October 2023 there was similar incident where Chinese cargo ship cut Balticonnector cable and EE-S1 cable. Chip named 'Newnew Polar Bear' under Chinese flag and Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Co, Ltd. (aka Torgmoll) with CEO named Yelena V. Maksimova, drags anchor in the seabed cutting cables. Chinese investigation claims storm was the reason, but there was no storm, just normal windy autumn weather. The ship just lowered one anchor and dragged it with engines running long time across the seabed until the anchor broke.
These things happen sometimes, ship anchors sometimes damage cables, but not this often and without serious problems in the ship. Russians are attempting plausible deniability.
I think Nordstream is more of a special case. It was clandestine, but definitely not terrorism. It was an attack on enemy infrastructure in pursuit of an actual, real-life shooting war. One can argue that it was a bad (or good) idea, or that it was/wasn't effetive, or even that its externalities were beneficial in the long term, etc...
But it's not really in the same category as casually cutting internet lines to your peacetime competitors out of pique or whatever.
it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded:
Yes, this is why having a prompt satellite launch capability to replace attrition losses is now a strategic imperative. We need to be able to put up new ones in a matter of hours, not months.
> After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed
This happend a very, very long time ago. Destroing things years after the fact is not logical and is not longer a defensive response. Using this as justification is just trying to escalate.
> its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites
Why is this reasonable? It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone. Oppression is incredibly expensive for humanity, and only benefits the few that are the oppressors.
Yeah and this time they won't let them get away.
According to Finnish Minister of Defence: "The authorities in the Baltic Sea region have learned from the mistakes of the Baltic Connector investigation and are prepared, if necessary, to stop a ship in the Baltic Sea if it is suspected of being involved in damaging communications cables."[1]
And it looks like according to marinetraffic.com that the Yi Peng 3 is indeed at full stop surrounded by at least 3 Danish navy vessels.
So according to the Bluesky thread, the ship was captained by a Russian citizen. One has to wonder whether this was done with the approval of the Chinese government, or whether the ship was just chosen by opportunity (which seems possible given that China is the second most common merchant flag). Or whether implicating China was even an explicit goal.
For an analogy, it seems like a scrappy preteen throwing around his big brother's name, knowing that if he gets into trouble, big brother will intervene...
(i.e. the European countries might be more wary about boarding a Chinese ship compared to a Russian ship, because escalating against China is scarier...).
I think China stands to gain from escalation of the war so its possible they approved. It makes Russia weaker and more dependant on them, distracts the US from the Pacific, and weakens Europe in many ways.
Similar to both Russia and China gaining from war and disruption in the Middle East.
China did not want the war in Ukraine, which has created serious problems for them including for Belt and Road. So behing closed doors China must be passed off but Russia is important to them and they can't let them collapse.
Of course Putin knows this hence him somewhat taking the p.
I doubt China will be happy, if Russia staged chinese support. But rumors have it, that the North Korean troop support for the war in Ukraine also came out of the blue for China, so Putin might make a risky gamble here, but I doubt he dares it. If China would seriously drop support for Russia, they would be srewed.
Assuming it was intentional, just trying the waters. Testing what the response is, who actually responds versus who's willing to sweep the incident under the carpet, how hard any response is and how quickly it happens, how much of the internet infrastructure is affected for how long, etc... etc... that's a lot of useful information as preparation for an actual attack.
Russia wants to end NATO without going to war with NATO.
NATO's political unity and ability to respond is tested with these attacks. Russia does them one after another gradually escalating. Russia maintains plausible deniability or does so small operations that they can always walk them back.
Eventually, some country invokes Article 4 or 5 consultations. Russia hopes that US, Hungary, or Germany waters down NATO response. The conflict continues, but between individual countries not under NATO. NATOs as a organization may continue, but raison d'être is gone.
While not directly addressing undersea cable sabotage this is a comprehensive open access article with case studies on 'hybrid warfare' which provides context to these types of actions. 'Shadows of power beneath the threshold: where covert action, organized crime and irregular warfare converge' - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2024.2...
When Trump becomes President next year he is expected to demand that Ukraine settle the war with Russia or risk losing US aid and military support. It is why Russia is throwing everything at re-taking Kursk and US is now allowing long range strikes.
If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands. If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses.
So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months in order to convince them that ending the war is in their best interest.
It doesn’t even really stop anything right? Communications just have to route around it and use other cables and satellites. It just seems like Russia wants to be annoying.
The ship was sailing from Russia and the captain is Russian. Using a Chinese ship is a good trick from Putin.
As for the core of your question: there is no benefit, it's just his mentality. "The West" supports Ukraine so let's just do some harm, retaliate in some way. Burn some buildings here and there, plants some inflammable materials on airplanes etc. Pointless for you and me, meaningful for that guy.
Look up 'Grey Zone Conflict': Destroying another country's assets is generally an act of war, but obviously this incident falls short of causing a war. That is the 'grey zone', a prominent feature of current international relations and a major focus of the defense of the democratic world and international order, including in the US military.
The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'. Russia, China, and some others dislike the first element, of course. The second element refers to the legal, rules-based structure (rather than power-based anarchy, which led to the centuries or millennia of war before the 'order' was created post-WWII). Aggressive international warfare is outlawed, for example; if France and Germany have a dispute, there is no question of violence - they use a legal structure to resolve it, which wasn't always true!
Grey zone activities accomplish illegal things without reprocussions. And therefore they also serve the goal of undermining the international order by demonstrating its powerlessness in these situations. In some ways, it's like trolling.
Russia uses grey zone tactics heavily - for example, they used them to capture Crimea (which was before the clear act of war, their 2022 invasion). They use them to run destabilizing 'grey zone' campaigns throughout the world, including directly interfering in elections. The tactics suit Russia in particular because they cannot compete miltarily with the democratic world.
China uses them too, for example using their 'coast guard' and 'civilian' 'fishing boats' to attack (up to a point) and intimidate ships from other countries in the South China Sea. If China used their navy, it would possibly be acts of war. A Chinese coast guard ship shooting water cannon at a fishing boat, though illegal in international waters, isn't going to start a war. 'Civilian' 'fishing' boats from China blockading access to a reef won't either.
