> It doesn't seem like something in Russia's interest, they've been wanting to get that pipeline approved and operational.
Once their invasion faltered, and with the recent escalation, they had no hope of that happening. The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations. You don't come back from nuclear threats and committing massive massacres on this scale.
The next regime might be able to repair relations, but the current regime doesn't care about that: they'll be dead or imprisoned for life before any new regime can take over.
This is the Russian regime's way of abandoning the project while causing the worst possible damage to the hated Europeans who are supporting Ukraine against their illegal, atrocious invasion.
That doesn't make any sense. If the Russians wanted to stop the gas supply, they could just stop supplying gas. And they had already stopped.
Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability (degree of freedom). It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas. And thus removes this option for Russia to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
I would say this is either the US, Ukraine or a EU state. To remove the threat that the EU later in the winter falters in negotations due to public pressure to turn the heat back on (literally).
The US has the additional incentive that they want to become the only gas provider to the EU via LNG terminals. That gives them an edge over the EU both economically and politically.
The Ukraine has the additional incentive that the remaining pipelines from Russia to the EU run through Ukraine. Removing the alternative options keeps the EU allied through dependence.
> Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability
Remember the many deaths of important people in Russia but also abroad?
It could very well be about "sending a message" while maintaining plausible deniability. Just like when the Russian oligarch was murdered in Spain a few months ago, and his whole family. Russia had nothing to do with it! But all the others got the message - you are not safe anywhere.
Similar here. There are a lot of other pipelines. If you look at the news, Poland opened a new pipeline from Norway exactly now! What a coincidence in timing?
The threat is that they can destroy any important infrastructure, cables and pipelines, under the sea, and there is no way to prove it was Russia.
It fist very well with how Russia operated this year. The many many different threats, direct and indirect, and demonstrations to actually carry them out.
To me, it's plausible. Much more so than "the US did it", or even Ukraine. Neither has any reason to stupidly risk their relationship with the Europeans for that, Ukraine least of all, and the US is already set to be the main supplier of LNG (German article: https://www.merkur.de/wirtschaft/usa-wird-wohl-wichtigster-l...). Gas exports for the US are nice to have, but not nearly essential, I think the US's own independence was the main driver in investing into domestic fossil fuel extraction, exports are a distant second. And they already got them, as I pointed out, no need for such a stupidly risky thing. Russia on the other hand does not need to gain anything, they can be content setting up a bigger threat scenario now that Putin escalated almost as much as he will be able to excluding using "WMD".
> Destroying the infrastructure doesn't give Russia an additional capability (degree of freedom).
It's not a bad strategy per se. As the parent comment said, this could be done to limit the choices that the future government of Russia will have. And in the present, this fact being public could be used by some political forces to create extra leverage.
There was a good game-theoretic example explaining why limiting your own future choices can be a good strategy which I can't find right now. So I'll try to re-tell it. Suppose you want to buy X, and you're willing to pay as much as $20 for it. You know that the seller is likely to agree even on $10, and they know that they know that you're likely to pay more for it. So for both of you the bargain happening is better than not happening as long as the price is within the range $10-20, but both of you know that both of you know this, so you both will be trying to squeeze as much as you can out of this deal.
In this case, artificially reducing your own capabilities and making it public can help convince the seller to sell it to you for less than $20. Say, you can sign an agreement with a third party saying that if you pay more than $10 for X, you will have to pay 11$ more to the third party. Now your possibilities are limited and you can't buy X for $20 anymore, so the only acceptable price for you is 10$, to which the seller has to agree because they know that otherwise the deal won't happen and they will lose.
It gets funnier if both you and seller sign these kind of contracts quietly, and then announce together making the deal impossible.
> It removes the degree of freedom to restart supplying gas.
Have you been following the news? The current Russian regime is threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and massacring thousands in war crimes in Ukraine.
The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations.
The next regime might be able to repair relations, but the current regime doesn't care about that: they'll be dead or imprisoned for life before any new regime can take over.
With the EU shifting to other permanent sources for its energy supply, it's doubtful they'll want to switch back to Russian gas ever. Getting burned once by a rogue regime using gas supply for leverage is quite enough.
> The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations.
