Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

Susan Collins3 said:It’s a total blowout, honestly—like the old guard from Joža Manolić's era. I mean, they're actually mobilizing guys who were fighting in Afghanistan forty years ago and somehow haven't kicked the bucket yet. No wonder you see mobilized dudes dropping dead from heart attacks left and right.

But seriously, this stuff is pretty sketchy. It looks like Russia is heading toward full-blown mobilization, maybe even over a million people. Sending grandpas, barbers, and other random, incompetent folks to the front line is just going to spike the body count, which I guess will force a response from the Ukrainian side. Then everything could spiral into a total meat grinder, kind of like WWI. Basically, Putin is betting everything the Russian Federation has left on a few weeks of progress, hoping for a big win, while all his sycophants just sit there watching and staying quiet.

I felt bad at first, but honestly? If they'd rather head off to war than show up to a protest, then screw 'em... let them go perish.
Now, just to be spiteful, I'm supporting the Ukrainians even more.👍

Timothy Nelson5 said:Force of the blast A 2.1 to 2.2 on the Richter scale is roughly equivalent to an explosion of 1,500 to 2,500 kg of TNT.

That’s... well, it's probably about 7 to 10 times more than what your average heavy torpedo puts out.

Even the pipeline itself could probably be torn apart by a simple 10 kg shaped charge placed directly against the pipe.

So, if this was actual targeted sabotage, a relatively small mine would have done the trick.

It seems unlikely that someone just went out and planted such a massive amount of explosives right now.
I guess it's much more likely that this was set up a long time ago—maybe even before the pipeline was even laid down there.

I’m leaning toward that theory 👍

The same goes for my take that the Americans aren't behind this. It’s almost too obvious if they were—everyone is already hyper-focused on them because of it.
They aren't quite that reckless, and I guess they have enough sense to be discreet.
There's a real chance the public will never actually find out who did it. Only those in the loop will know.
Moving on.

silvermarlin56 said:I felt bad at first, but honestly? If they'd rather head off to war than show up to a protest, then screw 'em... let them go perish.
Now, just to be spiteful, I'm supporting the Ukrainians even more.👍

And besides, these people who were out protesting are heading straight from the picket lines into a military transport and then right into combat. These "fine gentlemen" are basically riding a bus straight to the front lines...

James Chavez91 said:I’m leaning toward that theory 👍

The same goes for my take that the Americans aren't behind this. It’s almost too obvious if they were—everyone is already hyper-focused on them because of it.
They aren't quite that reckless, and I guess they have enough sense to be discreet.
There's a real chance the public will never actually find out who did it. Only those in the loop will know.
Moving on.

And everyone knows exactly who it is, if they don't already. 😁

You could drop another thousand posts in this thread and still never figure out who actually blew up that pipeline.

Maybe we'll get some reliable answers in 10 or 20 years.

So why even bother arguing about who benefits? Half of you are rooting for the Russians and the other half for the USA. Then you've got the Norwegians claiming one thing and the Poles claiming another, blah blah blah.

And all this obsession with digging through Maxar satellite imagery or waiting for radar logs to drop? Give me a break.

hollowdriver13 said:It’s not impossible, but we’re talking more about an autonomous submarine than some tiny little drone at that point. (And here we go again, back to the fact that the US had those submarine hunter helicopters and planes patrolling that area back then, just tearing things up left and right.)

Punching through an underwater pipeline isn't exactly a walk in the park. You've got steel walls that are several inches thick, all encased in a concrete sleeve or sarcophagus that averages about 8 inches deep. Because of that, sections of undersea gas or oil pipelines usually weigh dozens of tons. To actually breach something like that, you'd need a seriously massive amount of explosives.

Yes, the pipes are coated in a type of concrete—which also functions as ballast to ensure the empty pipe sinks and stays anchored to the seabed—along nearly its entire length. However, at the welded joints, there is only some sort of insulation covering the weld rather than concrete; it's thinner there. Concrete likely won't act as much of a barrier against high explosives, so it will be interesting to see the post-blast imagery to determine the size and shape of the resulting crater.

ruggedowl13 said:And besides, these people who were out protesting are heading straight from the picket lines into a military transport and then right into combat. These "fine gentlemen" are basically riding a bus straight to the front lines...

Man, look, if they actually managed to rally ten thousand people across a few major cities, the government wouldn't even have enough cops on hand, let alone enough buses to haul them all to the front😉 and just imagine if half of those protesters actually formed a battalion

View on twitter
Ukraine is going to allow Russian prisoners to have phone contact with their families every few days, just so they don't spiral into deep depression or lose all hope

Terry Green3 said:Still hoping for a more colorful story, like the one boldbison40 put together.

