Take a breath while you're chugging that fifth of neokoolaid! 
You haven’t paid attention to Russia (and its predecessor, the Soviet Union). Russia is like the evil twin of our CIA - only worse. (and that says a lot, since our own CIA does some pretty awful/twisted crap).
This is the same Putin who years ago ordered the gassing of a theater where there were Chechen terrorists with hundreds of hostages - “too bad” for the innocent civilians -he could just blame it on the Chechens.
And I promise you - Putin/Russia has done a LOT worse than sabotage a pipeline that already was being idled back (remember - Putin demanded Europe pay for natural gas in Rubles - and had already dramatically cut most of Europe off... One of these two pipelines was already not being used, only pressurized as is required to keep it’s structural integrity).
Take a breath while you're chugging that fifth of neokoolaid!
“This is the same Putin who years ago ordered the gassing of a theater where there were Chechen terrorists with hundreds of hostages - “too bad” for the innocent civilians -he could just blame it on the Chechens.”
A stupid lie. The gassing was basically a fentanyl anesthetic gas used in an operating room. It was a desperate attempt to knock them all out and get the bad guys. All the moslem terrorists were killed in the assault, and the hostages dragged outside. There was incompetence in their emergency medical system, and people not being prepped to deal with it correctly. People dragged into the fresh air laid on their backs etc.
That was back in 2002 when Russia had barely emerged from that post Soviet depression. They were broke, and their skill sets were not much above the abysmal 80s.
But it wasn’t a sneaky plot to kill the theater goers and blame the moslems. There was more than enough there already to blame the Chechens.
Europe was required to pay in Rubles because the EU and USA stole about 650 billion in Russian currencies and bullion on deposit in western banks. The Ew was offering to pay into accounts that had been seized and that Russia was forbidden to access.
Nut nice strawman you neocon.