Comment by impossiblefork

It's very possible that they did, it's very feasible and to some degree a simple matter. However, I still believe that it's more likely that the US did than that the Ukrainians did. My initial assumption, right after it happened was Ukrainians or the US, but I have always leaned to that the US is more likely, and there's at lot of reasons for that.

However, I mostly think you did it because you said you would, and I kind of trust you when you do things like that. When your leaders try to communicate their intentions, they usually mean what they say and it's not terribly complicated.

The US talk about agreement with the EU view that this is somehow a brazen and dangerous sabotage is pretty funny though, because this kind of thing is absolutely legal-- completely, not like 'Oh, this is disputable', but completely. The useless German arrest warrant that was issued was funny too. Neither of these two mean anything, but I get the impression that everybody knows it's legal and wish it weren't. They know that the Armenians can blow up Turkstream and the Georgian pipelines, even with the slightest provocation, since there's no ceasefire agreement and all their big investments can be destroyed in an instant with unhappy Brits as a likely result.

You don't even need an order. If your country is occupied by another country or at war, and you can damage infrastructure useful for the enemy war effort, whether in export of energy or the electrical grid or anything like that, you don't need an order, you should just do it. Attacks on things in international waters is obviously permitted. If it belongs the enemy and you can attack it, you probably should. It's more complicated if it's in a neutral country, and then it might actually be illegal, but otherwise-- do the work and put on some distinctive marking for the attack itself, and there's nothing to complain about.

It's something that anyone who has lived in a smaller country with a neighbour that could possibly make war upon them drills into their own heads when they first read their grandparent's old 1950s military manuals.

Of course, if the US really did warn, then it may be as you say-- after all, why warn of what one would oneself plan to do, but people can be tricky, so there isn't a guarantee there either, especially if the explosives are pre-planted.

I'm reminded of the weird US accusations against Russia right after the event though, now that I read the article again, and that's another reason to suspect the US. Imagine that you're in an Agatha Christie novel and somebody says stupid things to you. There's only one conclusion-- he wants you to think stupid things. The article also contains some of this kind of stupid about 1/3 in and it's right when it starts discussing this kind of thing, so, no it's 100% the US. You don't talk like this, or reason like this, unless you did it. It even has one of those 'how did you know the parts you weren't there for' problems.