The new supply chain isn't yet ready to a sufficient level. The pain inflicted by missing gas could become high enough for some "moral flexibility".
Apparently some state actor did see a greater-zero-chance for resumed operations. Otherwise, why blow up the pipeline...
Or Putin calculated the near zero percent chance of restarting the pipeline and found it a worthwhile sacrifice in pursuit of a false flag to rally domestic support (of which he is sorely lacking).
The Russians blew up their own brand-new pipeline, which they spend billions creating (jointly with the Germans) and is one of the few major "hopes" to salvage that relationship, especially as winter dawns.
That's frankly absurd.
Russia almost certainly sabotaged a LNG terminal in Texas a few months ago (industrial cyberattack). This act was almost certainly done by Washington or their proxies. It drives the wedge further between EU and Russia and makes the EU further dependent on Washington. The cui bono is pretty clear.
I don't understand why people here seem to think Russia is acting rationally. The fact they continue the invasion when losing is clearly irrational. They threaten mass nuclear bombardment of Europe nearly daily. I don't see any long term rationality in Putin's government in the slightest.
There will be no salvaging the relationship between Germany and Russia for a long time unless Putin gets replaced, even during winter. The absolute worst case scenario (the only one I see where Germany could have gone to Russia for gas) where people die from cold in their homes is never going to happen. Only yesterday BloombergNEF published a report saying Europe was ready for a complete cut off from Russian gas from October 1, and that includes commercial uses too which take up a big chunk and would obviously be redirected should there be any threat of people dying of cold.
> Russia almost certainly sabotaged a LNG terminal in Texas a few months ago
What evidence is there for this?
> It drives the wedge further between EU and Russia
On the contrary, should the EU find that the US was behind the explosions it would cause an absolute rift between the US-EU relationship, and in particular with Germany.
Have you genuinely attempted to understand the Russian perspective in all this? Like listened to what Moscow has been saying for the last decade? Have you ever read a single one of Putin's speeches, for example?
Reading Anne Applebaum screeds in The Atlantic is not seeking understanding, by the way.
How can you understand something if you don't attempt to understand it?
> What evidence is there for this?
No smoking gun, just cui bono + timing + no other plausible explanation has been put forth
> On the contrary, should the EU find that the US was behind the explosions it would cause an absolute rift between the US-EU relationship, and in particular with Germany.
If Europe had strong leadership. Even Merkel didn't really stand up to the spying revelations.
The nuclear brinkmanship is textbook deterrence. Whenever Russia escalates, expect nuclear threats to deter a full-blown NATO entry.
I think that Merkel and the other "strong" German leaders are the reason we are at this point (no surprise though, a good amount of them are/were on the Kremlin's payroll).
All the energy related decisions in the past 20 years seems to have been made with the purpose to make Germany dependent on Russia (Nuclear, lack of LPG terminals, etc), and to make sure that countries included in the imperialistic ambitions of Moscow (like Ukraine) could affect influence this relationship (NS1, NS2)
1-3 are predicated on an "official" declaration of war, which obviously hasn't happened yet. USA hasn't technically "invaded" Syria either, even though it is currently occupying parts of it. Russia is framing their military operation in a way consistent with Washington, which hasn't formally declared war on anyone since like 2003.
Do you have any examples that don't require clear technical misinterpretations?
The fourth example is just plain bad. I challenge you to find a single wartime leader that hasn't downplayed their losses. You are being deeply disingenuous if you think Putin means literally zero Russian soldiers have died. It's wartime morale management 101. Literally everyone does it, including your favorite world leaders.
What I'm really after is if you have any evidence of Putin (or Lavrov, now that you mention him) lying on the scale of "Saddam is gonna nuke the West" or "NATO will not expand one inch eastward". Or has Putin ever openly boasted about his lying prowess, as fmr Secretary Pompeo and fmr Ambassador McFaul did recently? These would be convincing examples.
If you genuinely think considering Putin's output as lies requires "clear technical misinterpretations", I'm not sure any argument is going to mean much.
