People say the Russian war effort could not have benefited from the Nord Stream sabotage. Is that really true?

This is a lot of speculation. I understand if that’s not your thing.

There is a lot of talk about who (temporarily?) took out (most of) the Nord Stream pipeline(s) in 2022. I don’t pretend to know. I’ll tell you my guess if you’re interested, but that’s not exactly what this question is about.

I’m interested who benefits from Nord Stream being taken down. I have heard many people argue that the current Russian war effort couldn’t possibly have benefited from this. I’m skeptical of that, and I want to know what you think.

As I understand it, the argument goes like this:
1. Russia gets money from Nord Stream, so they wouldn’t sabotage it.
2. Russia might sabotage Nord Stream but, as long as it’s intact, it’s a bargaining chip. Once it’s offline, it’s no longer a bargaining chip. US officials have basically said this as well.

Those arguments make sense, but I think there are counterarguments that conceivably could have appealed to Russian planners last year. I’m wondering what you think:

1. As I understand it, the EU’s consumption of Russian hydrocarbons has dropped a lot, but it’s still at least half of what it was before the invasion. https://ecfr.eu/article/conscious-uncoupling-europeans-russian-gas-challenge-in-2023/ To me, it certainly seems possible that European planners would now be more scared of losing the rest, now that they’ve lost Nord Stream. That would especially be the case if they thought that Russia might be behind the Nord Stream sabotage, because it would make any future threats more credible.

2. As I understand it, Nord Stream can still be repaired. It would just take a really long time and stability. You could imagine that European planners would now really want peace with Russia, so that there could be time to rebuild.

3. Europe knows that they won’t be able to get Nord Stream going again anytime soon. International markets and European voters also know this. That might be expected to hurt the European war effort more than the Russian war effort.

4. Putin is in a strong position, but he’s not omnipotent. If he wants to make sure Europe is cut off from gas, he might need to forestall internal opposition from Russian industry. Sabotaging Nord Stream would help with that.

5. Governments are often not geniuses. The US throws away leverage by being too aggressive all the time. Why would Russia be any different?

6. Look at those original two arguments: Nord Stream gives money to Russia and it’s a bargaining chip for Russia. Well it also gives money to Europe and it’s a bargaining chip for Europe, which is the US’s ally (pretty much) in this conflict.

Of course, none of that tells you who actually did it.