Edit:
Before you look at Russia and China and other Grey Zone actors as miscreants, understand that it's just the normal behavior of 'revisionist' powers - those who want to change the current rules. The current rules serve the interests of the 'status quo' powers, who get all self-righteous about 'illegal' activities.
In a more common situation on HN, think of IP outsiders, who break the 'rules' made by major IP holders, such as DMCA or those extending copyright for decades or restricting access to scientific knowledge - the IP holders want the status quo and call violations 'theft' and the outsiders 'criminals', etc. If the US wasn't a status quo power, they'd be doing grey zone things.
(That doesn't at all justify Russia and China's goals of stealing land, oppressing people's freedoms, and solving problems through violence.)
Ok there's all the signalling between states that breaking a cable has. That also works for false flag operations, or true flag operations while making it look like a false flag operation (etc).
But also, cutting these cables doesn't stop communications. There are other land and undersea routes, and maybe terrestrial radio/satellite routes as well. You might damage these cables so that communications travel other routes which are more observable (or less observable). Or you might damage these cables so you can modify them elsewhere to enhance observability before they're repaired (or as part of the repair process).
Or it could be a training mission for your elite squad of cable biting sharks.
Prof. Stephen Kotkin — an historian who wrote multiple extensive biographies on Stalin — calls the Russian regime a "gangster regime".*
Once you see them as gangsters, it's not difficult to see why they would do this.
*A full link with exact timestamp of Kotkin saying this is [1]. Here he talks about why Merkel kept making oil deals with Putin even though in hindsight this was probably not the best idea. Kotkin argues that, yes, according to econ 101 trade is good for both parties, but not when the opposite party is a gangster. Merkel thought that Putin was thinking like her, but he wasn't.
Given that ships often cut undersea internet cables and China has the biggest export economy, doesn't it make sense that the most likely country to accidentally cut an internet cable would be a Chinese trade ship?
On average, it seems like undersea internet cables break 200+ times per year.
For example, Vietnam's internet cables break on average 10 times per year.
What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable? It has next to no impact on internet communication and only serves to annoy a small amount of people for a short period of time. In addition, China and Europe are trying to have a better relationship in general so it doesn't make sense for the Chinese government to order this.
>What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
Money. Russia is reportedly bribing people into doing sabotage in western nations.
There's also reports that Yi Peng 3 is captained by a Russian national, which would also be another reason for a Chinese trade ship to conduct sabotage operations beneficial to Russia.
> What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
The most charitable reason is that they don't give a fluck. Same reason why their rocket boosters just fall wherever they fall, population center or not
The info that the Biden administration would greenlight this, should have been known in Moscow for weeks now. I assume the news arrive later only for us - the public.
Yeah, it took reading a few of the comments for me to understand that this is about a Chinese ship having crossed two undersea fibre cables around the time that those cables broke.
At first I thought it may have been about bad USB cables with crossed-over/miswired pairs or something
Yi Peng 3 has been stopped in the Kattegat with Danish navy ships around it for about 11 hours now. Currently HDMS Søløven is anchored right next to it. HDMS Hvidbjørnen was also not too far away before its signal went dark.
To be less ambiguous in word choice, they jammed a satellite from the ground. Russians used a ground based dish to spoof a TV station signal to a repeater satellite, causing TV stations near Ukraine to go down and show an interference error. I'm just clarifying because "sabotage" could mean any number of more costly and damaging things, like a spy loosening a bolt before launch or something. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2544558-verantwoording-en-b...
What I don’t understand - if the yi peng was intentionally trying to damage the FO cables, why would they not spoof or disable their AIS data/broadcast (ship tracking transponder which is the source of this positioning data we see).
Anyone have some insight on that?
AIS is required for large ships in many if not most jurisdictions, to have it turned off is suspicious in itself. If you turn it off then re-appear later on somewhere else having had to traverse the area where the cables where at the time they got damaged, that's suspicious. You could turn it off in port, head out, cut the cables then return and turn it on again, but the window of time you had it off would straddle the cable damage time, and there's a high chance you would have been documented (video, radio traffic) leaving port in that time, and depending on the departure port it may be hard to leave without AIS on as the authorities may notice.
Both of the two Chinese registries are open, pretty much anyone can register ships there. It's a bit like the .tv domain — if you see something.tv you can't assume that it's a company in the country Tuvalu.
Look at the nationality of the captain and the beneficial owner instead.
I'd consider the serious escalation of offensive (cowardly) acts were carried out by Russia many many years ago repeatedly, increasingly, throughout Europe (elsewhere too), with mild consequences. Got seriously unabashed escalating further. Being cautious with the nazi Germany blew into the face of the World, will definitely not work with the imperialist Russia either. China acts on behalf of Russia here - Russia being coward for open confrontation with anyone (believed by them) able hitting back hard. China has secondary benefits for self as well.
As severe as... say starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 right at our doorstep? Or as damaging our critical infrastructure? Or manipulating our democratic processes?
It's time the West pulls its head out of its ass. We're already at war, whether we want it or not.
Looks suspicious, but there were 4 vessels in the area whose transponder signal was lost by public trackers during that night.
It has also been pointed out that this is a location with lively traffic. So if it turns out that is was an anchor (as in the New New Polar Bear case) that's extra suspicious because anchoring in such location is not normal. On the other hand if it were explosives like in the Nord Stream case, they could have been applied also weeks before.
It looks like that the pilot ship Styrbjoern [1] came along side the Yi Peng 3 today. It traveled from the harbor of Grenaa to the ship and back. It possible that they took some people in for questioning or put a pilot and/or guards on the ship.
Should be very easy to verify if this was the cause.
All you have to do at this point is go look at the cable near the crossings.
If there is evidence of an anchor hitting the cables in both of these locations then you've got pretty clear proof.
Someone should obviously be checking into this right now. No point speculating until it's confirmed really.
I guess you might still want to board just to find out weather there is any evidence of intent rather than negligence in the case that this is confirmed to be the cause...
This is not how ship registration works. A useful model is to think of a ship's flag like a tld, just because a site is .cn doesn't mean the company is based out of China. Ships usually fly one flag or another based on tax and legislative reasons, and it's often unrelated to the country of origin.
The ship suspected of breaking the cables has been apprehended and it turns out it was currently sailing from Russia with a Russian captain [0].