However, taking just from his recent speech announcing the mobilization (I don't speak Russian and am relying on a translation from the Kremlin's transcript, but at least two independent translations are similar enough):
- Repeated claims that the purpose of the "special military operation" is to liberate Donbas from the "neo-Nazi regime" holding power in Ukraine
The Ukrainian government is not neo-Nazi. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. (It might be common rhetoric in Russia since the Soviet Union and WWII days to claim opponents as "Nazis", but that's not what the word means to anybody else.) Repeatedly claiming that a country is being ruled by neo-Nazis with no reason or evidence, especially when there's reason not to believe that, is a lie. The claim of Ukraine being ruled by neo-Nazis is repeated enough in just that single speech that this claim alone would more than suffice.
- Claims of genocide in eastern Ukraine, and of a government in Ukraine being the result of a coup
There has been no evidence of a genocide (which is a rather strong term and claim to make in the first place), and there has been no coup. There have, of course, been governments unfavourable to and disliked by the current Russian regime. But that doesn't make their election a coup.
- Reference to the "Kyiv occupation regime"
An occupation regime is one that's occupying a country other than their own, or acting as a puppet of an occupying country, or possibly (at a stretch) a military regime holding power over their own country with force against the will of the people's majority. An elected government in their own country is none of these. Even if some parts of a population in a part of a country would prefer a differently aligned government, that doesn't make the government an occupation regime.
- The claim that the "Kyiv regime" announced a desire for obtaining nuclear weapons
An individual member of the parliament in Ukraine apparently expressed regret that Ukraine had given up Soviet-era nuclear armaments, or that (in his view) Ukraine might need to pursue them again. An individual member of a parliament (who AFAIK was not part of the government) expressing a view does not by any stretch mean the same as a government announcing that view. The difference is obvious to anybody who understands how democracy works.
I don't know how common it is in Ukraine nowadays to wish the country had nuclear weapons, although I wouldn't be surprised if that had increased as a result of Russian aggression and war. Either way, claiming a government has announced something when they haven't said anything to that effect is a lie.
--
There also lots of other claims in the speech, intended to gain the support of its audience, that amount to dishonesty or lying regardless of technical nitpicking. I'm not going to list them all here, as there are too many and there's no point, but an example would be the claim that western governments have resorted to "nuclear blackmail". Putin refers to "statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using [nuclear weapons] against Russia". While it's hard to track down every statement made by every representative of a NATO country and prove that none of them ever said anything in that direction, the essence of claiming that western governments or countries are making nuclear threats against Russia is blatantly and obviously false.
Watching things from Europe, the only references to nuclear threat I have seen are concerns that Putin's regime is making them, even if vaguely, and concerns of the safety of nuclear power plants amidst the war. Absolutely zero governments are making any suggestions towards threatening Russia with anything nuclear. Nobody's also crazy or stupid enough to do so, and if an individual representative or politician actually did that, it would obviously get condemned immediately, because none of those governments would be crazy or stupid enough not to condemn it.
There are lots of statements and claims like that in the mobilization speech alone. And all of this is just from a single speech. Every speech Putin has given this year that I've seen or read about has been filled with untruths of varying degrees.
Many of his claims are either somewhat vague or otherwise difficult to absolutely verify as lies with mathematical precision. Some of them might not be lies from Putin's perspective. For example, he might well feel that his conservative regime is being threatened by a liberal opposition encouraged by western influence or western countries. The claims that Russia (as he understands it) is being threatened by the west may be true from his perspective.
However, many of the claims he makes in support of that view or to justify the war are simply dishonest, such as the allusions to nuclear threat from the west. There's no way those could be considered anything but either delusions or lies.
Generally, so many of Putin's claims are some kind of a combination of simply not true, baseless, and obviously motivated, that the whole definitely amounts to him lying or twisting the truth whenever it suits his purposes.
What is it that makes him seem more truthful to you?
I live in Odessa, Ukraine, and I have had to go to shelter from missile strikes and suicide drone attacks several times in just the past few days.
I have also lived in Russia. It can be awkward when the Ukrainians see my old Russian visa in my passport when I cross the border.
Where do you live? Ukraine? Russia? How close are you to this issue personally? Got any skin in the game? How many blatant lies are you going to ignore so your Nazi-apologist worldview isn’t compromised?
