "Looks like sabotage. Why would we blow up our own pipelines? Won't be fixed until spring so good luck, Europe." Then they just sit back and enjoy the backlash from Europeans against their own governments, NATO, and the US for getting them into this mess.

The US can and will deny any involvement, but of course they would and who's taking their word at this point? Ordinary Europeans will be bled white as they shiver and sit in the dark. Think they're going to spend cold, dark nights waiting to hear more of Zelensky's complaints?

Putin is a fan of judo, and all the West's threats and aggression may have just gotten flipped back on them. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that if you had trouble following this argument, or thought it was just ridiculous on the face of it, think of how hard it'll be for the mainstream to sell it to normies. Pointless to even try, I'd say. And yes, I think that's also part of the Russian calculus.

I hold open the possibility that Russia did this themselves.

They have certainly watched all these Western threats to the pipelines carefully, like this exercise and Biden's veiled remarks. These were aimed at Russia's benefit from their energy relationship with Europe. But the calculus is now much different. Russia has new customers for their energy and plenty of money from sky-high prices for it.

Now the pipelines blow up and they just shrug their shoulders and say, "Looks like sabotage. Why would we blow up our own pipelines? Won't be fixed until spring so good luck, Europe." Then they just sit back and enjoy the backlash from Europeans against their own governments, NATO, and the US for getting them into this mess.

The US can and will deny any involvement, but of course they would and who's taking their word at this point? Ordinary Europeans will be bled white as they shiver and sit in the dark. Think they're going to spend cold, dark nights waiting to hear more of Zelensky's complaints?

Putin is a fan of judo, and all the West's threats and aggression may have just gotten flipped back on them. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.