> The speed of cargo ship Yi Peng 3 was affected negatively as she passed the 2 Baltic Sea cable breaks C-Lion 1 and BSC.
> Before the incidents she held normal speeds. After stopping and drifting for 70 minutes she again held normal speeds. By this time the two cables were broken.
> No. I checked the 5 most close ships heading the same way. They did not slow down similarly in the same wind. The ship most closely resembling Yi Peng 3 actually sped up. The Lady Hanneke.
Some additional information:
- Putin calls the region "NATO Lake"
- German Defense Minister has called the line failure sabotage
- Danish Naval ships are now shadowing Yi Peng
It's unlikely that all information will become public in any meaningful time. I assure you, *someone* is checking on this and verifying. But as is common with many acts like this one side is operating on (not so) "plausible deniability" while the other is just not going to publicly declare an accusation but continue to watch more closely. It's like when a mob boss says "it would be a shame if something were to happen". This isn't evidence in of itself, but contextually it is suspicious as hell.
The other part is that explicit accusations create a lot of political tensions. Obviously so does the actual act of sabotage. But definitive proof is quite difficult to actually reach. Unless there is literally a letter on that captain's desk from a military leader ordering the action (a "smoking gun") then it is easy to just blame the captain and/or crew, as Hank mentions. After all, a country should not be blamed for the actions of individual citizens not made with the direction of that country, though it is also important that countries hold their citizens accountable. Accusations will more depend on how hawkish the leaders are. Obviously all countries play games like this, but certainly some are more aggressive than others. One major country loves to play the victim card while creating "red lines" which violate international laws. So take it as you will
> Cable ships also use “plows” that are suspended under the vessel. These plows use jets of high-pressure water to bury cable three feet (0.91 m) under the sea floor, which prevents fishing vessels from snagging cables as thrall their nets.
The West did a fine job of this themselves. Outsourcing to poorer countries is what has made the West so wealthy for so long - goods whose price is subsidized by cheap labor. Now that China and other countries have caught up, the West doesn't get the same discount, but they also don't have their own manufacturing because they all outsourced. We did this to ourselves.
It was crossing right on time for the interruptions, a Russian officer was on board, it slowed down while crossing, no other ships were slowing down in that area during that time (rulingnout headwinds) - it cannot get much clearer. China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe (unless they present stronger evidence against this assumption)
> If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
At the very least, the cooperation of Portugal's authorities would be expected to determine how the truck ended up being used for the attack, and if anyone knew about how the vehicle was to be used.
I expect the same amount of cooperation from China as the flag state.
It was the second Chinese registered ship with Russian crew within a short period of time. A year ago this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear cut the gas pipe and another communications line.
I am sure if the cowardly Russians ever did this to USA, it would cause a much bigger drama and retaliation wave, and China would take the hit as well.
True but China can support or not support investigations and prosecution. After all they are the ones who can exercise their sovereign rights on ships sailing under their flag. I‘m really curious and open minded how this plays out but sadly would be surprised if China would support the EU in this case.
I don't know if the evidence is conclusive, but I do think we can say China is supplying Russia with military hardware and supporting them in other ways. So.. it's possible.
Reading that thread it sounds like it was a Russian ship that was sold to China last month (perhaps as a pretext to mask this) so ownership is unclear.
I strongly doubt that this is an official military act of the Chinese government. It will most likely turn out that this is not an official military act of any government as the intent was to do this in secret.
Just because the intent was to be secret does not negate an official act of any country. To assume that any military does nothing in secret is naivety at its finest.
Even if China doesn't explicitly align with Russia, I believe there are strategic reasons why the US would want a favourable outcome for Ukraine. I outlined a few points in a post a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059787
I'm no international relations hawk though, so I'm keen to hear opposing viewpoints.
Trump is pro Trump-looking-strong, and that's about it. Interesting times ahead for sure, but trying to predict Trump's future positions is a mug's game. I suspect regarding Ukraine, someone will give him a plan that they tell him is fair ($10 says Russia keeps Crimea but virtually nowhere else and Ukraine agrees not to join NATO), and he'll manage to get both sides to sign it by threatening them.
The whole Trump/Russia conspiracy theory was all fake anyway - the Steele dossier which is the basis of the whole thing was fabricated and is unsourced. I expect him to be relatively hawkish on Ukraine because losing in Ukraine makes the US look weak, although Ukraine is currently losing the war relatively badly so I expect some territory to be ceded to Russia.
China likely has nothing to do with this. It is unlikely they have any participation or even knowledge of this. Twice now some Russians in a China flagged ship caused trouble, and the China-flagging seems very intentional.
Russia is desperately trying to make the China-Russia thing a reality, and is probably trying to drag them in against their great resistance. China has zero credible reason to be dragged into Russia's nonsense, and a billion reasons why they want nothing to do with it.
The ideal outcome of this is that China realizes that Russia is outright trying to drag them into conflict, and that they repudiate that country entirely.
China has already been involved quietly, funneling weapons and intel to the Russians, essentially playing the opposite role to the US. Make no mistake - this war has a component of the US and China probing each others' capabilities.
The Russians could have done this with a fishing trawler (they cut cables accidentally all the time), so like you I doubt we can infer some nefarious Chinese plot from the flag on the vessel.
Might be just a crew paid off by Russians to do it.
In my country saboteurs largely weren't Russian - it's easier to pay off a local than have ano5 Russian cross the border, when his predecessor gets caught.
China has a lot of interest in the war not ending one way or the other. Their peer competitors are spending resources on it and a potentially problematic regional competitor is becoming more irrelevant the longer it runs.
Dude, Chinese state TV still calls Russia a "gas station with nukes." Of course they make money off of it and uphold their agreements but so far China has avoided any direct involvement with Russia's bs.
Completely aside from the cable discussion, I'm glad this was on bsky. I could finally follow the comments in the link again. I hope this trend continues.
BlueSky has attained critical mass and it is the next generation of microblogging. We’re witnessing the long awaited dethroning of twitter and it will end up ceding the space like Reddit did.
Not sure if you're being serious, but Reddit gets FAR more traffic than Twitter. Twitter is #43 out of all the sites on the internet in terms of traffic. Reddit is #10. Bluesky is not even on the map yet.