How would you like to see this notification near enough every day, sometimes several times a day?
В ОДЕССЕ И ОБЛАСТИ ОБЪЯВЛЕНА ВОЗДУШНАЯ ТРЕВОГА, ВСЕ В УКРЫТИЕ
ЧИТАТЕЛИ СООБЩАЮТ, О ВЗРЫВАХ В ОДЕССЕ И ПРИГОРОДЕ. Уточняем информацию
The Russian perspective is basically, "we had an awesome empire, now we want it back". All the rhetoric about teh evil NATO etc is just dressing that up.
I genuinely attempted to understand Russia’s perspective and tended to sympathize with it until February of this year. But the current war doesn’t fit into that understanding at all and I don’t know how to begin to reconcile it. Why spend months insisting you’re not going to invade, then invade while publicly insisting you’re not invading, then call up a partial general mobilization without identifying any goals for your war that you insist isn’t a war? Maybe there’s a master plan that has to be secret and continually lied about, but if that’s so then listening to more Putin speeches won’t help me understand him anyway.
Russia's perspective is that NATO (the US) has put military installations in former Soviet satellites (Poland and Romania) and that they're being pushed into a corner as NATO expands to the East. In fact those installations are purely defensive and Russia has become less relevant as a superpower largely because of corruption. This is even more obvious now as they have failed to properly execute a war against their neighbour. Putin and the Russians who support the war are frustrated because they've lost the former glory of the USSR and that Russia is becoming a second rate player in geopolitics. That's why he started this war. He wants the USSR restored. What he will get instead is even more dissent and separatist republics.
Exaggerated threats is standard soviet negotiation and the current leadership of Russia are creatures of that culture of negotiation.
Blowing up their own gas line makes no sense as it destroys any possible leverage. The only ones that have anything to gain is the US or other associated allies.
The pipelines represented zero leverage at this point. No gas was being supplied by them and it would be politically untenable for any European country to buy it using these pipelines while Putin is still in charge. So as far as Putin was concerned (not Russia) these pipelines have zero value.
It's really not that absurd. The fact that it looks entirely irrational for Russia to do this is exactly why they might have done it. Their intent is to cause division in the West. They could potentially hope for EU countries to blame the US or Ukraine for this. If you read Twitter trends you already see an army of Russian bots pushing the theory that the US has done this.
> The fact that it looks entirely irrational for Russia to do this is exactly why they might have done it.
Any analysis predicated on "the enemy is perfectly irrational and will not act according their interests" is not analysis. It's untethered from reality, which is convenient, because you can support any conclusion you desire.
Robert McNamara's #1 life lesson was "empathize with your enemy" (he dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis). Sun Tzu said "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." This timeless wisdom has basis in reality.
Unfortunately, realism in Washington has been replaced with insane, petulant ideologues like Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland" and Michael "Of course we lied" McFaul.
People like Michael McFaul is exactly why the invasion happened in the first place because the Obama admin was weak on Russia after the 2014 invasion. They are the opposite of ideologues.
It is actually bipartisan idiocy. Goes beyond Obama/Biden perceived weakness and weird foreign policies. Don’t forget Bush ambassador to Russia - current CIA director who personally managed to convince Putin that entire former USSR is solely RF sphere of interest/influence
Putin was not content with having his fiefdom and threatened Western security interests by blowing up the post WW2 global order. He stepped out of line and now Russia suffers for it. That's the realism. China knows it and that's why they aren't backing him.
This isn't about ideology, democracy or human rights. This is warlord invoking the wrath of imperial gunboats.
>It's really not that absurd. The fact that it looks entirely irrational for Russia to do this is exactly why they might have done it.
Yeah, let's just forget all about Occam's' razor.
>If you read Twitter trends you already see an army of Russian bots pushing the theory that the US has done this.
Because it makes sense? US social media is 100% pro-Ukrainian propaganda and any slight dissent, criticisms or questioning is met seemingly instantly from multiple accounts alleging Russian propaganda. Meanwhile the biggest impact on American social media is American propaganda. Including about our alleged ally, Ukraine. And like Israel, they seem to be more trouble than they're worth as far as the interests of the average American citizen are concerned.
