EU Plans Black Sea Internet Cable To Reduce Reliance on Russia (ft.com) 71
The EU is planning an undersea internet cable to improve connectivity to Georgia and reduce dependence on lines running through Russia, amid growing concerns about vulnerabilities to infrastructure transmitting global data. From a report: The $49mn cable will link EU member states to the Caucasus via international waters in the Black Sea, stretching a span of 1,100km. The project aims to reduce the region's "dependency on terrestrial fibre-optic connectivity transiting via Russia," the European Commission said in a policy document. The EU and Georgia jointly identified the need for the Black Sea internet cable in 2021 to improve Georgia's digital connectivity. However, the war in Ukraine has added impetus to the project, given the need to avoid relying on "connections that are not secure or stable," said a person with knowledge of the proposal.
Internet cables have come under scrutiny because of global concerns around espionage, as land-based lines and the stations where submarine cables come ashore are seen as vulnerable to interception by governments, hackers and thieves. Concerns around intentional sabotage of undersea cables and other maritime infrastructure have also grown since multiple explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September, which media reports recently linked to Russian vessels. Two cables off the coast of Norway were cut in 2021 and 2022, sparking concerns about malicious attacks.
Internet cables have come under scrutiny because of global concerns around espionage, as land-based lines and the stations where submarine cables come ashore are seen as vulnerable to interception by governments, hackers and thieves. Concerns around intentional sabotage of undersea cables and other maritime infrastructure have also grown since multiple explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September, which media reports recently linked to Russian vessels. Two cables off the coast of Norway were cut in 2021 and 2022, sparking concerns about malicious attacks.
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But it's a poor show to start thinking about it after the shooting started.
Apparently you totally missed the point of this internet cable.
This is a geopolotical ploy, to piss off Putin, and also tell him that the EU will do whatever it takes to weaken Russia's position in the region. And Russia is notoriously touchy about anything that has to do with the Black Sea, being that it's their only maritime access to the Mediterranean. You know, the same reason why they rented those bases in Sebastopol, then eventually decided to steal the whole of Crimea for themselves altogether.
Becaus
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Expect this new cable to be taken out by a dragged anchor by some Russian vessel. Accidentally, of course!
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Expect this new cable to be taken out by a dragged anchor by some Russian vessel. Accidentally, of course!
We'll just make sure there aren't any russian vessels in the Black Sea
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Expect this new cable to be taken out by a dragged anchor by some Russian vessel. Accidentally, of course!
We'll just make sure there aren't any russian vessels in the Black Sea
Really? You plan on going to war with them? When do you ship out?
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Really? You plan on going to war with them? When do you ship out?
It will depend on Russia's reaction when Ukraine takes back Crimea. If Russia sulks away to lick its wounds, all the while whining about being picked on, probably nothing.
However, if they continue to launch attacks against Ukraine then Ukraine has every right to neutralize all Russian shipping. As we've already seen, Ukraine has that capability and as a result, the Russian Black Sea fleet has moved itself out of range.
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But I wouldn't put it past them to use nuclear missiles.
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Both Russia and China think that no one will do anything to them, and so they take deliberately provocative actions this way to prove it to the world. At some point, someone needs to "accidentally" sink these vessels that are destroying infrastructure or blocking fishing in international waters. While flying the Somalia flag of course...
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Expect this new cable to be taken out by a dragged anchor by some Russian vessel. Accidentally, of course!
"What? Your new cable has been cut? Wow, that's just awful, Tovarisch. You have our sympathies. When you start looking for the perps, start with those Nordstream vandals. Betcha' there's a connection. Good luck!"
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:4, Funny)
Correction: Russian wessel
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Most of these cables are now buried some distance below the surface, as they're no longer laid ship-to-sea/ocean floor, but ship-to-sea/ocean floor drone that follows a ship, digging a trench as it goes and then laying a cable in this trench.
That makes it exceedingly unlikely for anchor to be able to get anywhere near the cable as it drags over the sea floor.
