This fits the pattern of sabotage all across Europe. The obvious candidate is Russia who are using hybrid warfare against Europe/UK for a long time. Why does this post have so many... strange comments, mostly from new accounts? More hybrid warfare?
Now I wouldn’t call myself a student of European terrorism per-se, but haven’t virtually all of the countries listed had some form of domestic terror groups in the post WW2 era? Why am I not to believe this is domestic?
I mean, Italy had a big problem with this... in the 1980s. Occam's razor indicates that this is probably just Russia, and not some geriatric extremists abruptly coming out of retirement.
You can't self-fund more than very small terror groups. "Domestic" groups aren't. Note how all the Marxist groups withered away after the fall of the Soviet Union.
It's news to me that the UK/Europe has killed millions of people. I think you mean Russia has killed hundreds of thousands and wounded millions.
I can only assume you are talking about Ukrainians in some conspiratorial way; I think it's strange that you remove all agency from a sovereign country and a people who want to protect their way of life. Very strange.
wild, and probably incorrect, assumption. as any moderately educated italian know, it’s not like italy lacks groups that push similar events on a semi-routine basis, perhaps even inspired by the “délégation inattendue” of french anarchists who carried out a comparable action in France around the olympics.
Mostly useful idiots. Many HN posters are tech people from US. They are mainly left leaning all the way into tankie territory. And those are a prime target for russians.
They use “test” cars that have bright lights or xenon flashes pointing down. They take thousands of pictures of the track every night and store the images in a database that can match them up precisely so you can see cracks growing over time like a movie.
I also remember reading about an application of fibre optics where a long strand is placed directly under each rail. Pulses of light through the fibre are reflected at the points where axles press down on the rail and compress the fibre. Similar techniques can be used to detect accidents and (completely) broken tracks.
If you do a somewhat bad thing with no pushback it becomes possible to do a somewhat worse thing with no pushback. Gradually you end up doing really bad things with total impunity.
Devil’s advocate: you should still have a reason to do the bad thing in the first place. I’m not a good enough politician to understand how this benefits anyone’s interests (don’t get me wrong, I do suspect Russia to be behind this, but still don’t get the objective - but then again I don’t get the objective of their special bullshit operation either)
Russia has been involved in covert sabotage operations in Europe for more than a decade [1][2]. You can learn more about this from investigative journalist Christo Grozev [3].
What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them? [4]
I was coming out of Barcelona on a train to France on the 18th, and through the window spotted a blacked-out quadcopter just hovering quite high over the tracks. No incidents happened in that area of Spain though so I'm wondering why it was there, I suppose it could be civilian or police?
Anyone can fly a quadcopter though? You can buy one right now for a couple hundred bucks off Amazon (and strap explosives to it if you wanted to).
If anything, the fact we’re not seeing random drones carrying explosives and diving into groups of people on a daily basis shows the vast, vast (99.999%) majority of people is actually well-meaning and has no desire to kill or hurt anyone.
If you’re legitimately baffled by a random guy being able to fly a quadcopter around without any kind of government approval or oversight, I encourage you to buy one and play around (without explosives please!), just make sure to not fly it over places where people could be standing - terminal velocity is real and even a light one could cause serious injury if it were to lose control and fall on someone’s head.
Here in the USA quad-copter drones are used to inspect powerlines and other infrastructure; I see them a few times per year in my area. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use drones to visually inspect train tracks as well. Very cost effective and energy efficient alternative to manual inspection in a vehicle of some kind.
Russia is a candidate, but it's far from the only candidate, and it's not clear how this advances their interests. Why not China, for instance? Or a random terrorist group? Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
After 6 weeks in Taiwan, one thing became very evident, mainland China can take the island in 3 days without firing a single shot. The only thing that can stop mainland China taking from taking Taiwan is a US president like Bill Clinton who had the courage to put two United States aircraft carrier strike forces between the mainland and the island to defend democracy which gave us TMSC. I don't see the current snowflake leadership doing that. While I was there, mainland China told the people of Taiwan to shut their mouths and nobody said a word about China after.
The reason mainland China hasn't taken Taiwan is because they don't have to.
I do not like the government of China, however, they are building infrastructure around the world especially in Africa, Asia, and South America. They are not destroying things like Russia does every single day. Their approach to diplomacy now is building.