I think it's time for a special navy operation which captures a Russian or Chinese cargo ship every time a cable gets damaged. The ships and their cargo could be then sold to the highest bidder.
It that really a precedent we would want to set? It sounds like it would be bad for global trade that state actors could arbitrarily seize privately owned property.
If it comes to a war I'm going to be on the front lines anyway, because I happen to live in a country next to Russia. Capturing a cargo ship guilty of sabotage wouldn't make much of a difference in whether a war comes or not.
What kind of interest Chinese could have to damage such cables? IMVHO ZERO. Also I doubt Russians have interests to do so.
Who could be interested?
- some private company for makes and insurance/the public pay to fix something who need money from the owner for other reasons (like I break on purpose my car to get it repaired for free or at least less money than what it would costing me avoiding the self-sabotage);
- some countries wanting war at all costs trying to create a casus belli to justify the push toward WWIII
- some countries experimenting the resilience of their infra
I fails to see any other potentially interested party.
What are you even talking about? Are you suggesting that "the West" has a too negative public opinion of Russia or China?
I would argue that interactions/treatment specifically toward Russia, especially by European nations in the last 20 years, was actually too positive and naive-- specifically because unlike Europe, Russia definitely did not leave its imperialistic ambitions behind, and treating/trading with it as a friendly somewhat flawed democracy during those years might have done more harm than good in hindsight.
Just yesterday on the front page there was a topic largely consisting of accusations of Russia breaking these cables.
Now I see a sudden switch of the "criminal" and a possible start of a new 2-minute of Hate.
It's very Orwellish indeed.
It could be false flag operation to create pretext for NATO/EU to block shipping to Russian ports in Baltic Sea.
Similar to Nordstream destruction in 2022 it could have been either Ukrainians or CIA/NSA. This could be last attempt by current US administration elements to create leverage for the Ukraine before negotiations start.
Blockade is legal act of war. RU at war with UKR, not NATO, and vice versa. Hence NATO would need casus belli of RU attacking NATO or NATO owned infra to declare blockade (read: declare war on RU).
October 2023 there was similar incident where Chinese cargo ship cut Balticonnector cable and EE-S1 cable. Chip named 'Newnew Polar Bear' under Chinese flag and Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Co, Ltd. (aka Torgmoll) with CEO named Yelena V. Maksimova, drags anchor in the seabed cutting cables. Chinese investigation claims storm was the reason, but there was no storm, just normal windy autumn weather. The ship just lowered one anchor and dragged it with engines running long time across the seabed until the anchor broke.
These things happen sometimes, ship anchors sometimes damage cables, but not this often and without serious problems in the ship. Russians are attempting plausible deniability.
After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed, its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites.
I think Nordstream is more of a special case. It was clandestine, but definitely not terrorism. It was an attack on enemy infrastructure in pursuit of an actual, real-life shooting war. One can argue that it was a bad (or good) idea, or that it was/wasn't effetive, or even that its externalities were beneficial in the long term, etc...
But it's not really in the same category as casually cutting internet lines to your peacetime competitors out of pique or whatever.
6 replies →
Undersea satellites? You know, like after a launch failure.
5 replies →
it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/16/23/68797949-11868975...
34 replies →
Yes, this is why having a prompt satellite launch capability to replace attrition losses is now a strategic imperative. We need to be able to put up new ones in a matter of hours, not months.
90 replies →
> After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed
This happend a very, very long time ago. Destroing things years after the fact is not logical and is not longer a defensive response. Using this as justification is just trying to escalate.
> its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites
Why is this reasonable? It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone. Oppression is incredibly expensive for humanity, and only benefits the few that are the oppressors.
2 replies →
Yeah and this time they won't let them get away. According to Finnish Minister of Defence: "The authorities in the Baltic Sea region have learned from the mistakes of the Baltic Connector investigation and are prepared, if necessary, to stop a ship in the Baltic Sea if it is suspected of being involved in damaging communications cables."[1]
And it looks like according to marinetraffic.com that the Yi Peng 3 is indeed at full stop surrounded by at least 3 Danish navy vessels.
1. article in Finnish https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000010845324.html
Boarded according to: https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1859132263746744367
13 replies →
So according to the Bluesky thread, the ship was captained by a Russian citizen. One has to wonder whether this was done with the approval of the Chinese government, or whether the ship was just chosen by opportunity (which seems possible given that China is the second most common merchant flag). Or whether implicating China was even an explicit goal.
For an analogy, it seems like a scrappy preteen throwing around his big brother's name, knowing that if he gets into trouble, big brother will intervene...
(i.e. the European countries might be more wary about boarding a Chinese ship compared to a Russian ship, because escalating against China is scarier...).
1 reply →
I think China stands to gain from escalation of the war so its possible they approved. It makes Russia weaker and more dependant on them, distracts the US from the Pacific, and weakens Europe in many ways.
Similar to both Russia and China gaining from war and disruption in the Middle East.
There are many possibilities here.
Russian captain, how does the ownership history of the ship look? Could be some sanction evading ship that was owned by Russian interests anyhow.
2 replies →
China did not want the war in Ukraine, which has created serious problems for them including for Belt and Road. So behing closed doors China must be passed off but Russia is important to them and they can't let them collapse.
Of course Putin knows this hence him somewhat taking the p.
I doubt China will be happy, if Russia staged chinese support. But rumors have it, that the North Korean troop support for the war in Ukraine also came out of the blue for China, so Putin might make a risky gamble here, but I doubt he dares it. If China would seriously drop support for Russia, they would be srewed.
What are some concrete reasons why someone would want to damage these cables? Who benefits?
Assuming it was intentional, just trying the waters. Testing what the response is, who actually responds versus who's willing to sweep the incident under the carpet, how hard any response is and how quickly it happens, how much of the internet infrastructure is affected for how long, etc... etc... that's a lot of useful information as preparation for an actual attack.
36 replies →
Russia wants to end NATO without going to war with NATO.
NATO's political unity and ability to respond is tested with these attacks. Russia does them one after another gradually escalating. Russia maintains plausible deniability or does so small operations that they can always walk them back.