Ok, in the conference he specifically calls out Nord stream two but there is definitely a glint in his demeanor/timing that says "we can destroy it" when the journo exasperatedly asks "but how will you do that [put an end to NS2]"
Pretty sure the repair can be done before there is any chance the sanctions would be lifted. So Russia doesnt really lose anything important but is able to sow discord, mistrust and generally raise the fear level about gas supply.
That's possible, albeit a very expensive prank with no guaranteed upside. Why not just keep the valve shut and pretend you have no interest in opening it?
> The Russians blew up their own brand-new pipeline, which they spend billions creating (jointly with the Germans) and is one of the few major "hopes" to salvage that relationship, especially as winter dawns.
There is no "salvaging the relationship" for the current regime. No gas will flow in these pipelines while Putin is in power, and the EU has already prepared alternatives:
Thus these pipelines are worthless to the current regime, except as means to cause damage to the hated Europeans who are enforcing sanctions against them and arming Ukraine against their invasion.
You may argue that the relationship might be salvaged with the next regime, but Putin doesn't care. He will be dead or imprisoned for life whenever such next regime takes power.
I remember Tiananmen Square. People were horrified at the barbaric reaction of the PRC to peaceful protests. Thirty plus years later, they are one of the world's largest trading partners. Despite their barbaric treatment of the Uighars. So I don't believe that countries won't salvage their "relationship" with Russia given half a chance.
The hope in Moscow is that the people of Germany, etc will rise up and democratically remove the Washington proxies (Grünen) from their governments. Then the relationship may be renewed.
The notion that NS2 would enter operation is absurd. NS2 has been dead in the water for months, and the prospect of entering service have been dubious for some time before the Russians invaded Ukraine.
Washington had a very clear policy of never letting NS2 enter production (remember that ominous Biden quip before the war? [1]), which, by the way, is the opposite of absurd: Germany is a major consumer of natural gas and Russia is a major nearby supplier. NS2 is natural in a world without geopolitical drama.
"NS2 shouldn't exist" is a narrative manufactured in Washington (and delivered to Germany by Baerbock), that goes against basic economics and the interests of both Germans and Russians.
> NS2 is natural in a world without geopolitical drama.
As I understand it, most of the gas that would be delivered via NS2 would be the gas that wouldn't be delivered through Belarus/Ukraine (depriving them of transit revenue and providing more options for Russia to employ gas politics on its western flank). It rather seems to me that, far from being natural in a world without geopolitical drama, much of its purpose is actually to enable geopolitical drama.
And, of course, the main thrust of the argumentation against NS2 was that it was causing Germany to pursue an economic dependency on Russia that was unwise, given Russia's already-demonstrated penchant for using that economic dependency as a lever in global affairs. NS2 died when Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the lack of wisdom in pursuing economic dependency on Russia (compounded by Russia withholding gas flows to make Europe came back begging to Mother Russia).
So should Russia be obliged to pay for transit and provide gas to Ukraine?
Why wouldn't Ukraine pursue gas supplies from other sources? It had at least 8 years for that, but all the time was spent on opposing NS2.
"that was unwise" is a simplification, not a proper explanation. Russia is a cheap resource supplier, so it was beneficial for European countries to leverage it for their economy to be more competitive with US at least.
Saudi Arabia has its own bunch of issues with democracy (there is none, imagine), human rights (surprise), a war with neighbouring Yemen (sounds familiar?), but for some magical reason no one cares and alienates Saudi Arabia, and everyone is very forgetful and blind about their issues and doesn't interfere.
The key difference is that Saudi Arabia has not acquired new territory for itself. In the post-colonial era, there are very strong norms against countries annexing parts of each other, with Russia's actions in Ukraine being pretty much the first to happen since the 60s. If the Saudis had initiated the war in Yemen by pointing to some old border dispute and directly annexing the port of Aden, people would be much more angry with them.
For comparison, consider Iraq's attempt to annex Kuwait in the 90s. The world absolutely considered it a five-alarm fire, with the West immediately planning for war and even China and the Soviet Union authorizing a retaliatory blockade. Most people genuinely and strongly feel that the return of territorial conquest as a common practice would be a disaster for the world.