For the same reason, China isn't commit terrorist attacks on other countries. However, Russia is committing terrorist attacks on other countries so it easy to believe that they are responsible for terrorist attacks.
1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of activity this far from their mainland.
2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President Trump's unpredictable behavior.
> Or a random terrorist group?
Plausible.
> Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink of war with Europe.
In this specific case, becuase China has historically had significant FDI within Italy's infrastructure sector.
China has significant issues with the EU and is aligned with Russia, but it isn't in China's incentive to conduct violent actions outside of the Chinese diaspora within Europe (which is a separate sticking point).
Your comment is a call to reason and doesn't make any susbtantive claims, yet it's downvoted into the grey. People are not debating this topic honestly.
Russia has its back against the wall and has little reason to invite retaliation. Israel has the means, motive, opportunity, and lack of restraint to punish its critics with these means, as well as the sway to cover their tracks with nonsensical disinformation. Media is pushing hard for the Russia Orc narrative and it says a lot about the people who are happy to buy it.
> Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war with Russia
Unnecessary. Just (a) pursue and seize its shadow fleet and (b) give Ukraine long-range weapons. (And radars so you can profile Russia's air defences.)
Russia is operating so comically outside its circle of competence, material constraints and international law that you don't even have to go kinetic to hurt it.
NATO could certainly rollover the Russian army in a conventional war, but that was just as true before the Ukrainian war. The idea that Russia is/was a serious threat is a convenient fiction: It helps maintain Russia's image as a superpower, and it provides a justification for the existence of NATO and the associated military industrial complex that supports it.
What is true however, is that Russia does possess a huge arsenal of nuclear and other weapons:
Despite Putin's posturing, Russia's never going to risk deploying them in a conflict with Ukraine. But in an actual war between NATO/Europe and Russia, with the regime facing an existential threat, then there's a very good chance they would. But even before it got to that point, the nature of the conflict itself would make nuclear escalation very likely. Both sides would be firing huge numbers of missiles, attempting to gain air superiority by wiping out the other's own missile launchers, radar bases, etc. With that many missiles flying, and stressed people and automated systems making split-second decisions, it's very likely that an error or miscalculation would result in an accidental nuclear strike, at which point it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
At least on this Materialistic app available on F-Droid, all those comments are flagged and unable to be seen
Its absolutely senseless to take on a position on something when not knowing what's coming from both sides
I'd presume this place to be frequented by those who would also find it similarly foolhardy to be taking a stance on an issue when not all parties are privy to the same objectivity/impartiality (in terms of information and the different sides of the story)
This fits the pattern of sabotage all across Europe. The obvious candidate is Russia who are using hybrid warfare against Europe/UK for a long time. Why does this post have so many... strange comments, mostly from new accounts? More hybrid warfare?
Now I wouldn’t call myself a student of European terrorism per-se, but haven’t virtually all of the countries listed had some form of domestic terror groups in the post WW2 era? Why am I not to believe this is domestic?
The “domestic terrorist” groups immediately proclaim they did the act for propaganda purpose while an adversary like Russia prefer to do it quietly.
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Possible but Russia seems the most active at the moment. There was some discussion of their activities the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866089
I wonder if this stuff actually help them much?
I mean, Italy had a big problem with this... in the 1980s. Occam's razor indicates that this is probably just Russia, and not some geriatric extremists abruptly coming out of retirement.
You can't self-fund more than very small terror groups. "Domestic" groups aren't. Note how all the Marxist groups withered away after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Hmmmm another weeeeird comment. Try this on for size:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
Edit: I guess all the downvotes are from totally "domestic" groups and not Russian bots, right? Get fucked Ruskies.
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It could also be any of the millions of people whose families we killed. No way to know, really.
It's news to me that the UK/Europe has killed millions of people. I think you mean Russia has killed hundreds of thousands and wounded millions.
I can only assume you are talking about Ukrainians in some conspiratorial way; I think it's strange that you remove all agency from a sovereign country and a people who want to protect their way of life. Very strange.
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> The obvious candidate is Russia
wild, and probably incorrect, assumption. as any moderately educated italian know, it’s not like italy lacks groups that push similar events on a semi-routine basis, perhaps even inspired by the “délégation inattendue” of french anarchists who carried out a comparable action in France around the olympics.