Eventually, some country invokes Article 4 or 5 consultations. Russia hopes that US, Hungary, or Germany waters down NATO response. The conflict continues, but between individual countries not under NATO. NATOs as a organization may continue, but raison d'être is gone.
30 replies →
While not directly addressing undersea cable sabotage this is a comprehensive open access article with case studies on 'hybrid warfare' which provides context to these types of actions. 'Shadows of power beneath the threshold: where covert action, organized crime and irregular warfare converge' - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2024.2...
When Trump becomes President next year he is expected to demand that Ukraine settle the war with Russia or risk losing US aid and military support. It is why Russia is throwing everything at re-taking Kursk and US is now allowing long range strikes.
If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands. If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses.
So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months in order to convince them that ending the war is in their best interest.
163 replies →
It doesn’t even really stop anything right? Communications just have to route around it and use other cables and satellites. It just seems like Russia wants to be annoying.
3 replies →
The ship was sailing from Russia and the captain is Russian. Using a Chinese ship is a good trick from Putin.
As for the core of your question: there is no benefit, it's just his mentality. "The West" supports Ukraine so let's just do some harm, retaliate in some way. Burn some buildings here and there, plants some inflammable materials on airplanes etc. Pointless for you and me, meaningful for that guy.
4 replies →
Look up 'Grey Zone Conflict': Destroying another country's assets is generally an act of war, but obviously this incident falls short of causing a war. That is the 'grey zone', a prominent feature of current international relations and a major focus of the defense of the democratic world and international order, including in the US military.
The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'. Russia, China, and some others dislike the first element, of course. The second element refers to the legal, rules-based structure (rather than power-based anarchy, which led to the centuries or millennia of war before the 'order' was created post-WWII). Aggressive international warfare is outlawed, for example; if France and Germany have a dispute, there is no question of violence - they use a legal structure to resolve it, which wasn't always true!
Grey zone activities accomplish illegal things without reprocussions. And therefore they also serve the goal of undermining the international order by demonstrating its powerlessness in these situations. In some ways, it's like trolling.
Russia uses grey zone tactics heavily - for example, they used them to capture Crimea (which was before the clear act of war, their 2022 invasion). They use them to run destabilizing 'grey zone' campaigns throughout the world, including directly interfering in elections. The tactics suit Russia in particular because they cannot compete miltarily with the democratic world.
China uses them too, for example using their 'coast guard' and 'civilian' 'fishing boats' to attack (up to a point) and intimidate ships from other countries in the South China Sea. If China used their navy, it would possibly be acts of war. A Chinese coast guard ship shooting water cannon at a fishing boat, though illegal in international waters, isn't going to start a war. 'Civilian' 'fishing' boats from China blockading access to a reef won't either.
Edit:
Before you look at Russia and China and other Grey Zone actors as miscreants, understand that it's just the normal behavior of 'revisionist' powers - those who want to change the current rules. The current rules serve the interests of the 'status quo' powers, who get all self-righteous about 'illegal' activities.
In a more common situation on HN, think of IP outsiders, who break the 'rules' made by major IP holders, such as DMCA or those extending copyright for decades or restricting access to scientific knowledge - the IP holders want the status quo and call violations 'theft' and the outsiders 'criminals', etc. If the US wasn't a status quo power, they'd be doing grey zone things.
(That doesn't at all justify Russia and China's goals of stealing land, oppressing people's freedoms, and solving problems through violence.)
14 replies →
Ok there's all the signalling between states that breaking a cable has. That also works for false flag operations, or true flag operations while making it look like a false flag operation (etc).
But also, cutting these cables doesn't stop communications. There are other land and undersea routes, and maybe terrestrial radio/satellite routes as well. You might damage these cables so that communications travel other routes which are more observable (or less observable). Or you might damage these cables so you can modify them elsewhere to enhance observability before they're repaired (or as part of the repair process).
Or it could be a training mission for your elite squad of cable biting sharks.
Lots of potential for intrigue here.
Prof. Stephen Kotkin — an historian who wrote multiple extensive biographies on Stalin — calls the Russian regime a "gangster regime".*
Once you see them as gangsters, it's not difficult to see why they would do this.
*A full link with exact timestamp of Kotkin saying this is [1]. Here he talks about why Merkel kept making oil deals with Putin even though in hindsight this was probably not the best idea. Kotkin argues that, yes, according to econ 101 trade is good for both parties, but not when the opposite party is a gangster. Merkel thought that Putin was thinking like her, but he wasn't.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/live/jJSDdCPpbto?t=4410
2 replies →
This is basically Russian retaliation for US providing Ukraine with ATACMS and first Ukrainian attack using ATACMS.
3 replies →
Newnew shipping signed huge contract with Rosatom.
[dead]
Tit-for-tat response to the NS2 bombing.
Assuming it bears out that the Russian state is the perpetrator.
The CCP thanks the expendable crew for their sacrifice. May they continue to suck the resources of their new host countries for many years to come.
Given that ships often cut undersea internet cables and China has the biggest export economy, doesn't it make sense that the most likely country to accidentally cut an internet cable would be a Chinese trade ship?
On average, it seems like undersea internet cables break 200+ times per year. For example, Vietnam's internet cables break on average 10 times per year.
What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable? It has next to no impact on internet communication and only serves to annoy a small amount of people for a short period of time. In addition, China and Europe are trying to have a better relationship in general so it doesn't make sense for the Chinese government to order this.
I could believe that cutting one cable was an accident. But two, by the same ship, 60 miles apart?
Absolutely no way this wasn't intentional.
1 reply →
>What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
Money. Russia is reportedly bribing people into doing sabotage in western nations.
There's also reports that Yi Peng 3 is captained by a Russian national, which would also be another reason for a Chinese trade ship to conduct sabotage operations beneficial to Russia.
> What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
The most charitable reason is that they don't give a fluck. Same reason why their rocket boosters just fall wherever they fall, population center or not
Edit: https://x.com/Tendar/status/1859147985424196010
> The skipper of the Chinese ship is a Russian national and the route leads from Ust-Luga (Russia) to Port Said (Egypt).
2 replies →
At the Baltic Sea the cables and such break mostly because of one reason only: russia. [0]
[0] https://www.csce.gov/briefings/russias-genocide-in-ukraine/
Are you there then?
