Comment by hgomersall
1 day ago
Why would you want to keep it deniable? What's the point in this sort of sabotage if nobody knows you did it?
1 day ago
Why would you want to keep it deniable? What's the point in this sort of sabotage if nobody knows you did it?
The ideal scenario is everyone suspects it's you but can't prove it.
You have both the desired threat, but no concrete biases for an official response.
Also an uncertainty limits action - it might be a random event, it could even be a false flag.
One of the problem's here is narratives are being spun by multiple actors and it depends on who you believe.
Right, but you absolutely need the suspicion. If it's too deniable, it rather loses efficacy. It seems in this situation it could be any number of actors, which rather dilutes any intended message.
> The ideal scenario is everyone suspects it's you but can't prove it.
Why? EU countries have shown time and time again they won't do anything. I mean for God's sake, Russia was caught sending THREE remote controlled flying bomb on a German airfield, with another one found by a passerby before it was launched.
They contained professionally made Russian explosives. There is no doubt who did it. This was not the first, or the 10th time they got caught. I mean Russia murdered someone in the UK with polonium, for God's sake.
The idea that the Kremlin is worried in the slightest that you can prove it's them is absurd. They leave their fingerprints knowing there will be no reaction.
> The idea that the Kremlin is worried in the slightest that you can prove it's them is absurd.
I mean they are. That is the reason they haven’t sent balistic missiles to the same airfield. They could have sent the same agents who placed those drones to the fence of the airport with a shoulder mounted missile and shot down the planes as they were departing. Or even shoot them down on the ground.
Or similarly they could send a submarine and disrupt the railway services of the Netherlands with missiles from that.
Those would be clearly attributable actions which trigger an immediate military response. That is the reason why they don’t do them.
You look at the actions they take and conclude that they don’t have any restraint or worries. But you should also be looking at the actions they could have but did not take to see that they are in fact restrained and probably quite a bit worried. If they werent they would play the game differently.
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Because the Kremlin wants europe to take an overt action to justify mobilization. There are many better assymetric ways for europe to retaliate.
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Because being too blatant will galvanize the public and create support for open war.
The goal is to ensure all reasonable people know, while keeping enough deniability that Russian-funded right-wing groups can sow doubt about attribution and response policy’s
They don’t care whether it can be proven in court or by people paying close attention. They care whether it can’t be denied even by their aligned agents in western countries.
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You don't need a real basis for a response. There's nobody here enforcing any rules.
If you wanted you could claim you have evidence, without having any. Doesn't matter.
"This better stop or there will be sanctions, and if its not within your power to stop it, tough luck" is a valid response.
Whether that's wise is another question.
Here's a recent example where Germany so far claimed that it tied the attack to Russia, but whether that's actually true is anyone guess (since there's little publicly verifiable information released so far): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Leipzig_Airport_drone_att...
It wouldn't be terribly surprising if Russia was behind it, but on the other hand it wouldn't be the first false flag incident of this war either.
Well yes technically countries can just attack others. In practice they need to justify those attacks to their allies and populace if they want to maintain the status quo with them. That's where "they started it, we're only defending ourselves" is very helpful.
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> You don't need a real basis for a response. There's nobody here enforcing any rules.
First order, maybe. But the clearer the attribution the more political capital there is to act. Just look at the article. We don’t know, and won’t know for a while, if this was caused by Russia or the FDF protestors or who. That is all confusion all kind of actors can use to criticise a government who puts more sanctions on Russia.
Because otherwise it would be an act of war. At which point they might as well have just fired a rocket into the country.
finish the thought: this means you need to retaliate. You either step up and hit back, or look weak and invite further problems.
random vandals -- that's just local scumbags being scumbags. These things happens, no need to start WWIII
> You either step up and hit back, or look weak and invite further problems.
The latter is exactly what the western world did in 2014, and its why we have this much larger war now.
This isn’t a show of power. Sabotage works best when your target doesn’t even realize it was sabotage. Similarly it’s best if you misattribute blame because then you’re fighting the wrong party and looking for ghosts.
Russia throwing journalists out of windows or paining with Novachok - that’s a “it’s us, you can’t do anything about it, don’t fuck with us” power signal that benefits from “plausible” deniability - you can’t prove it was us.
Russia is trying to avoid retaliation through stricter sanctions, for example.
It's not about demonstrating, it's about results and this is only training.
Doubt is always good.
They seem to be very good at "mob tactics."
No one can prove anything, for example, but anyone knows that people that piss Putin off, need to stay away from windows in high places.
The windows are entirely blameless. If a window gets near you, it’s already too late, you’re now just a message “pour encourager les autres”.
That’s because the distinction between the Russian mob and the government is nonexistent
If the main point is slowing/frustrating drone production?
It would honestly be kind of fair game to sabotage production of drones that would be used against you, even if they're made in a country you're not at war with --- if it wasn't for Russia having a lot of responsibility for that war in the first place (to put it mildly).
what do you mean "fair game"? by the same logic russia attacking ukraine is also "fair game".
"hei cmon im just atacking my neighbor its fair game, what else should i do"
Let's say I pay someone to punch you int the face every day. Then one day when you punch me in the face do I have a right to complain?
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I mean what I said: if you're being attacked by drones, then no one can fault you for trying to sabotage the production of those drones, even if they're made in a different country than the one which is sending them against you.
But, you can and should fault Russia for getting into that position in the first place, that their neighbor is attacking them back with drones.
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