Upsides for Russia? Really? Getting out of contracts? LOL!
Pretty sure those would be irrelevant given all the sanctions. Let’s check the upsides for Russia: losing $10 billion+ of investment, billions in future revenue, and ending Germany’s strategic dependence. And you think they care about “contracts”? Amazing.
https://fair.org/home/us-medias-intellectual-no-fly-zone-on-...
Can you stop the hyperbole?! Yes they definitely care about contracts, if they don't honour contracts even in the situation of sanctions confidence in doing business with them would plummet, also in Asia etc.. This is how the modern world works.
You notice that when Russia turned off the gas before, they never said, "because we want to screw you", but instead cited maintanance. If they could just turn off the tap without reason and contracts be damned, why would they do that?
War and acts of God render most contracts moot. It’s a silly argument. And plenty of countries (smartly) renege on contracts all the time for even less dramatic reasons and do not suffer long, if at all, in the international capital markets. IMF/World Bank are not as important as they used to be. Compared to China, they’re now bit players. This is how the modern world works.
Russia cited maintenance when turning off NS1 because they probably had maintenance to do that was difficult in a war zone. Also, NS1 traverses Ukraine, and they had previously accused Ukraine of siphoning.
You are thinking of the Soyuz or Brotherhood pipelines, which go via Ukraine (and there is a third option: the yamal pipeline that goes via Poland).
NS1 and NS2 go directly from Russia to Germany via the baltic sea, which Ukraine has no direct border with, so are nowhere close to any war zone.
The compressor station, which allegedly had technical issues, is located in mainland Russia (far far away from Ukraine).