[dead]
The Danish defense forces now confirms their presence but they are not providing any other information right now: https://x.com/forsvaretdk/status/1859195509866381402
(This is also a rare English-language tweet from an account that usually only tweets in Danish)
And 4 days ago a Russian spy ship was escorted out of Irish waters:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-sh...
So definitely seems like a coordinated attempt to destabilise Europe ahead of anticipated peace talks early next year.
Same in Portugal
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2024-11-18/russian-ship...
"Russian mission installs more ‘spy’ antennas in Geneva, Swiss TV report claims" https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/russian-mission...
Why would destabilising europe before peace talks be beneficial? Seems like they would lose a lot of leverage.
So how long ago were US long-range missiles used to attack Russia?
Because that's what seems to be claimed here, that Russia are retaliating for that.
How long does it take a ship to travel to a 'suspicious' site like this?
versus, how long does it take to intercept the nearest Russian ship, and escort it away as a spy ship and 'potential saboteur'?
The info that the Biden administration would greenlight this, should have been known in Moscow for weeks now. I assume the news arrive later only for us - the public.
1 reply →
Title could be a lot more descriptive. Your average reader might scroll on by because that title makes no sense without context.
Yeah, it took reading a few of the comments for me to understand that this is about a Chinese ship having crossed two undersea fibre cables around the time that those cables broke.
At first I thought it may have been about bad USB cables with crossed-over/miswired pairs or something
(you are here)
Much more information here: https://gcaptain.com/details-of-baltic-sea-cable-incident-re...
and some here https://www.newsweek.com/baltic-cable-sabotage-nato-1988689
including
> Social media reports said that the vessel had a Russian captain, although this has not been independently confirmed.
Yi Peng 3 has been stopped in the Kattegat with Danish navy ships around it for about 11 hours now. Currently HDMS Søløven is anchored right next to it. HDMS Hvidbjørnen was also not too far away before its signal went dark.
Also, Russia is sabotaging European satellites:
https://nltimes.nl/2024/11/15/dutch-childrens-channel-outage...
To be less ambiguous in word choice, they jammed a satellite from the ground. Russians used a ground based dish to spoof a TV station signal to a repeater satellite, causing TV stations near Ukraine to go down and show an interference error. I'm just clarifying because "sabotage" could mean any number of more costly and damaging things, like a spy loosening a bolt before launch or something. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2544558-verantwoording-en-b...
>Last ports: Murmansk - Port Said - Luga Bay (never docked, Ust-Luga, Russia)
All the way to Luga and decided to not dock. Large cargo ship pleasure wandering the sea like a yacht.
What I don’t understand - if the yi peng was intentionally trying to damage the FO cables, why would they not spoof or disable their AIS data/broadcast (ship tracking transponder which is the source of this positioning data we see). Anyone have some insight on that?
AIS is required for large ships in many if not most jurisdictions, to have it turned off is suspicious in itself. If you turn it off then re-appear later on somewhere else having had to traverse the area where the cables where at the time they got damaged, that's suspicious. You could turn it off in port, head out, cut the cables then return and turn it on again, but the window of time you had it off would straddle the cable damage time, and there's a high chance you would have been documented (video, radio traffic) leaving port in that time, and depending on the departure port it may be hard to leave without AIS on as the authorities may notice.
fishing boats and military often have it off btw.
5 replies →
This is the 2nd time China did this in that Baltic isn't it? Both times look intentional.. maybe don't allow Chinese ships in the Baltic?
No it isn't.
Both of the two Chinese registries are open, pretty much anyone can register ships there. It's a bit like the .tv domain — if you see something.tv you can't assume that it's a company in the country Tuvalu.
Look at the nationality of the captain and the beneficial owner instead.
And as a result .tv domains are not exactly trusted and can't be used for all the things reputable domains can be used for.
1 reply →
Right. So they might need some motivation to change that.
3 replies →
That would not swing.
Denmark controls the waters of the seaway to Sct. Petersburg and Kaliningrad that are some of the strategically most important ports of Russia.
Blocking of traffic to these would be a severe escalation.
Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I'd consider the serious escalation of offensive (cowardly) acts were carried out by Russia many many years ago repeatedly, increasingly, throughout Europe (elsewhere too), with mild consequences. Got seriously unabashed escalating further. Being cautious with the nazi Germany blew into the face of the World, will definitely not work with the imperialist Russia either. China acts on behalf of Russia here - Russia being coward for open confrontation with anyone (believed by them) able hitting back hard. China has secondary benefits for self as well.
2 replies →
Damaging infrastructure is already a severe escalation. Should not have done that.
6 replies →
How severe an escalation would it be?
As severe as... say starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 right at our doorstep? Or as damaging our critical infrastructure? Or manipulating our democratic processes?
It's time the West pulls its head out of its ass. We're already at war, whether we want it or not.
8 replies →
> Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I've always wondered how subs handle tidal flows there, and how challenging the tidal flows are.
YESS!! Finally a bsky link instead of X. Hope this is how it is from now on.
Looks suspicious, but there were 4 vessels in the area whose transponder signal was lost by public trackers during that night.
It has also been pointed out that this is a location with lively traffic. So if it turns out that is was an anchor (as in the New New Polar Bear case) that's extra suspicious because anchoring in such location is not normal. On the other hand if it were explosives like in the Nord Stream case, they could have been applied also weeks before.
YI PENG 3 (IMO: 9224984) is a Bulk Carrier and is sailing under the flag of China. Her length overall (LOA) is 225 meters and her width is 32.3 meters. Source: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:21...
It looks like that the pilot ship Styrbjoern [1] came along side the Yi Peng 3 today. It traveled from the harbor of Grenaa to the ship and back. It possible that they took some people in for questioning or put a pilot and/or guards on the ship.
[1] https://www.vesselfinder.com/?mmsi=219003826
On November 21, 2024, 6:35 UTC: It looks like the pilot ship Styrbjoern is traveling in the direction of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier again.
C-Lion -> Sea Lion, but not the IDE from JetBrains.
Going from fishing illegally in south american waters to damaging internet cables in Europe.
Should be very easy to verify if this was the cause.
All you have to do at this point is go look at the cable near the crossings.
If there is evidence of an anchor hitting the cables in both of these locations then you've got pretty clear proof.