> More hybrid warfare?
Mostly useful idiots. Many HN posters are tech people from US. They are mainly left leaning all the way into tankie territory. And those are a prime target for russians.
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Israel.
I know nothing about railways, but is there any sort of Time Domain Reflectometry (TDM) technology that railways use to detect issues with the rails?
I suppose with the distances we're talking about and the resistance of steel this isn't visible without a whole bunch of signal generators?
Edit: Be sure to read jiggawatts' reply below.
They use “test” cars that have bright lights or xenon flashes pointing down. They take thousands of pictures of the track every night and store the images in a database that can match them up precisely so you can see cracks growing over time like a movie.
I also remember reading about an application of fibre optics where a long strand is placed directly under each rail. Pulses of light through the fibre are reflected at the points where axles press down on the rail and compress the fibre. Similar techniques can be used to detect accidents and (completely) broken tracks.
Excellent! Thank you. Both these processes make more sense than the TDR scheme I was referring to.
With the fiber scheme they are using optical TDR.
You can even use fiber-optic cables running in cable throughs next to the tracks to detect and track trains: https://www.dbsystel.de/dbsystel-en/Digital-Stories-en/A-dig...
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This was sabotage of the control equipment.
So that is Poland, Spain, England and now Italy in the past few months?
Have I missed any - very brazen!
Probably Germany
Our railways don't need sabotage - trains fail to run anyway.
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Why would someone do this?
If you do a somewhat bad thing with no pushback it becomes possible to do a somewhat worse thing with no pushback. Gradually you end up doing really bad things with total impunity.
Devil’s advocate: you should still have a reason to do the bad thing in the first place. I’m not a good enough politician to understand how this benefits anyone’s interests (don’t get me wrong, I do suspect Russia to be behind this, but still don’t get the objective - but then again I don’t get the objective of their special bullshit operation either)
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The New Yorker article had:
>A source in the German security establishment told me, “It’s a show of force, a way of taking off the mask and saying, ‘So, Germany, what are you going to do about it?’ ” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-fir...)
hybrid warfare: inflict costs with deniability
Because they weren't invited.
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I don’t get it what’s the goal here? did anyone claim responsibility
State actors do not claim responsibility.
kind of a weak ass attack for a state actor with confusing goals
sounds more like a distraction to keep security occupied for some more specific goal
Russia has been involved in covert sabotage operations in Europe for more than a decade [1][2]. You can learn more about this from investigative journalist Christo Grozev [3].
What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them? [4]
[1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-wes...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155
[3] https://m.youtube.com/@thechristofiles/videos
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Adamuz_train_derailments
France had the same kind of sabotages during the JO. It was later confirmed to have been sponsored by Russia.
what? they were local anarchist. what the hell are you saying?
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There was also a spree of migrants attacks in Germany, just before the election, which greatly swung public opionion to the AfD.
Source for these claims?
I was coming out of Barcelona on a train to France on the 18th, and through the window spotted a blacked-out quadcopter just hovering quite high over the tracks. No incidents happened in that area of Spain though so I'm wondering why it was there, I suppose it could be civilian or police?
Anyone can fly a quadcopter though? You can buy one right now for a couple hundred bucks off Amazon (and strap explosives to it if you wanted to).
If anything, the fact we’re not seeing random drones carrying explosives and diving into groups of people on a daily basis shows the vast, vast (99.999%) majority of people is actually well-meaning and has no desire to kill or hurt anyone.
If you’re legitimately baffled by a random guy being able to fly a quadcopter around without any kind of government approval or oversight, I encourage you to buy one and play around (without explosives please!), just make sure to not fly it over places where people could be standing - terminal velocity is real and even a light one could cause serious injury if it were to lose control and fall on someone’s head.
1 reply →
Perhaps it was actually an authorized drone?
Here in the USA quad-copter drones are used to inspect powerlines and other infrastructure; I see them a few times per year in my area. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use drones to visually inspect train tracks as well. Very cost effective and energy efficient alternative to manual inspection in a vehicle of some kind.
Russia is a candidate, but it's far from the only candidate, and it's not clear how this advances their interests. Why not China, for instance? Or a random terrorist group? Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
No, Russia is the prime (if not only) candidate.
