Russia - threadbanned users in OP

What leverage? The Europeans that had been buying Russian gas have made it clear they wanted to move to alternatives and Russia has made this happen faster with its repeated technical faults and surprise routine maintenance making the supply through these pipelines completely unreliable.

I've no evidence to back it up but the most likely reason for the pipes being blown up is as an act of terrorism and the country blatently engaging in terrorism in Europe since the start of the year is Russia. A conspiracy by the USA makes no sense when the war in Ukraine is going as well as could be expected in terms of destroying russia's military and making it quite clear to the world how evil and inhumane they are.

And you believe the USA blew the pipelines that were not in use to stop them being used? Rather than attacking a NATO members critical infrastructure in another members waters, the US could have just sanctioned Gazprombank.

If gas was entering the pipe line, but was shut off at other end, then like a balloon it was going to pop eventually. Not saying that's what happened, but it's what would happen in that case.

Ok, lets say this now and put it to bed.

The United States. Nor any other NATO or EU Member. Did not. Puncture, blow up, or otherwise sabotage. That pipeline.

Ok?

Pressure in the pipe is constantly monitored, if russia decided to feed into it, then relief valves would be opened to release pressure.

All 4 pipes appeared to have "popped", one of them in two locations (when the pressure would have been dropping).

Watching Simon Coveney on the news tonight and he was having to button his lip and be very diplomatic but you could see that he thought Russia was behind the incident, even though he couldn't even imply who the culprit was.

It appears that the Donbas front line is collapsing, what will Putin do to halt the Ukrainian advance deep into the territory?

It's only really moving in the north and any further advances in the next 3 months will be limited due to the mud. I can't see Ukraine getting any further than the Krasna this year.

But all the major players have been awfully quiet, nobody is making threats to avenge this or at least make someone pay ,

Nato made a relatively short statement nothing major, Russians hinting through Twitter it was the Americans, thanks to the Biden speech not so long ago, most think it might be putin, but even the Russians have been quite,no fierce denials or pleading innocent or threats to take action for an attack on their pipeline no matter which whatever way you look at was a major earner for the Russians ,

Who ever did it was cute enough to make sure it happened in international waters and preventing a possible Article 5 Nato retaliation.

I think it interesting how little real outrage there is about the whole thing

Russia made a big mistake early on in their War regarding thermobaric weapons systems.

They sent them in as part of the force to take out Kyiv and also to tough nut areas like Mariupol, whereupon the Ukrainians destroyed them all using Javelins, AT4s and Bayraktar armed drones.

I seriously doubt that Russia has much in the way of mid-size offensive armour, ie tanks and artillery rocket systems, left at all. Ditto trucks, personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.

Now thats bad news in one way, because it may well introduce into theatre, systems we haven't seen before, systems meant for going toe-to-toe with NATO land forces had the cold war turned hot, such as the Iskandr, Granat, Topol and Bastion short to medium range cruise and ballistic missiles.

Russia's ability to cause a huge amount of damage in areas where it has no physical presence, remains a massive hazard.

That's interesting, but if Russia has the ability to use these weapons systems, wouldn't it make sense to try and employ them before issuing the decree to mobilise hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers, bringing the reality of the war home to Russia and risking public backlash against not only the war itself but also his government? What would make more difference for Putin? Long range ordinance or under-trained and under-supplied conscripts?

I am not sure about that. Other than a few notable Russian propaganda video's, we've not seen much use of thermobaric weapons on the battle field since the start of the war.

Firstly, Russia didn't have very many thermobaric weapons systems to start with. The rumour was that they possessed dozens, we have no idea to the actual number, but I seriously doubt it's more than 100. TOS-1 launchers and rockets are actually very expensive.

Secondly, Oryx only reports that 5 TOS-1's have been captured/destroyed, and as far as I can tell, all these happened much earlier on in the conflict. I haven't seen one captured or destroyed in months now. These things have never been common on the battlefield, which you should expect for a weapon that has a maximum range of 10km.

They are still being used (notably in Pisky), but it seems clear the Russians are being a lot more careful about them these days. I think they didn't have that many to start with, and whatever is left and still has ammo are being kept in safe areas of the battlefield like the DPR/LPR.