Fox tv says it was most likely the commies
First, Putin has the motivation. Facing potential defeat in Ukraine, Putin is desperate to reverse the momentum on the battlefield by resorting to dramatic escalation. This is his way of trying to compel the U.S. and Europe to stop providing long-range weaponry to Ukraine. The outcome of the conflict in Ukraine is an existential issue for him personally and for Russia. Russia views Ukraine, along with other former Soviet states, as part of its strategic security perimeter.
Second, damaging or destroying critical infrastructure is consistent with Russia’s warfighting concept called Strategic Operation to Defeat Critical Infrastructure of the Adversary (SOPKVOP, in Russian). Russian strategists spent decades conceptualizing ways to bypass the
U.S. and NATO conventional superiority in a conflict they had concluded was inevitable because Moscow and Washington have been in confrontation over control of the post-Soviet space since the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Third, Russian military strategists have pondered a scenario in which Russia would target their adversaries' civilian infrastructure during a conflict. Defeating a "small number of key interconnected targets" that are vital to the functioning of the state would cause the "entire system to collapse," they hypothesized.
Fourth, Russia is one of very few countries that has the exact capability needed to sever the Nord Stream pipelines carrying
Russian gas to Europe and to do it covertly. Moscow has invested in undersea warfare capabilities through its GUGI program, a top secret program with the innocuous cover name of "Deep Sea Research" that includes work on undersea communications and sensor networks, hydrocarbon exploitation, submarine rescue and investigating wreckage.
Fifth, Putin has no use for Nord Stream in the short term, as neither pipeline 1 or 2 are revenue producing. Moscow shut down Nord Stream 1 at the end of August, claiming that U.S. and European economic sanctions had made maintenance impossible. Nord Stream 2 never became operational, with Germany having declined its certification. To the contrary, taking Nord Stream out of commission serves
Putin’s goal of freezing the Europeans in winter, a standard Putin move to use energy as a weapon.