Why? They've been developing a system of "single-use agents" to overwhelm European governments and keep them on their back foot.
This is likely a test run.
A lovely article on this was recently published in The New Yorker that you may enjoy: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-fir....
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After 6 weeks in Taiwan, one thing became very evident, mainland China can take the island in 3 days without firing a single shot. The only thing that can stop mainland China taking from taking Taiwan is a US president like Bill Clinton who had the courage to put two United States aircraft carrier strike forces between the mainland and the island to defend democracy which gave us TMSC. I don't see the current snowflake leadership doing that. While I was there, mainland China told the people of Taiwan to shut their mouths and nobody said a word about China after.
The reason mainland China hasn't taken Taiwan is because they don't have to.
I do not like the government of China, however, they are building infrastructure around the world especially in Africa, Asia, and South America. They are not destroying things like Russia does every single day. Their approach to diplomacy now is building.
For the same reason, China isn't commit terrorist attacks on other countries. However, Russia is committing terrorist attacks on other countries so it easy to believe that they are responsible for terrorist attacks.
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> Why not China, for instance?
A couple reasons:
1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of activity this far from their mainland.
2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President Trump's unpredictable behavior.
> Or a random terrorist group?
Plausible.
> Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.
I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink of war with Europe.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155#Activities
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> Why not China, for instance
In this specific case, becuase China has historically had significant FDI within Italy's infrastructure sector.
China has significant issues with the EU and is aligned with Russia, but it isn't in China's incentive to conduct violent actions outside of the Chinese diaspora within Europe (which is a separate sticking point).
Your comment is a call to reason and doesn't make any susbtantive claims, yet it's downvoted into the grey. People are not debating this topic honestly.
What about USA.
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>What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them?
As someone who works in the industry: quite slim.
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None, because they don't exist. However, Russia has been involved in covert sabotage operations in Europe for over a decade.
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Russia has its back against the wall and has little reason to invite retaliation. Israel has the means, motive, opportunity, and lack of restraint to punish its critics with these means, as well as the sway to cover their tracks with nonsensical disinformation. Media is pushing hard for the Russia Orc narrative and it says a lot about the people who are happy to buy it.
What would Israel stand to gain from having any remaining sympathy eliminated upon the discovery that they were behind it?
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Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war with Russia and take advantage of their weakened military due to their war with Ukraine
> Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war with Russia
Unnecessary. Just (a) pursue and seize its shadow fleet and (b) give Ukraine long-range weapons. (And radars so you can profile Russia's air defences.)
Russia is operating so comically outside its circle of competence, material constraints and international law that you don't even have to go kinetic to hurt it.
NATO could certainly rollover the Russian army in a conventional war, but that was just as true before the Ukrainian war. The idea that Russia is/was a serious threat is a convenient fiction: It helps maintain Russia's image as a superpower, and it provides a justification for the existence of NATO and the associated military industrial complex that supports it.
What is true however, is that Russia does possess a huge arsenal of nuclear and other weapons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
Despite Putin's posturing, Russia's never going to risk deploying them in a conflict with Ukraine. But in an actual war between NATO/Europe and Russia, with the regime facing an existential threat, then there's a very good chance they would. But even before it got to that point, the nature of the conflict itself would make nuclear escalation very likely. Both sides would be firing huge numbers of missiles, attempting to gain air superiority by wiping out the other's own missile launchers, radar bases, etc. With that many missiles flying, and stressed people and automated systems making split-second decisions, it's very likely that an error or miscalculation would result in an accidental nuclear strike, at which point it would be impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
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will you go to the frontline?
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Article about Russia on HN > green letter brand new throwaway accounts appear instantly in comments
This article doesn't mention Russia at all.
At least on this Materialistic app available on F-Droid, all those comments are flagged and unable to be seen
Its absolutely senseless to take on a position on something when not knowing what's coming from both sides
I'd presume this place to be frequented by those who would also find it similarly foolhardy to be taking a stance on an issue when not all parties are privy to the same objectivity/impartiality (in terms of information and the different sides of the story)
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article about russia???
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> Of course they were, and of course that the Russians are to blame
Glad you agree!
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Russia is openly attacking Europe. This is the second time railways have been bombed right at the start of the olympics!
Fuck me, what will it take before we do something?