Ship names, crew lists, small boats, specific dates, unloading times—he’ll claim he got all that intel straight from Kaliningrad.

Just to add some context here. The Americans found the Russian explosives already in place and started poking around them, trying to get a look at the tech and reverse-engineer their methods. Something clearly went sideways, and then we saw explosions hit three out of the four positions.
So what now? The wolf finally caught the sheep.
Maybe the Russians put that there as some kind of failsafe during the pipeline installation, a little ace up their sleeve. Then the Americans showed up, started poking around, and well... here we are.

Can you handle this one?

President Biden made it quite clear regarding the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline if Russia Invades Ukraine... he essentially stated that if we see Russian tanks or troops actually crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there simply won't be a Nord Stream 2 anymore, because we are going to ensure its end...
If the Russians decide to invade—and I mean actual tanks or troops crossing the Ukrainian border once again—then the Nord Stream 2 project is officially dead in the water. We will make sure it comes to an absolute end...

When people press him on the specifics of how he actually plans to pull it off, the President just looks them in the eye and offers this unwavering assurance, saying, "I promise you, we will be able to do that..."

I just finished watching this video, and I have to say, it really gives you a lot to chew on regarding everything happening right now... It’s one of those pieces that stays with you, making you look at the broader geopolitical landscape through a completely different lens than what we usually see on the nightly news... The way they break down the complexities of the situation in Ukraine and how it ties back to our own interests here in the States is honestly quite profound... It makes you wonder how much more of this tension we can absorb before the entire structure shifts under our feet...

Timothy Nelson5 said:Force of the blast A 2.1 to 2.2 on the Richter scale is roughly equivalent to an explosion of 1,500 to 2,500 kg of TNT.

That’s... well, it's probably about 7 to 10 times more than what your average heavy torpedo puts out.

Even the pipeline itself could probably be torn apart by a simple 10 kg shaped charge placed directly against the pipe.

So, if this was actual targeted sabotage, a relatively small mine would have done the trick.

It seems unlikely that someone just went out and planted such a massive amount of explosives right now.
I guess it's much more likely that this was set up a long time ago—maybe even before the pipeline was even laid down there.

According to the Omni calculator...

A magnitude of 2.1 on the Richter scale... that actually translates to about 21.3 kg of TNT...
A magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale actually equates to roughly 42.5 kg of TNT...

Just for a bit of perspective on what we’re looking at... a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Washington, D.C., would be roughly equivalent to 2,681,688 kg of TNT, which is about 0.18 of the energy released by the Hiroshima blast...

If you're looking to wrap your head around how we actually measure seismic activity, I highly recommend checking out this resource on Omni... it provides a really clear breakdown of how the Richter scale functions, which can be quite helpful when you're trying to grasp the sheer magnitude of these events...

German... I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the mechanics behind a shaped charge lately... there is just something so fundamentally fascinating about how a concentrated burst of energy can be directed with such surgical precision through geometry alone... it really makes you wonder about the sheer physics involved when you consider how much force can be focused onto a single point... It’s about 27 pounds... just like back at Eben Emael...



The result—and just to clarify, this smaller hole is actually where the machine gun mount was seated, rather than being caused by an explosion itself...

A former Polish defense minister is giving the USA credit for taking out that Russian pipeline supplying gas to Europe (Found this one first on Google)

Looks like even Radek Sikorski thinks Americans are...

Nancy Gomez26 said:Yes, the pipes are coated in a type of concrete—which also functions as ballast to ensure the empty pipe sinks and stays anchored to the seabed—along nearly its entire length. However, at the welded joints, there is only some sort of insulation covering the weld rather than concrete; it's thinner there. Concrete likely won't act as much of a barrier against high explosives, so it will be interesting to see the post-blast imagery to determine the size and shape of the resulting crater.

It might not even be a "hole." The explosion could have completely shredded an entire section of the pipeline. Looking at the sea surface in those photos, maybe it’s just a massive gap on both sides. By the way, the Danes updated their estimates; they aren't looking at a week or two of leaking anymore. They expect everything to be out by Sunday.
Regarding what Richter recorded, it might not be the primary blast (the explosive itself) but rather a secondary explosion caused by the pressurized mixture inside the gas line. Physics gets messy here: internal pipeline pressure, ocean pressure at that depth, the specific gas mixture used to pressurize the line, and so on.
There's going to be plenty of work for the forensic experts.

brightheron64 said:

Can you handle this one?