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Definitely not the case since Georgia submitted their application for EU membership in March 2022, immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine (just as others looked towards NATO and/or expedited their own EU membership bids), which was met by a statement of readiness to accept Georgia's candidate status once key membership conditions were met. Georgia also works with NATO but does not currently have MAP status, although that may change post-Ukraine. I've been to Georgia, and the post-soviet generations generally lean pro-west, hate Russia for their occupation of Georgian territory, and would probably jump at a chance of EU (and, ideally, also NATO) membership. While "pissing off Putin" might well be a significant part of the ultimate EU motivation for this (especially since Stalin was born in Georgia, making it a real poke in the eye) the EU has never shied away from expansion as long as the candidate meets most of the entry criteria and pays more than lipservice to the rest, and full-EU membership of another former SSR is much more politically damaging than a data cable. Building stronger communication links and trade between the EU and Georgia is a definitely good first step in that process though.
Doing so also makes it easier to expand links onwards to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which could also an extremely prudent move for the EU at the moment - both are oil and gas rich nations that could make up the Russian shortfall while the EU migrates to green alternatives. Azerbaijan is already supplying natural gas to Europe via the TANAP pipeline that runs through Georgia and Turkey, so anything that that will move them further away from Moscow's sphere of influence and towards Bussels/Strasbourg is going to go over well with the EU. While both do still have pretty strong ties with Moscow, Kazazhstan is having issues with lease payments over Baikonur and, like Georgia, my experiences in Azerbaijan are of a pretty sizeable pro-western element amoung the younger generations.
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That's odd. I thought Georgia was still one of Russia's puppet states? They still occupy 20% of Georgian territory with their military.
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That's odd. I thought Georgia was still one of Russia's puppet states? They still occupy 20% of Georgian territory with their military.
Russia occupied about 20% of Ukraine as of the middle of last year, so that might not be the best way to tell if a country is a Russian puppet state. If anything, it is probably a good indication that it isn't. There's no real need to occupy a puppet state.
Quick history lesson: Russia invaded Georgia since 2008 under similar pretexts to their invasion of Ukraine. Georgia terminated all formal diplomatic relations with Russia at that time.
As far as I can tell, most of Russia's neighbors don't exactly like
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Hmm, interesting. I had thought Georgia capitulated. Good on them, but sadly they'll never get their land back. They may lose the rest if Putin vacates Ukraine and turns his attention elsewhere to save face.
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Hmm, interesting. I had thought Georgia capitulated. Good on them, but sadly they'll never get their land back. They may lose the rest if Putin vacates Ukraine and turns his attention elsewhere to save face.
What we're seeing now is a Russia that is so weakened militarily that they are losing a war that everyone expected them to win handily. Now that the international community knows that it would not be a hopeless exercise to stand up to Russia, if Russia invades any more of its neighbors in the near future, you're likely to see an outpouring of international support sufficient to make any such invasion a huge mistake.
I would not be shocked if Russia's other neighbors take this opportunity to not only regain
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Gah! I meant to say China!
Mongolia and China are distancing themselves from Russia somewhat, as well.
With the exception of Belarus, all of Russia's military allies (CSTO) refused to help Russia in Ukraine, and again with the exception of Belarus none of them voted with Russia when the U.N. condemned the invasion of Ukraine. (They abstained, but from an ally, that's actually a pretty strong condemnation.) The same is true for China, Mongolia, etc.
*sigh*
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You do not want Russia to collapse totally.
That will release the nuke genie.
And even the current Russian opposition leader in jail, Navalny, can't be trusted when it comes to Ukraine / Crimea.
https://newrepublic.com/articl... [newrepublic.com]
He was pro keeping Crimea (since 2014) in Russia after Putin is gone. He just changed his tune after the current Ukraine invasion started and Russia started to have a black eye after showing everyone how crap the military was. Not sure if there is any credible Russian leaders left to ru
Re: Not a bad idea (Score:2)
Re:Not a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
But the Black Sea is also the only link the mediterranean for Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria, plus possibly also important to Armenia/Azerbaijan. Of course, Russia-under-Putin probably thinks some of those countries belong to it.
Yes, likely EU wants to flip a finger at Russia, but remember that Russia is 100% the bad guy here and the sole instigator of hostilities. EU was just slow on the uptake to realize Putin wasn't reformable and that it was futile to treat him as a friend.
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I take it they don't trust Turkey either, otherwise a land route would be easier.