Someone should obviously be checking into this right now. No point speculating until it's confirmed really.
I guess you might still want to board just to find out weather there is any evidence of intent rather than negligence in the case that this is confirmed to be the cause...
At best fall guy captain will claim ignorance, malfunction, or negligence. Retire or move to some cushy job.
No one will want to implicate China in something that would support Russia's war and would all be afraid of the economic fallout.
This is not how ship registration works. A useful model is to think of a ship's flag like a tld, just because a site is .cn doesn't mean the company is based out of China. Ships usually fly one flag or another based on tax and legislative reasons, and it's often unrelated to the country of origin.
The ship suspected of breaking the cables has been apprehended and it turns out it was currently sailing from Russia with a Russian captain [0].
[0] https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1859132263746744367
Some additional information:
It's unlikely that all information will become public in any meaningful time. I assure you, *someone* is checking on this and verifying. But as is common with many acts like this one side is operating on (not so) "plausible deniability" while the other is just not going to publicly declare an accusation but continue to watch more closely. It's like when a mob boss says "it would be a shame if something were to happen". This isn't evidence in of itself, but contextually it is suspicious as hell.
The other part is that explicit accusations create a lot of political tensions. Obviously so does the actual act of sabotage. But definitive proof is quite difficult to actually reach. Unless there is literally a letter on that captain's desk from a military leader ordering the action (a "smoking gun") then it is easy to just blame the captain and/or crew, as Hank mentions. After all, a country should not be blamed for the actions of individual citizens not made with the direction of that country, though it is also important that countries hold their citizens accountable. Accusations will more depend on how hawkish the leaders are. Obviously all countries play games like this, but certainly some are more aggressive than others. One major country loves to play the victim card while creating "red lines" which violate international laws. So take it as you will
Crowdsourced military intelligence offers some hope for the future.
Do we need to get James Cameron and associates to design a DitchWitch that can operate at 2 miles down? How deep can ship anchors go?
They already use such a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_layer
> Cable ships also use “plows” that are suspended under the vessel. These plows use jets of high-pressure water to bury cable three feet (0.91 m) under the sea floor, which prevents fishing vessels from snagging cables as thrall their nets.
So when did they start using these and why are we still having issues?
1 reply →
Botswana is well in the top half of least-corrupt countries. I suspect you know nothing about Ukraine or Botswana.
If a cable goes down, isn't the traffic just re-routed? Don't see the point of intentional damage here.
Dunno what the real reason is, but it's easy to see possible a intentional reason: Testing to see how it well it works and how other nations respond.
Cost of new anchor = X
Cost of fixing cable = >>X
Damage = done
I guess WWIV has been on a slow burn for going on three years now.
Did I miss WWIII?
Cold War.
More like since Deng Xiaoping initiated the modern Chinese economic strategy in the '80s to control the West through trade.
The West did a fine job of this themselves. Outsourcing to poorer countries is what has made the West so wealthy for so long - goods whose price is subsidized by cheap labor. Now that China and other countries have caught up, the West doesn't get the same discount, but they also don't have their own manufacturing because they all outsourced. We did this to ourselves.
2 replies →
It was crossing right on time for the interruptions, a Russian officer was on board, it slowed down while crossing, no other ships were slowing down in that area during that time (rulingnout headwinds) - it cannot get much clearer. China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe (unless they present stronger evidence against this assumption)
> China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe
Geez, I'm glad you're not war minister. It's a Chinese registered ship with a Russian captain.
If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
[flagged]
18 replies →
> If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
At the very least, the cooperation of Portugal's authorities would be expected to determine how the truck ended up being used for the attack, and if anyone knew about how the vehicle was to be used.
I expect the same amount of cooperation from China as the flag state.
1 reply →
[flagged]
2 replies →
It was the second Chinese registered ship with Russian crew within a short period of time. A year ago this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear cut the gas pipe and another communications line.
I am sure if the cowardly Russians ever did this to USA, it would cause a much bigger drama and retaliation wave, and China would take the hit as well.
True but China can support or not support investigations and prosecution. After all they are the ones who can exercise their sovereign rights on ships sailing under their flag. I‘m really curious and open minded how this plays out but sadly would be surprised if China would support the EU in this case.
> war minister
Due to an earlier generation's newspeak, that's "defense," not "war."
4 replies →
I don't know if the evidence is conclusive, but I do think we can say China is supplying Russia with military hardware and supporting them in other ways. So.. it's possible.
China trades with pretty much everybody, don't read too much into that.
China is not allied with Russia and China is unlikely to engage in sabotage like this because they stand nothing to gain from it.
9 replies →
Reading that thread it sounds like it was a Russian ship that was sold to China last month (perhaps as a pretext to mask this) so ownership is unclear.
I strongly doubt that this is an official military act of the Chinese government. It will most likely turn out that this is not an official military act of any government as the intent was to do this in secret.
Just because the intent was to be secret does not negate an official act of any country. To assume that any military does nothing in secret is naivety at its finest.
So if Trump is against China, and China aligns with Russia, will Trump then support Ukraine? Interesting (and choppy) times ahead.
Even if China doesn't explicitly align with Russia, I believe there are strategic reasons why the US would want a favourable outcome for Ukraine. I outlined a few points in a post a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059787
I'm no international relations hawk though, so I'm keen to hear opposing viewpoints.
54 replies →
Trump is pro Trump-looking-strong, and that's about it. Interesting times ahead for sure, but trying to predict Trump's future positions is a mug's game. I suspect regarding Ukraine, someone will give him a plan that they tell him is fair ($10 says Russia keeps Crimea but virtually nowhere else and Ukraine agrees not to join NATO), and he'll manage to get both sides to sign it by threatening them.
2 replies →
The whole Trump/Russia conspiracy theory was all fake anyway - the Steele dossier which is the basis of the whole thing was fabricated and is unsourced. I expect him to be relatively hawkish on Ukraine because losing in Ukraine makes the US look weak, although Ukraine is currently losing the war relatively badly so I expect some territory to be ceded to Russia.
1 reply →
[flagged]
14 replies →
Trump didn’t do anything with regards to China the first time around. I think there’s reason to doubt he is opposed to China in any significant way.
12 replies →
Why did they leave AIS on?
