[wobbleblob]

Isn't that obvious? It's to strengthen Germany's resolve. The temptation to surrender and get the gas turned back on is going to be enormous this coming winter.

Germany and several other countries have made plans to shut down parts of heavy industry to save gas for heating. This is more than likely to put increasing pressure on governments to give in to Russia's demands. Now they can't, even if they want to, so that pressure is gone.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Isn't that obvious?

No. These aren’t disabling attacks.

It could be a warning from the Kremlin; a false flag operation; internecine warfare; interference by the U.S., Gulf or private actors in Norway; or a pipeline built by the same corruption that shipped cardboard armour [1] doing what Russian-involved infrastructure does.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nazk_gov/status/15019605885950156...

[lm28469]

I like to shit on Russia as much as the next guy but keep in mind there is propaganda on both side and Ukraine is infinitely better at it than Russia, these aren't egg cartons, they're meant to be there:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/491788609276608574/...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51936534258_91f5217324_b...

[JumpCrisscross]

> these aren't egg cartons, they're meant to be there

Egg cartons in place of tank reactive armour may be on a schematic. That makes it no less useless. To say the Russian military is operating with top kit denies the battlefield reality.

[glogla]

The "egg cartons" are spacers between explosive reactive armor places. The interesting part isn't that there are egg cartons but that there's only egg cartons - the ERA plates are missing.

My favorite story of Russians and armor plates was the dead Russian soldier who was found with his armor vest plate replaced by a stolen MacBook.

[lm28469]

- they're not egg cartons

- what do you know about russian tank armor ?

> To say the Russian military is operating with top kit denies the battlefield reality.

Yes, but where did I say the opposite ? There are dozens of reports showing it's running on fumes, there is no need to ridicule ourselves by propagating factually wrong infos

Saying "X fact" about russia is wrong doesn't mean someone supports their action. We all know their army is shit and any semblance of proper troops they had died in the first few weeks of the invasion

[JumpCrisscross]

> what do you know about russian tank armor ?

Nothing. Don’t need to. Whether designers put useless armour on the tank or a factory worker messed with a well-designed tank is irrelevant. The tanks were kitted with worthless armour.

[lm28469]

"Do you know US soldiers have literal plates as body armor ? it's even ceramic plates, just like the one you eat from. AHA how dumb can they be, ceramic armor aha "

That's how you sound right now

[keewee7]

>Ukraine is infinitely better at it than Russia

[Citation needed]

The garbage Australian report that only looked at two hashtags (who even uses hashtags anymore?) doesn't count.

[lm28469]

> [Citation needed]

Really ? How naive can you be ? It's a communication war as much as a regular war

It's never all black or all white, if you can't understand that I feel sorry for you. The reality is bad enough, we don't need to swallow every bit of info coming out of Ukraine.

If you believe Russian tanks are filled with egg cartons because you saw a blurry pic on twitter I don't even know what to tell you. Once again, russia's army is rotten enough that you don't have to make up lies to make it look bad, there are dozens of reports that are _true_ and equally bad

[keewee7]

I was addressing your claim that Ukraine is "infinitely better" at propaganda than Russia.

[lm28469]

Russia's propaganda barely even work inside of its own border while Ukraine's conquered the west, even on this platform smart individual believe random tweets without even questioning it

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ukraine-propaganda-war

https://www.nzz.ch/international/ukraine-die-kunst-der-propa...

https://theconversation.com/how-ukraine-is-adapting-the-anci...

I'm not even saying it's bad, it just is, I have a hard time understanding how people can't see it. Is it because "propaganda" as a bad connotation and nothing bad can be linked to Ukraine ?

[yucky]

>[Citation needed]

Not the person you replied to, but let's test the theory this way: Can you list out some of the US/Ukraine propaganda? If not, do you think it's because the US/Ukraine isn't using propaganda or because they're better at it and you don't realize it's propaganda?

[Gud]

There's another option, which I think is more likely than Ukraine being better at it. Because we are supportive of Ukraine, we want Ukrainian propaganda to be true.

[RandomLensman]

There really isn't anywhere close to something like a median voter wanting to get the gas flowing from Russia again in Germany - now or in the winter. A government giving in to the more fringy hard right/hard left asking for that would not survive. The German-Russian relationship has been damaged for decades to come now.

