Some lies of omission here or perhaps ignorance. You are certainly welcome to ask Russia's neighbours- all of them. Only the Belarussian government (not the people) might be less frank with you. Russia interferes with all these countries, several I have lived in, and has done so since the 90s. There is a reason none of them trust Russia.
They organized the killing of the first president of a free Georgia, forcing the second to join the Commonwealth of Independent States while promising to resolve tensions in Abhazia and South Ossetia. Instead Russia armed and trained the separatists with the GRU-something they repeated in Donbas in 2014. As Georgia swore in a new government with democratic reforms and a Pro-European agenda- and told the Russian army to leave, tensions increased in South Ossetia and Abhazia with attacks on Georgian troops while so called Russian peacekeepers did nothing. Of course they were doing far from nothing, they were behind the separatist cause from the beginning. Eventually Georgia responded with its army which is what Russia had hoped for, and Russia invaded and recognized these two areas as "Independent states".
They tried the same with the Novorossiya concept in Donestsk and Lugansk. All the leadership of the cause weren't even locals but Russians from Russia. Russia denied its troops were even there, just volunteers. Volunteers with Russian heavy equipment. Of course, if you were living in Russia like I was at the time, you would have seen the army encampment outside of Rostov which was the supply point sending everything into Ukraine. The separatists attacked Ukraine's army and, just like 2008 in Georgia, Russia had its little conflict with Ukraine fighting back.That was 2014 and Russia could put pressure on and off Ukraine like a gas tap. While laying down the framework of persecuted Russian minorities in Ukraine to eventually invade with full force.
Back to Putin himself. He was head of the FSB and trying to be president but polling about 10%. Suddenly there was a series of apartment bombings in Moscow and surrounds which were blamed on Chechens. In Ryazan the FSB got caught out planting explosives- which they tried to say was sugar and that it was a training exercise. With the bombings Putin became president and launched the 2nd Chechen war.
For Nordstream and who benefits- only Russia. The Germans had already refused to certify 6 months earlier and the thing was an unused white elephant. But Gazprom was still on the hook for billions if they didn't supply the agreed gas to Europe. The pipeline blowing up allowed force majeur which voided the contracts and allowed Gazprom to write off the project that hadn't earnt it a cent.
But with Russia there is always a second message. Just like when they poison dissidents using isotopes only found in Russia. For the Russian apologist this is somehow proof it couldn't be Russia as it is too obvious- and Russia is happy to spread that message to the useful idiots. But the real message was to the dissidents that they wanted it to be clear was no accident but the Russian state and each dissident could be next.
For Nordstream the second message was powerful and simple. If we can hit our own pipelines, then we can hit yours. Which was a beautifully crafted message that both Norway and Britain understood.