Having AIS on is mandatory. I'm sure turning it off would raise even higher warning flags than just leaving it on while doing your shady stuff.
Regardless, there are satellites covering the area, so you wouldn't get rid of being tracked anyways, would just be a bit slower.
10 replies →
Time to start sailing the south china sea.
https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
The US has two carrier groups there now, and has maintained a presence there for the last few years:
https://news.usni.org/2017/05/29/brief-history-us-freedom-na...
Coincidentally (or not) a couple lines were down a few hours ago in this south china sea degrading connectivity
So what would China's motivation be here?
China likely has nothing to do with this. It is unlikely they have any participation or even knowledge of this. Twice now some Russians in a China flagged ship caused trouble, and the China-flagging seems very intentional.
Russia is desperately trying to make the China-Russia thing a reality, and is probably trying to drag them in against their great resistance. China has zero credible reason to be dragged into Russia's nonsense, and a billion reasons why they want nothing to do with it.
The ideal outcome of this is that China realizes that Russia is outright trying to drag them into conflict, and that they repudiate that country entirely.
China has already been involved quietly, funneling weapons and intel to the Russians, essentially playing the opposite role to the US. Make no mistake - this war has a component of the US and China probing each others' capabilities.
The Russians could have done this with a fishing trawler (they cut cables accidentally all the time), so like you I doubt we can infer some nefarious Chinese plot from the flag on the vessel.
1 reply →
Might be just a crew paid off by Russians to do it.
In my country saboteurs largely weren't Russian - it's easier to pay off a local than have ano5 Russian cross the border, when his predecessor gets caught.
China has a lot of interest in the war not ending one way or the other. Their peer competitors are spending resources on it and a potentially problematic regional competitor is becoming more irrelevant the longer it runs.
In the superpower listings they're Number 2 with a bullet.
Finding out how far they can go without consequences / test the will of another nation to do something?
Article indicates this isn’t the first time.
Helping Russia
So what's the strategic importance of this move? inb4 "they're just acting like hoodlums to show off their strength".
8 replies →
Dude, Chinese state TV still calls Russia a "gas station with nukes." Of course they make money off of it and uphold their agreements but so far China has avoided any direct involvement with Russia's bs.
1 reply →
"Chinese-flagged" does not equal "Chinese operated"
[flagged]
So, when do we know it's not just another operation Northwoods?
[flagged]
How much did Putin pay Xi Jinping for it?
They'll obviously point the finger at another country
Completely aside from the cable discussion, I'm glad this was on bsky. I could finally follow the comments in the link again. I hope this trend continues.
BlueSky has attained critical mass and it is the next generation of microblogging. We’re witnessing the long awaited dethroning of twitter and it will end up ceding the space like Reddit did.
Not sure if you're being serious, but Reddit gets FAR more traffic than Twitter. Twitter is #43 out of all the sites on the internet in terms of traffic. Reddit is #10. Bluesky is not even on the map yet.
Until users get disenchanted with it and move to the next thing....
10 replies →
What happened to Reddit? AFAIK, they're bigger than ever now.
5 replies →
I think some of the community will also move to substack
2 replies →
I mean, it's still a very small niche website of again, mostly tech related westerners. Twitter is much more diverse
3 replies →
Nope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It still seems to require JavaScript be enabled to render anything.
Here's an alternative frontend you can use that doesn't require javascript: https://blueviewer.pages.dev/view?actor=auonsson.bsky.social...
I read somewhere that the captain is Russian. What a surprise.
[flagged]
The ship is owned and operated by russians.
[flagged]
[flagged]
China will do more and more of this as the USA withdraws from policing the world.
China didn't do it and the USA hasn't withdrawn from anything.
That would be the Chinese in Chinese ship.
1 reply →
I think it's time for a special navy operation which captures a Russian or Chinese cargo ship every time a cable gets damaged. The ships and their cargo could be then sold to the highest bidder.
It that really a precedent we would want to set? It sounds like it would be bad for global trade that state actors could arbitrarily seize privately owned property.
Wrong time getting cuastic (except if you are supporting China and Russia in their bully and troublemaker sabotaging efforts).
Am I hearing this right? You're volunteering to be on the front lines?
If it comes to a war I'm going to be on the front lines anyway, because I happen to live in a country next to Russia. Capturing a cargo ship guilty of sabotage wouldn't make much of a difference in whether a war comes or not.
[flagged]
... And profits are given to Ukraine.
Ahem... Cui prodest/cui bono?
What kind of interest Chinese could have to damage such cables? IMVHO ZERO. Also I doubt Russians have interests to do so.
Who could be interested?
- some private company for makes and insurance/the public pay to fix something who need money from the owner for other reasons (like I break on purpose my car to get it repaired for free or at least less money than what it would costing me avoiding the self-sabotage);
- some countries wanting war at all costs trying to create a casus belli to justify the push toward WWIII
- some countries experimenting the resilience of their infra
I fails to see any other potentially interested party.
So Two Minutes Of Hate towards Russia is over in this aspect? Very Orwellish.
What are you even talking about? Are you suggesting that "the West" has a too negative public opinion of Russia or China?
I would argue that interactions/treatment specifically toward Russia, especially by European nations in the last 20 years, was actually too positive and naive-- specifically because unlike Europe, Russia definitely did not leave its imperialistic ambitions behind, and treating/trading with it as a friendly somewhat flawed democracy during those years might have done more harm than good in hindsight.
I'm curious how you think about this?
Just yesterday on the front page there was a topic largely consisting of accusations of Russia breaking these cables. Now I see a sudden switch of the "criminal" and a possible start of a new 2-minute of Hate. It's very Orwellish indeed.
4 replies →
It could be false flag operation to create pretext for NATO/EU to block shipping to Russian ports in Baltic Sea.
Similar to Nordstream destruction in 2022 it could have been either Ukrainians or CIA/NSA. This could be last attempt by current US administration elements to create leverage for the Ukraine before negotiations start.
what possible reason would nato need to blockade russian ports that doesnt already exist?
Blockade is legal act of war. RU at war with UKR, not NATO, and vice versa. Hence NATO would need casus belli of RU attacking NATO or NATO owned infra to declare blockade (read: declare war on RU).
6 replies →