Comment by scrollaway
1 day ago
Little by little, people are realising that Europe is at war. Politicians are trying so hard not to say it because of the implications, but there’s only so long you can keep your head buried in the sand.
We’re under constant attacks from Russia… drones, sabotage, cyberattacks, propaganda campaigns derailing our elections…
I’m sick of it.
It is indeed possible Russia is behind it, but considering a domestic farmers' terror group has told its followers to cause disruption today (as it is a politically-significant day), and those are definitely disrupting highways, chances are good they are also responsible for the railway disruptions.
And if this is supposed to be war, then by European standards it is incredibly mild.
We don't know whether this was Russia, it's just as likely it was the "farmers defence force" or climate activists.
Edit: some context as I'm looking like a Russian shill now, which I understand. Today is the day that the budget gets announced, and the farmer terrorist organization (farmer defence force) have announced actions - and have disrupted highways by setting bales of hay on fire, and all the disruptions happened where farmer concentrations are high.
Regardless, the situation is dire, and probably either the tankies or terror farmers are being helped by Russian destabilizing forces, it's too early to call this disruption an action from the FSB.
In the case of France it is pretty obvious, they would never attack random people in such a way. They either target public infrastructure or very specific politician/execs properties, not random people, and definitely not in a way that could result in deaths.
>or very specific politician/execs properties, not random people,
I don't know enough about dutch politics but in my country if the blue collar anti-regulation people wanted to annoy the white collar pro-regulation people without annoying other blue collar people stopping the trains would accomplish that pretty handily.
>and definitely not in a way that could result in deaths.
They laid pipes and jumper cables across the tracks causing the signals to be red.
Those famously anti-train climate activists…
Farmer advocates are not climate activists, surprisingly they have a negative correlation
1 reply →
Don't you think those groups would have claimed responsibility by now?
no? if you are diligent you can say nothing and people will hopefully attribute it to your enemies and you get off with your own ploy of looking peaceful and harmless
2 replies →
Yeah, my bet is on the farmers. The locations where this happened are all pretty rural and farmers have announced havy actions today.
We in NL need to be more concerned about domestic terrorism than the Russians at the moment. Though I'm sure Russian money and bots are involved in some way.
You think farmers are willing to risk the murder of hundreds of their fellow countrymen as a form of protest? That’s plain terrorism.
5 replies →
Definitely, and destabilizing by proxy is still an attack
if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
Russia started with the hybrid war psyops shit, they don't get to complain about false accusations.
I'm not defending Russia, it's just that the farmers terrorist organisation has announced major disruptions today and has also set hay bales on fire to shut down highways.
For context: it's "Prinsjesdag" in the Netherlands which is when the budget is announced, and there are major changes to agriculture subsidies.
We've had a bunch of these acts of terrorism in Germany in the recent years. Mostly power, but also train and industrial targets. They all came from the same source, which is very much not Russian.
2 replies →
Ah yes, climate activists are widely known for hating public transport especially trains.
I wouldn't say they are widely known for hating the electric grid but hey here we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_arson_attack_on_the_Berli...
1 reply →
uhu, sure thing boris!
What implications? Why wouldn't they want an, in this case real, external enemy they could use to distract the people from their own failures?
Perhaps the external enemy being able to do these things is, in fact, their own failure in a way.
Not really, I do not buy that. Ukrainian intelligence can sabotage train tracks deep within Belarus and Russia. And given how convient it would be to blame Russia here I wonder why they do not.
Yeah, not sure why not at least being upfront about the possibility is so hard. In Spain we've had train derailments, flocks of people being directed on social media to force themselves across borders, subterfuge deluxe everywhere and what not, yet the government is mostly silent and claim it's all unrelated, but it's hard to not also see the parallels across the continent and reach your own conclusions. But then also, don't wanna fall into some conspiracy theory trap either...
Russia isn't the only group interested in doing terrorism in The Netherlands. Recently the Farmers Defense Force and Extinction Rebellion have caused far greater disruption.
Could it be Russia? Obviously. But in my opinion the odds are less than a coin flip.
> Recently the Farmers Defense Force and Extinction Rebellion
Why derail trains though, especially in regards to the latter? Given it's one of the most environmental ways for transportation. Besides, groups like that tend to want to take responsibility, the whole point is to get attention to their groups.
8 replies →
I think of it the other way: EU politicians want war but are not able to say it out loud and clear. Instead we get a bunch of "russian sabotage" all over the place with flimsy evidence to back it. Get the simple people into a paranoid state and use it to justify decisions which are already made. Classic FUD. And the people seem to swallow it.
Yeah mate whatever. Instead of scrolling twitter or whatever, donate some of your actual time to Ukraine and start getting up to speed with what Russia is really doing, straight from the source.
Otherwise you’re just going to continue being what is commonly called a “useful idiot”.
Edit: seeing your other posts, seems like you’re well beyond useful idiot territory and either a Russian agent or plain and simply a troll. Of course it’s always the ones you most expect.
Wont donate anything to Ukraine – hopefully the part of my family from there has managed to bring out their boys. Yes, busification is a thing over there, "mate". If the useful idiots here in Europe are strong enough to back a political decision to go to war with Russia, I'm out. But you can go and fight, "mate".
Edit: Seeing you're profiteering from the war [0], case closed I guess.
[0]https://sevenseed.eu/ "Seven Seed is a Brussels-based group dedicated to empowering the European startup ecosystem, focused on the technologies that matter most: Artificial Intelligence and Defence."
2 replies →
And Russia is winning, they already have neutralized if not subjugated the US, but most of Europe is also heading towards that outcome, and fast. Russia is not this near omnipotent 5D chess mastermind behind all of the scenes in all of politics all across the West, but they are terrifyingly good at exploiting existing trends and influencing trajectories just so and they have been at it with great continuity over many decades. It's starting to really pay off. At this point, it's hard to imagine how the next German federal government could be anything else than either a completely dead-on-arrival coalition of polar opposites that only barely hangs on to keep the AfD out of government but will be unable to do anything at all, or an extremely Russia-friendly government the AfD is part of if not leads that is pretty much certain to continue within the EU what Trump started within NATO. Both outcomes serve Russia well, and the establishment has pretty much handed them that opportunity without meaningful resistance.
NATO is certainly weaker with the USA having lost her mind. But Russia seems to have gotten herself into a total quagmire in Ukraine and she is bleeding badly with no end in sight. Nobody is winning here.