As Russia’s recent partial mobilization has shown, he is desperate
As the world wonders what happened to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, many suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind the sabotage. At first glance, it appears strange that Russia would damage pipelines that its own companies run. But Putin has several possible reasons for carrying out the attack.
One reason could be that Gazprom (the Russian state-owned gas giant) wants to avoid paying penalties for failing to fulfill its contractual obligations. Since August 31, Russia has halted gas exports via both Nord Stream pipelines, which follows a similar move in July where the Kremlin cited erroneous maintenance issues as the cause of the short shutdown that month. Despite the ceasing of operations, Gazprom is still contracted to provide gas to European nations, and it has become clear that the cessation is a political stunt. But after the explosions disabled the pipelines, Gazprom can claim force majeure, and avoid paying for its failure to deliver gas. Claiming force majeure would not be novel either, as Gazprom already tried to do so earlier this year under similarly suspicious circumstances.
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