It sounds like the high-pressure transmission lines, in the US, need to be about three feet (1 meter) down. Dunno if Russia builds to the same standard.

I don't know how large of a warhead you need

a shaped charge might differ

and how accurate you'd need to be to penetrate one. Russia may not even have its transmission pipeline network buried, for all I know.

But because they span huge areas and can be struck at any point, I'd expect them to be pretty difficult to defend. Even if you ran defenses all along them, you necessarily are thinning your defenses. Do that, and said defenses can't handle a concentrated attack at any one point.

The problem of being the defender is that the attacker has the initiative and gets to decide where to concentrate for an attack.

For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[–] Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 weeks ago

Look for areas where soil movement or erosion are occurring. Usually pipeline companies monitor for this and mitigate, but sometimes that can take years.