I don't see why this is so downvoted. People are doing a lot of mental gymnastics to discount the possibility of Russian sabotage here and I really don't understand why that is. Nothing is certain, but I think it's silly to discount Russia being responsible it for the reasons people are giving.
I’m genuinely curious where the gymnastic is? I am asking in good faith. What is Russia’s interest in sabotaging it? They can’t sell gas to fund their war machine.
What’s the US interest? Now Europe must buy LNG from our fantastic gas companies. US exports of LNG are at an all time high price. Europe is pissed off at our rival. Not to mention our commander in chief threatened to blow it up, why?
Everything here says it’s in the interest of the USA, not Russia. I don’t feel like I’m bending any logic, in fact I feel like this is the only common sense way to think about it.
What people are saying is that he wouldn't be stupid enough to kill off something that is a vital source of foreign currency in wartime, and could be used as leverage in negotiating with the EU. Except it wasn't operational and was proving to be useless as a bargaining chip.
The gymnastics come in believing that the guy who was willing to throw caution to the wind in starting a war with Ukraine (causing his economy to take a hammering and killing trade with the EU, running the real risk of pushing NATO entirely into NATO's arms) is somehow going to be precious about a pipeline that had ceased to have any value. I don't see it.
Russia is the only country who could do it without risking provoking a war.
Russia knew they weren’t going to make any money on it due to the strong reaction to the war on Ukraine.
Russia could have decided to do it to remind Western Europe that it could do the same to other pipelines they depend on.
None of that is determinative that Russia did do it, but it’s sufficient to me to indicate that they could have done it, and insisting that it’s absurd is, well, absurd.
Russia is also not a single actor. There are factions, and they have different interests. The "liberals" aka the economic bloc in the administration - who know full well what kind of shitshow is ahead in the long term - would prefer the war to die down, and for gas to start flowing again, preferably in exchange for dropping sanctions. Because of that, they're a potential threat to the war faction; think of how some parts of the German military repeatedly tried to arrange for secret negotiations with the Allies for an example of how it could materialize. But if there are no pipelines, the "liberals" have no gas to offer in exchange for concessions even if they somehow manage to stop the war and remove the war party from power. This makes their platform less attractive.
(To be clear, this is all just conjecture. The factions are real enough, and have motives that could make players in this game, but it's obviously not the only viable explanation.)
I find this the most likely scenario too. Blowing up the pipeline cemented that Europe wasn't going to get Russian gas for the winter. It left less maneuvering room to any interest groups that could've used it as a bargaining chip as Europe was heading into winter and many expected widespread heating and power issues, some local authorities in Europe even planned for possible mass evacuations of vulnerable population. Gas was the most valuable concession that anyone in Russia could've made. Pipeline blew up and that was off the table. Nobody knew at the time that winter 2022/2023 was going to be exceptionally warm and in hindsight it's easy to downplay those fears and percieved value of the pipeline.
You know the USA sends sophisticated military weapons and training to Ukraine including actual HIMARS used to blow up a Russian barrack and kill 400 Russians?
But you think the USA blowing up an inactive pipeline might be the thing that provokes a war and therefore the USA would never do it?
My best guess as to Russian interest is that by performing the sabotage in a difficult-to-attribute manner it plants the seeds for anti-US (and by extent, anti-Ukraine) sentiment in the public perception in the EU. More or less the governments of EU countries need the will of the people to back military aid to Ukraine, so giving the public something to latch on to from an anti-US perspective is valuable in that it could lower or prevent aid.
The Russians can also probably be secure in knowing that NATO won't publicly identify Russia as responsible as that would probably mean war and it has been very clear that NATO's top priority is avoiding the spread of the war in Ukraine.
There are some other possible Russian motivations I've seen, but put less stock in like capability demonstration and limiting incentives for a coup.
You need to stop thinking like a rational capitalist. It's a common problem for westerners to try to look at Russia from this angle.
It makes the cost of energy go up in Europe and the US, which exacerbates the existing problem of monetary inflation caused by the recent pandemic. It was meant as punishment for the West's support of Ukraine to increase civil discontent with the existing pro-Ukraine western governments. This allows the electorate to be more receptive to populist candidates funded by Russia with anti-Ukraine positions which will give Russia what they want.
Then, Ukraine goes to Russia, gas goes back to Europe via the still intact pipeline, European money goes back to Russia, and Russia wins.
