Quote Originally Posted by cocco
The leaks are all on international waters, 1 in Swedish economic zone and 2 in Danish. Not any any country's territorial waters. It in fact looks that they made absolutely sure to not do it in waters controlled directly by anyone.
This isn't what I was reading, although I don't recall seeing any accurate location mentioned either. It's possible I've taken the term "Danish waters" out of context though. So OK I'll withdraw this aspect of my argument. Wikipedia is saying all the leaks are indeed in the Economic Zones of Denmark and Sweden.

There's 4 leaks, btw, 2 in Danish waters.

The charges could have been remote controlled and planted months or even years ago, by submarines, or by unmanned vehicles.
Also worth noting from Wikipedia is that according to CNN, Russian ships and subs were seen in the general vicinity in the days before the incident, something I previously wasn't aware of.

Ok. So with this I'll accept that Russia in theory could have done it, and it wasn't necessarily in NATO territory.

So now all we're lacking is legitimate motivation for Russia to do this, especially given the incident is being welcomed by Russia's enemies. Which comes as no surprise because it benefits Ukraine, not Russia. The only benefit Russia gets from this is panic in the markets in Germany, but is that worth giving their prime enemy - Ukraine - leverage?

It still makes absolutely no sense. I'm going to need to hear a proper motivation for this before I get back on the fence.