Russia would be insane (more than they already are) to attack that. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and would likely be considered an attack on a NATO ally.
It can make sense if you think about it in the game theory manner. Sometimes, deliberately limiting your options improves your overall outcome.
One theory is that by blowing up the pipeline, Putin is limiting Russia's options. With the pipeline in place, ending the war would immediately cause the flow of gas, and dollars into Russia to resume.
Without the pipeline, ending the war would not cause the flow of gas and dollars.
This might improve his ability to politically maneuver within the country (As other political agents, who care more about money than the war are less incentivized to push for an end to the war.)
It's a similar idea to why the US stations troops around the Korean DMZ. Their job isn't to repel a North Korean invasion, their job is to die in the first few minutes of it, and thus force the US to intervene in any resumed Korean conflict. This very clearly communicates to North Korea how serious the US is about maintaining the status quo. By restricting its freedom of action (Forcing itself to go to war if hostilities resume), the US accomplishes a political objective (preventing hostilities from resuming).
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Of course, this is all speculation. For all we know[1], the pipeline was blown up by Poland/Ukraine/Germany/the US/the Mossad/Morocco/Aliens.
[1] It's difficult to trust any information about this, as its impossible to impartially verify it, and everyone involved has their own agenda they want to push.
Putin wants to continue the war. He takes away his possibility of selling gas to Western Europe so that he is not tempted to make peace and sell gas. And his fellows can not be tempted as well.
Alternative: some group in the FSB or the Russian navy thought it would be impossible to blame it on Russia (for obvious reasons), then went ahead and blew it up to be able to blame it on someone else (UK, US or NATO in general maybe?)
Somewhere along the line something went wrong (for them).
(Not saying they did it, only that think it is the least crazy of the options I have considered.)
I never understood the Northstream strategy on all sides before the war and I don't understand the reasoning for blowing it up either.
For Russia to blow up its own pipeline takes away their ability to offer gas in exchange for money and political influence regarding the Ukraine conflict. Why should they want to give up this bargaining chip they worked hard for the last 20 years?
The only reason I can think of is that they believe there is no way for European to buy any gas anyway. Yet, this is in contrast to the European narrative to become independent of Russian energy over the next years but still continue to buy this energy now even if blood is sticking to it.
Thus Russia was either thinking that they don't need the money/foreign reserves anyway or that there goal of destabilizing Europe with high energy prices can't be achieved unless they turn off gas supplies entirely.
But even her the mere existence of the pipeline might have benefitted Russia because it did allow appeasers in Europe to argue for 'negotiations' with Russia. Since the pipelines were blown up, these appeasers have gotten really quite (at least in Germany) because it is clear that there is no way back with Russia.
Internally inside Russia it might be useful to portray Russia under Western attack but seems to me also projecting weakness.
In summary I don't consider it very plausible that Russia would blow up such a strategic asset.
Looking from the European perspective it also makes very little sense. Yes, everyone except the Germans hated that pipeline but the basic idea to have a pipeline directly to Russia as a carrot & stick worth 20 bn EUR of money transfer per month seems as plausible as ever.
And would any European country risk being found out to execute a bombing of infrastructure that is part of the German sphere of influence? For instance Poland? Kind of inconceivable. The US? Hard to fathom.
Which leaves only two possibilities: It was an operation by Ukraine to simplify European politics or Putin got so mad about the continuous failure that he acted irrationally once again.
Both sides are holding it as a bargaining chip while simultaneously having it held over them as a bargaining chip. Neither side now wants to transact on the pipeline as it will ultimately be a sign of weakness. Either Europe blinks because it is desperate for gas or Russia blinks because it is desperate for money - and neither side is going to blink.
All the while Europe hasnt found it that hard to find other sources of gas and Russia hasnt found it too hard to find buyers willing to get a discount.
Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did, but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?
Destroy the european economy by starving and freezing people to death, make everyone in europe turn against ukrainian supporting politicians and cut off any support for the ukraine government.
But they could have done that without blowing it up right? they control the source of the pipeline. So couldn't they have achieved this goal without taking the bargaining chip off the table and limiting their own flexibility?
It allows/invites a challenge from a weaker leader who suggests selling some gas to get some money. If there is no option and no flexibility there is no alternative, no challenger.
> Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did,
Agree. As mentioned above I keep multiple options open.
> but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?
Exactly as I outlined above: if they did it, it is (relatively) cheap power signaling: “think if this happened to one of the cables that are in use. We are actually dumb & crazy enough & technically capable to pull it off”.
Which would explain the attacks on their own gas pipeline NS1 and NS2:
- they are dumb and reckless enough to do that (they weren't used anyway, +plausible deniability)
- it signals to NATO the idea that russia can destroy critical infrastructure without actually getting caught for an attack on critical infrastructure