A deep dive into risks for undersea cables, pipes

What was the Russian Navy doing in the area?

Russia's Baltic Fleet headquarters is in Kaliningrad, a Russian territory on the Baltic coast sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania that was the German territory of East Prussia before it was captured by the Soviets in WWII. The Russians also have important shipyards and their naval academy in Saint Petersburg.

Biden specifically threatened to do this in a speech in February this year, 'Don't believe your lying ears'.

No he did not 'specifically' threaten to do any such thing.

Don't believe your lying ears'.

Ears don't lie, mouths do. 'Specifically', yours.

The pipeline starts in Russia, goes through the Baltic Sea and ends in Germany, nowhere near Ireland

never said it does but the transatlantic cables start from Ireland. What was the Russian Navy doing in the area?

Russia has total control of the flow of the pipeline, they can set it to zero without blowing it up.

Both pipelines were already shut down. They had residual pressure inside.

Gazprom is a Russian company and is the majority shareholder. They have suffered huge losses because of this attack.

Since the pipelines would in all likelihood never be used again any losses suffered by Gazprom (51% shareholder so just a bare majority) or the other partners in the consortium are, no pun intended, sunk costs that would never be recovered under any reasonable future scenario. The subsequent destruction of the pipeline adds no additional losses to the consortium or to Gazprom, but politically is powerful as it physically forecloses the possibility of Europe using gas from either pipeline this winter.

At the beginning of the hostilities in Ukraine, US President Biden was quoted as saying in effect that the Nord pipeline flow would be halted, when asked how, he said that we have ways.

The media seems determined to ignore this, yet videos of the statement are easily found online.

It is extraordinary that so many people believe the western governments' line on this. Ask yourselves the old question: cui bono? Biden specifically threatened to do this in a speech in February this year, but governments and media are telling us, 'Don't believe your lying ears'.

The Russian Navy was spotted and monitored off the SW coast of Ireland where the undersea cables start.

Why would Russia attack it's own pipeline, i

The pipeline is owned by a Swiss based consortium composed of Gazprom and companies from Germany, Netherlands and France.

in NATO waters when they could just turn off the spigot?

Gas deliveries through Nordstream 1 were already halted and Nordstream 2 never went on line. The pipeline runs through international waters and through the EEZs of Sweden and Denmark. Sweden is not a NATO member at this point. Destroying the pipelines forecloses any possibility of them being used this winter to deliver gas to Europe. This means Europe will have to make sacrifices this winter. The Russians think this will lead to a revolt among EU and NATO members and a weakening of their will to defend Ukraine. I think they are misreading the Europeans, and not for the first time.

Why would Russia attack its own pipeline, in NATO waters when they could just turn off the spigot.

Russia has done a lot of stupid things recently. They are also quite adept at making fools believe their idiocy is right.