[2-718-281-828]

> or in the winter

well, wait for the winter ... Germans aren't used to hardship and many more are critical for compromising comfort for Ukraine than Tagesschau and heute journal would like to make you believe.

[sprash]

I strongly disagree. People in Germany couldn't care less about Ukraine because it is far away. Most assume that Putin will win this war anyways. However, they care strongly about cheap Gas because it directly influences their lives.

[fabian2k]

70% of Germans favor continuing support for Ukraine even if that causes high energy prices (https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/politbarometer-union-...). This value is practically unchanged for months.

[cyber_kinetist]

…let’s see how this number goes when winter comes. People generally don’t want themselves to freeze to death.

[bitL]

Polls are one thing, supermarket prices jumping 80-100% in a single day are another.

[sprash]

For now maybe (I wouldn't believe those polls sponsored by state media for a second btw.). Even the strongest anti-Putin propaganda campaign will go up in flames as soon as people have sit in the cold and lose their jobs at the same time. Then it's a very convenient situation for politicians that the pipelines can't easily be switched on again because they got "somehow damaged". Therefore it was most probably an inside job.

[2-718-281-828]

"I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself"

[LeanderK]

> it is far away

It is not far away. There's Germany, then Poland and then war. We have refugees here and feel the impact on our day to day life.

[Markoff]

You forgot the part about vast land in Ukraine (the biggest country in Europe) since the fighting is on the other (Eastern) end. Heck west of Ukraine is hardly affected by war in daily life, why do you think Western politicians visit even Kiev if there is such horrible "war" ongoing, why is McDonald's operating, toyshops etc. Odd war if you ask me if it's business as usual in most of the country, feels more like theater to pump those dumb Western Europeans for their money by infamously most corrupt gov in Europe. Yes, there is fighting in east of Europe, yes lot of people die there, but this isn't affecting even most of the Ukraine so playing the BS card about some war in EU is just wet dream of war mongers.

[LeanderK]

What an ignorant comment. What do you expect, that there's fighting everywhere? People looting at night and society near anarchy? We have two state actors with roughly equal capabilities. It's not US&Allies vs Iraq.

Western ukraine is not "hardly affected", it is affected. There are many refugees, probably everyone knows someone fighting in the east. You might look to fight in the east as well if you're in the right age bracket! Economy is shit and people are training to rotate to the front. Putin is waging a brutal war, killing and torturing ukrainians. There are air raid warning in kyiv, kyiv pride happened underground! Yes the government is corrupt, but we have to help them fight this monster.

It's also not an odd war, industrial societies maintain industrial capabilities to wage industrial war. WW1 was fought on the west in mostly static battles. Neither Berlin or Paris were affected by bombs, less than easter ukraine for sure! And they fought for years. Even in WW2 society largely functioned until the end in germany (if it was not bombed to shit!). It's interesting to see the logistics of everyday life near the end of WW2 in germany, you expect everything to end up in total chaos but everyone with a job just continued doing their job. Why not? dairy farmers still produced milk and shipped it off, and quite a lot of the railways worked.

We see ukrainian flags here in a small town in germany, recently they celebrated something in public (maybe their independence?) and we got into a converstantion, we have refugees starting to study here etc. Heating prices are through the roof and I can't really afford to heat my room, al because of this stupid fu*ing war. War affects you even if you don't have bombs falling onto your head! In whole WW2 only like two or three bombs were thrown onto the small city (~80k) I am currently living in. War doesn't mean everything is blowing up all the time.

[RandomLensman]

Evidence? I don't see that in any surveys etc. that a majority or even plurality thinks that way.

[cptaj]

And yet they keep blocking arms shipments to ukraine

[RandomLensman]

No, one of the governing parties keeps blocking.

Edit: And stuff has been shipped, too.

[koheripbal]

This is not correct. Nordstream II is fully functional and can carry far more gas.

This "accident" allows Russia to turn up the pressure on Germany without formally exiting it's contract. It creates plausible deniability for when they pressure Germany to pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire.

[origin_path]

NS2 has also been taken out.

[bilsbie]

I’m not following? Isn’t it less gas?

[sprash]

Indeed. It's most probably an inside job.

[desindol]

You are saying someone crawled inside the pipelines and punctured them from within?

[wobbleblob]

I just heard energy analyst krutikhin explain on the news that Gazprom could have blown them up using so called "pigs", maintenance drones that move through the pipes.

[speed_spread]

It's those methane breathers terrorists again! Fucking gasbags...