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Almost certainly harder. Laying cables at sea is fairly easy nowadays, and maintenance costs are pretty low. Pulling them across Anatolian mountain ranges and into Caucasus over land is a bit of a logistical nightmare on the other hand.
Re: Not a bad idea (Score:2)
Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:4, Insightful)
Putin has like all dictators shown that he really doesn't give a rat's ass what happens to his people. And his power is consolidated enough he's not afraid of being overthrown. I suspect in his old age he's losing his touch though or he would have realized the EU didn't really care about the economic entanglements. He would have also known that his military couldn't take Ukraine
That's the problem with dictators. You might get a little bit of stability out of them for a few years especially if you're in a inherently unstable country, but it never lasts. Sooner or later the dictator gets old enough to go nuts.
Re:Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:4, Interesting)
>he would have realized the EU didn't really care about the economic entanglements.
I agree with pretty much everything else in your post except this. The EU was more than willing to sacrifice some of Ukraine for lower gas prices.
Even after Putin started 'round two' and tried to take the rest of Ukraine, there was some resistance to pushing back too hard because the EU had become dependent on those gas pipelines.
It turns out though, that overall Putin misjudged just how willing the average European was to shrug that off. And I suspect everyone who has ever heard of Chamberlain and Hitler was firmly behind supporting Ukraine... and the close the country is to Russia (without being one of the ones already leaning hard right), the more its population fears being next on Putin's list and wants to see Russia humbled badly enough to stop that list from ever becoming relevant.
Re: Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump would never have stopped this. Trump had no diplomatic options in this regard except to kiss Putin's ass (Trump loved all the dictators). Trump has no plans going forward about this either, as he showed in his "town hall".
No one is cheering this war except Putin and his backers - Ukraine is defending themselves. The idea that Ukraine should just surrender and let an invader win is ridiculous! It is an endless war only because Ukraine wants to LIVE! Do you think if Putin was invading Alaska that we should all just surrender in the name of peace?
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You're replying to someone who has been drinking Trump's Koolaid. The key phrase was "Hunter Biden". They keep trying to make that a thing. After all, everyone in the Trump family was committing crimes to get money out of their position, and to them this is perfectly normal and it's unbelievable that Biden's family might have legitimate dealings. They have to be corrupt, right? And if not, it's still good to muddy the waters so Trump doesn't look so bad by contrast.
Not that I trust anyone in a wealthy
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Shhh... nobody tell Putin that Slashdot isn't a thing anymore, let them waste their time here.
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Trump would never have stopped this. Trump had no diplomatic options in this regard except to kiss Putin's ass (Trump loved all the dictators). Trump has no plans going forward about this either, as he showed in his "town hall".
Y'all keep saying that, yet the only presidents that Ukraine gets invaded by Russia under are Obama and Biden. There was a conspicuous gap there.
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Explain how this works then. Biden and Obama pushed a button? Trump held back Putin with the power of his immense brain? Is this is more of the "Trump good, don't know why, shut up libtard!" logic?
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It turns out though, that overall Putin misjudged just how willing the average European was to shrug that off.
The "average European" isn't shrugging anything off. The average European has exactly Zero say in EU policies. Brussels would tell them, with the quickness, to stay in their lanes and leave this stuff to the Top...Men.
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That's not how politics works in democracies. Politicians in the EU aren't dictators, and while they can try and guide the population where they think it should be going (this is, after all their JOB), anything they do that is too unpopular simply can't happen - you'd get riots and strikes and endless economic headaches. Even dictators have limits - Putin can't conscript everyone and send them to Ukraine. Apparently, he can't even conscript enough people to get the job done. The population has limits to
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EU is not a democracy. It's an aristocratic system with minor democratic checks that are specifically stripped of any meaningful power and built on something similar to Roman Senate and Austro-Hungarian Empire model. Where plebs only get to elect someone who can either accept or veto decisions by the aristocrats, and cannot even propose legislation. Where peoples are specifically divided into interest groups that have extremely competing interests, and lack even a common language to really have meaningful a
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EU is not a democracy.
It is. Perhaps you should read up on it.
The other nexus of actual power in Europe is Council, which is a gathering of each nation's PM. ... or not?
Which are all elected
The rest of your post is just silly propaganda.
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Me: Describes mechanisms for three primary nexuses of power within EU.
