Perhaps
Perhaps Putin had already made the decision to cut off Europe for the winter? Also, Europe has been working hard to wean itself from Ruskie energy anyway. Putin maybe saw the handwriting on the wall? We also don't know exactly what caused the three simultaneous leaks. Divers could have gone down there and made easy-to-patched leaks? We can almost certainly rule out a natural cause to the leaks. One, maybe two but as Ian Fleming said, three times is enemy action. Hopefully we will be able to determine the cause once we send divers down there to inspect the pipelines.