They use the same route. Your assertion that NS2 is somehow out-of-place and can only be explained by Russian "gas politics" is contradicted by the precedent set by NS1.
Where is the contradiction? NS1 has limited capacity that was not sufficient to allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian gas pipelines, NS2 would increases the capacity of this route.
It's not absurd if NS1 were damaged. Even if Germany didn't want the extra capacity that NS2 brings, it's an obvious backup if NS1 were to fail. Anyone wanting to cut off the option of Russia supplying gas to Germany this winter would have to hit both.
The amusing thing is that I saw this video popping up from Russian bots before I even saw the Nordsteam news. If you told me that they planned on blowing it up, then pushing the narrative that Biden blew it up, I'd totally believe it. This clip showed up _everywhere_ before the news of the pipeline had really spread far.
I would say the Ukrainians in cooperation with their biggest friends: the Polish government. It's in no interest for the Russians to destroy their own pipeline. They could as well just shut down the supply.
I don't wanna speak to negative about Ukraine. But don't forget that the country belongs to the most corrupt and dirty countries in Europe. The state is controlled by oligarchs. In fact the Oligarchs brought the Zelensky team into power to make sure their needs are executed.
In my mind, the Ukrainians are the only party who could blow the pipelines without being dirty. It's a strategic asset of a country they're in an active war with.
Yeah, but Ukraine requires a working relationships with the west and europe to sustain it's war. Whilst Ukraine is going to benefit from this, this sort of damage is too great for them to engage with as a primary actor.
Imagine if they did take credit for this, Russia could respond with nukes or chemical weapons. It could also bite them that deep in the cold of winter, when everyone is wearing coats in doors for months, that the Germans start to resent sending military equipment to Ukraine.
This act will put pressure on Ukraine. Also not super great for the environment. as well. Another often overlooked victim.
And it's a great way to make the rest of Europe never give in to Russian no matter how much they suffer. If enough people in Europe saw their grandmother shivering in January, they might rise up and say hell with it, we need our gas back no matter what the cost somewhere else in eastern Europe. But now they can't say that because it won't get the gas turned back on anyway.
Their ability to buy gas that is usually available to them.
People voted and lived in a society where things were handled. You voted and kept your government because things were handled. You voted the way you did because you were satisfied you could keep yourself warm in the winter at a fair price. Eventually, you consider that right yours, since it was described as something you have access to.
Then suddenly someone you voted for decides, "hey, I know my party ran on getting that pipeline approved, and we invested in green energy as a certain ratio based on getting this gas to you when you need it, but guess what.... We've changed our mind. There are outside things more important than your ability to heat your home for a price you can afford."
I'd consider that the politician turning off my access to affordable life sustaining gas.
You feel entitled to it at a certain price but it isn’t yours. Voting for it to be available to be yours doesn’t make it yours.
Just pointing out that it isn’t like you’re talking about your country’s national reserves that are being sold elsewhere instead of to you.
I don’t mean to sound disparaging but a good set of winter clothes will ensure survival through the winter better than whatever gas/price ratio you feel entitled to.
They did not blow the other pipelines passing through Ukraine, so why would they blow up NS? To deny themselves military aid from Germany? It doesn't make sense.
> The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations
Well, yes: there was a regime change and the Soviet empire partially broke up, so over 30 years, the new Russian regime created friendly relations with many of its western neighbours. Pity an idiot in the Kremlin decided to burn all that work by invading UA, but a hypothetical post-Putin regime could start from scratch again.
The Russians.
> It doesn't seem like something in Russia's interest, they've been wanting to get that pipeline approved and operational.
Once their invasion faltered, and with the recent escalation, they had no hope of that happening. The current Russian regime will never be able to repair relations with the west to the extent that will allow the Nordstream pipelines to resume operations. You don't come back from nuclear threats and committing massive massacres on this scale.
The next regime might be able to repair relations, but the current regime doesn't care about that: they'll be dead or imprisoned for life before any new regime can take over.
This is the Russian regime's way of abandoning the project while causing the worst possible damage to the hated Europeans who are supporting Ukraine against their illegal, atrocious invasion.
> That's an intriguing mystery.
Nope. Clearly the Russians.