President Biden made it quite clear regarding the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline if Russia Invades Ukraine... he essentially stated that if we see Russian tanks or troops actually crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there simply won't be a Nord Stream 2 anymore, because we are going to ensure its end...
If the Russians decide to invade—and I mean actual tanks or troops crossing the Ukrainian border once again—then the Nord Stream 2 project is officially dead in the water. We will make sure it comes to an absolute end...

When people press him on the specifics of how he actually plans to pull it off, the President just looks them in the eye and offers this unwavering assurance, saying, "I promise you, we will be able to do that..."

I just finished watching this video, and I have to say, it really gives you a lot to chew on regarding everything happening right now... It’s one of those pieces that stays with you, making you look at the broader geopolitical landscape through a completely different lens than what we usually see on the nightly news... The way they break down the complexities of the situation in Ukraine and how it ties back to our own interests here in the States is honestly quite profound... It makes you wonder how much more of this tension we can absorb before the entire structure shifts under our feet...

According to the Omni calculator...

A magnitude of 2.1 on the Richter scale... that actually translates to about 21.3 kg of TNT...
A magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale actually equates to roughly 42.5 kg of TNT...

Just for a bit of perspective on what we’re looking at... a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Washington, D.C., would be roughly equivalent to 2,681,688 kg of TNT, which is about 0.18 of the energy released by the Hiroshima blast...

If you're looking to wrap your head around how we actually measure seismic activity, I highly recommend checking out this resource on Omni... it provides a really clear breakdown of how the Richter scale functions, which can be quite helpful when you're trying to grasp the sheer magnitude of these events...

German... I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the mechanics behind a shaped charge lately... there is just something so fundamentally fascinating about how a concentrated burst of energy can be directed with such surgical precision through geometry alone... it really makes you wonder about the sheer physics involved when you consider how much force can be focused onto a single point... It’s about 27 pounds... just like back at Eben Emael...



The result—and just to clarify, this smaller hole is actually where the machine gun mount was seated, rather than being caused by an explosion itself...


Can you handle this one?

President Biden made it quite clear regarding the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline if Russia Invades Ukraine... he essentially stated that if we see Russian tanks or troops actually crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there simply won't be a Nord Stream 2 anymore, because we are going to ensure its end...
If the Russians decide to invade—and I mean actual tanks or troops crossing the Ukrainian border once again—then the Nord Stream 2 project is officially dead in the water. We will make sure it comes to an absolute end...

When people press him on the specifics of how he actually plans to pull it off, the President just looks them in the eye and offers this unwavering assurance, saying, "I promise you, we will be able to do that..."

I just finished watching this video, and I have to say, it really gives you a lot to chew on regarding everything happening right now... It’s one of those pieces that stays with you, making you look at the broader geopolitical landscape through a completely different lens than what we usually see on the nightly news... The way they break down the complexities of the situation in Ukraine and how it ties back to our own interests here in the States is honestly quite profound... It makes you wonder how much more of this tension we can absorb before the entire structure shifts under our feet...

According to the Omni calculator...

A magnitude of 2.1 on the Richter scale... that actually translates to about 21.3 kg of TNT...
A magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale actually equates to roughly 42.5 kg of TNT...

Just for a bit of perspective on what we’re looking at... a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Washington, D.C., would be roughly equivalent to 2,681,688 kg of TNT, which is about 0.18 of the energy released by the Hiroshima blast...

If you're looking to wrap your head around how we actually measure seismic activity, I highly recommend checking out this resource on Omni... it provides a really clear breakdown of how the Richter scale functions, which can be quite helpful when you're trying to grasp the sheer magnitude of these events...

German... I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the mechanics behind a shaped charge lately... there is just something so fundamentally fascinating about how a concentrated burst of energy can be directed with such surgical precision through geometry alone... it really makes you wonder about the sheer physics involved when you consider how much force can be focused onto a single point... It’s about 27 pounds... just like back at Eben Emael...



The result—and just to clarify, this smaller hole is actually where the machine gun mount was seated, rather than being caused by an explosion itself...

No.

A 2 on the Richter scale is actually 1 ton of TNT.
A 3 on the Richter scale hits like 32 tons of TNT.

Terry Green3 said:It might not even be a "hole." The explosion could have completely shredded an entire section of the pipeline. Looking at the sea surface in those photos, maybe it’s just a massive gap on both sides. By the way, the Danes updated their estimates; they aren't looking at a week or two of leaking anymore. They expect everything to be out by Sunday.
Regarding what Richter recorded, it might not be the primary blast (the explosive itself) but rather a secondary explosion caused by the pressurized mixture inside the gas line. Physics gets messy here: internal pipeline pressure, ocean pressure at that depth, the specific gas mixture used to pressurize the line, and so on.
There's going to be plenty of work for the forensic experts.