You "you should read on it".
10/10 intelligence, would totally read again on how Germany controls wind and how we don't have winter temperatures below -20C because of global warming in Northern Europe any more. As well as other angelospherisms.
>Which are all elected ... or not?
Me:
>built on something similar to Roman Senate and Austro-Hungarian Empire model
So... yes? Just like in those societies, there are elections for certain positi
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The EU is a democratic system.
Just like any member of the EU.
No idea what this is about: "how Germany controls wind"
And this: "how we don't have winter temperatures below -20C because of global warming"
I'm pretty sure you can cherry pick a spot where it is below -20C. So, what is your point? I did not experience -20C or even -5C the recent 30 years. Before that we regularly had -30C and below.
Your millage my vary ... idiot.
Do you know anything about history of the two systems I cited as examples? At all? Yo
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>The EU is a democratic system.
So is DPRK. So was Polish Commonwealth. So was Roman Senate. So were several aspects of Austro-Hungarian governance systems.
Details matter. None of them were modern liberal democracies. Just like EU is not one either. Suffrage limitations. Power restrictions on each elected body as related to an unelected ones. Way elections are conducted. All of these things and more matter, no matter how you and your types try to handwave them away.
As for the rest, I guess you finally goo
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The EU can't do anything without starting World War 3. Ukraine had to start the fight back.
It's not exactly what I said (Score:2)
It wasn't even that long either. Russia was forced to sell their gas to China on the cheap beca
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It's a absolutely terrible that Putin (and Prigozhin) are willing to throw waves of cannon fodder at Bakhmut, to send in untrained soldiers from the start, and recruit from prisons.
Putin overall is recruiting more heavily from ethnic areas in Russia, and less from ethnic Russian areas - probably because they're poorer there and need the cash, but I'm sure there's some amount of assuming the ethnic groups are less important.
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Re:Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:4, Insightful)
In this specific case, Ukrainian propaganda is completely correct. It may be somewhat hyperbolic in individual cases it emphasizes, since it is a wartime propaganda. But directionally it's completely correct. West Russians, and especially South-West Russians aren't trustworthy when it comes to fighting Ukrainians, because they will have a high chance of being at least sympathetic, and likely have direct familial ties for example. Whereas Golden Horde descendants from Russian Siberia and Far East and such are far less likely to have any sympathies toward Ukrainians, or have familial ties.
Getting criminals to act as soldiers is also a pretty brilliant plan in this environment. You effectively grant worst of your society a path to salvation and heroism, all while ensuring that most of them don't survive this path to the end, so they don't re-enter normal society as free men to damage it again with actions generated by their criminal character.
But in a modern Western society, neither act is a morally acceptable one, so it makes for an excellent propaganda to direct at the West.
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While there's obviously my own analysis in this piece, since I'm analyzing relationship between propaganda and what we know to have actually happened and noting the potential reasons, are there any facts that I presented that you find questionable?
Because I can link you original Russian sources for pretty much everything. As in actual Russian Telegram channels talking about these issues in Russian. Everything from "Musicians" talking about prison recruitment to independent Russian dissidents like Gulagy.net
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Yes, alongside claiming that gravity repels things, world is flat and you are smart.
I'll take all of this "shit that never happened" as a package for a penny.
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Re: Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:2)
You do realize that they did invade Crimea and remained pretty much completely unchallenged, Germany even continued to extend its gas infrastructure ties and resource deals?
Re: Russia and Putin misunderstood something (Score:2)
media links to Russian vessels? (Score:3)
Concerns around intentional sabotage of undersea cables and other maritime infrastructure have also grown since multiple explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September, which media reports recently linked to Russian vessels.
Which media reports would those be? Apparently, some journalist has some evidence about what happened there: https://seymourhersh.substack.... [substack.com]
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Maybe it's the one's that talk about the whereabouts of ghost ships? I mean, that's why russia turns off their transponders right? So everyone knows what they're doing....
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Perhaps they were nuclear weasels?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
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Wessels. Damn autocorrect.
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I think if you want everyone with satellites to take a close look at a sensitive location, you should just switch off your transponders.
Not suspicious at all.
Many articles on those ghost ships available.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
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No one said they were smart.
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Imagine What Putin Is Thinking (Score:4, Funny)