Quote Originally Posted by cocco
When he said that Germany was buying most of it's natural gas through it. Their intention, as far as I can tell, was to stop that to cut their energy dependence on Russia, and that had been already established before the explosions. Why bomb them now?
I feel there's a distinct lack of knowledge as to what "leverage" means.

If Putin has functional pipes sitting idle, he has leverage.

If Putin has scrap metal at the bottom of the sea, he does not have leverage.

Putin was using the pipes as leverage. He stopped the gas flowing but kept them operational because he is trying to strongarm Germany. Without the pipes he can't strongarm them.

Also tbf, I need some more tinfoil to believe that the US would bomb a pipeline on the Baltic to get more gas sales.
This is only half of their motivation, if it's even that much. The real bonus from this is when Putin does start selling gas to Europe again, he has to pay Ukraine transit fees for the gas to flow through their territory. That's more important to USA than shale gas sales, at least in the short term. Ukraine now have leverage over Russia.

Which, again, is precisely why it's absurd for Russia to do this.