In Nord Stream 1, the pressure plummeted from 105 down to 7 bar overnight right before the explosion.

Christian Torres3 said:Your logic is seriously broken. If you actually understand energy output, you can calculate the approximate amount of explosives needed to generate that much force.

It was only a matter of time before we started seeing "expert" armchair analysts popping up everywhere on this forum alongside the actual pros. 😁

So, if you know how much energy was released, you automatically know the weight of the explosives used? 🙂
Everything is already figured out, apparently. I remember hearing about a lab setup where they simulated this—they calculated exactly when the barrel would fail, what kind of explosive was involved, how much energy came from the blast versus the gas pressure, and how the surrounding environment reacted differently than it would during a standard earthquake.
But hey, why bother investigating further? The "experts" already said there's nothing left to find.

ironseal said:What’s so "fascinating" or weird about that? You seriously didn't see a reason to mock the Russian military and their so-called "Special Military Operation" over the last six months? That doesn't mean they can't blow up a damn pipe in shallow water—we're talking depth where people compete in free diving. A small terrorist cell could pull that off, let alone a terrorist state like the Russian Federation.

The fascinating part is that even some minor terrorist cells can quietly drop and detonate two tons of explosives on the ocean floor without anyone noticing.

hollowdriver13 said:It’s not impossible, but we’re talking more about an autonomous submarine than some tiny little drone at that point. (And here we go again, back to the fact that the US had those submarine hunter helicopters and planes patrolling that area back then, just tearing things up left and right.)

Punching through an underwater pipeline isn't exactly a walk in the park. You've got steel walls that are several inches thick, all encased in a concrete sleeve or sarcophagus that averages about 8 inches deep. Because of that, sections of undersea gas or oil pipelines usually weigh dozens of tons. To actually breach something like that, you'd need a seriously massive amount of explosives.

Because of this, the Americans need to put out some kind of official version. Seriously, the only thing actually documented is how they were scrambling around there right before this whole mess broke out. They can't afford to stay silent on this, or else the whispers in diplomatic and political circles will start getting just as loud as the chatter we're hearing here.
It’s entirely plausible they used some remote hack to mess with them, just waiting for them to circle that spot for a few days like bait on a hook. Now, the Russians have already tapped the FBI to dig into "international terrorism." Meanwhile, their minister is out there pitching a joint Russian-EU investigation. Typical.

analogbear5 said:In Nord Stream 1, the pressure plummeted from 105 down to 7 bar overnight right before the explosion.

I'm thinking the sequence goes explosion first, then the pressure drop?

Linda Collins3 said:A former Polish defense minister is giving the USA credit for taking out that Russian pipeline supplying gas to Europe (Found this one first on Google)

Looks like even Radek Sikorski thinks Americans are...

As long as the Russians just keep making those nuclear bomb threats

Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a random question, but does anyone know for sure if this isn't just some kind of technical glitch or a hardware malfunction?

Timothy Nelson5 said:Force of the blast A 2.1 to 2.2 on the Richter scale is roughly equivalent to an explosion of 1,500 to 2,500 kg of TNT.

That’s... well, it's probably about 7 to 10 times more than what your average heavy torpedo puts out.

Even the pipeline itself could probably be torn apart by a simple 10 kg shaped charge placed directly against the pipe.

So, if this was actual targeted sabotage, a relatively small mine would have done the trick.

It seems unlikely that someone just went out and planted such a massive amount of explosives right now.
I guess it's much more likely that this was set up a long time ago—maybe even before the pipeline was even laid down there.

https://twitter.com/CovertShores/sta...70419551145989

By the way, some pretty sketchy "little boats" were loitering around that area earlier this summer.

Then, right on cue, the CIA Berlin Station gets a heads-up about potential sabotage on the pipeline.

And then the US Navy sends the USS Kearsage (which, let's be real, acts more like a light carrier despite being labeled an amphibious assault ship) out to the Baltic Sea.

David Wright4 said:Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a random question, but does anyone know for sure if this isn't just some kind of technical glitch or a hardware malfunction?

We're looking at three separate breaches in the pipelines—one on NS2 and two on NS1—all within 3.7 miles a stone's throw of each other.
It’s a bit hard to swallow the idea that those would all be caused by simple malfunctions.