Finland Finds Drag Marks Near Broken Undersea Cable. Russia's 'Shadow Fleet' Suspected (msn.com) 155
Reuters reports:
Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks that drag on for dozens of kilometres along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a tanker carrying Russian oil is suspected of breaking a power line and four telecoms cables with its anchor... A break in the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power cable between Finland and Estonia occurred at midday on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 linking the two countries, grid operators said. They said Estlink 2 might not be back in service before August.
In an interesting twist, the New York Times reports that the ship "bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut." If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West... NATO's general secretary, Mark Rutte, responding to requests from the leaders of Finland and Estonia, both member nations, said the Atlantic alliance would "enhance" its military presence in the Baltic Sea...
Since Russia began assembling its fleet, the number of shadow vessels traversing the oceans has grown by hundreds and now makes up 17 percent of the total global oil tanker fleet... Nearly 70 percent of Russia's oil is being transported by shadow tankers, according to an analysis published in October by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a research organization based in Ukraine... The authorities in Finland are still investigating whether the "Eagle S" engaged in a criminal act. But the sheer size of the shadow fleet might have made using some of these vessels for sabotage irresistible to Russia, [said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has researched and written about shadow fleets]...
While it's still not certain that this week's cable cutting was done intentionally, the Baltic Sea, for a number of reasons, is an ideal arena to carry out sabotage operations. It is relatively shallow and is crisscrossed with essential undersea cables and pipelines that provide energy, as well as internet and phone services, to a number of European countries that are NATO members. Russia has relatively unfettered access to the sea from several ports, and its commercial vessels, protected by international maritime law, can move around international waters largely unmolested... The suspicions that Russia was using shadow vessels for more than just escaping sanctions existed before this week's cable cutting. Last April, the head of Sweden's Navy told a local news outlet that there was evidence such ships were being used to conduct signals intelligence on behalf of Russia and that some fishing vessels had been spotted with antennas and masts not normally seen on commercial vessels. Since the war began, there has also been an uptick in suspicious episodes resulting in damage to critical undersea infrastructure...
Hours after Finland's energy grid operator alerted the police that an undersea power cable was damaged on Wednesday, Finnish officers descended by helicopter to the ship's deck and took over the bridge, preventing the vessel from sailing farther. By Friday, it remained at anchor in the Gulf of Finland, guarded by a Finnish Defense Forces missile boat and a Border Guard patrol vessel.
The cable incident happened just weeks after the EU issued new sanctions targetting Russia's shadow fleet, Euronews reports. "A handful of Chinese companies suspected of enabling Russia's production of drones are also blacklisted as part of the agreement, a diplomat told Euronews." The "shadow fleet" has been accused of deceptive practices, including transmitting falsified data and turning off their transporters to become invisible to satellite systems, and conducting multiple ship-to-ship transfers to conceal the origin of the oil barrels...
In an interesting twist, the New York Times reports that the ship "bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia's shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut." If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West... NATO's general secretary, Mark Rutte, responding to requests from the leaders of Finland and Estonia, both member nations, said the Atlantic alliance would "enhance" its military presence in the Baltic Sea...
Since Russia began assembling its fleet, the number of shadow vessels traversing the oceans has grown by hundreds and now makes up 17 percent of the total global oil tanker fleet... Nearly 70 percent of Russia's oil is being transported by shadow tankers, according to an analysis published in October by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a research organization based in Ukraine... The authorities in Finland are still investigating whether the "Eagle S" engaged in a criminal act. But the sheer size of the shadow fleet might have made using some of these vessels for sabotage irresistible to Russia, [said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has researched and written about shadow fleets]...
While it's still not certain that this week's cable cutting was done intentionally, the Baltic Sea, for a number of reasons, is an ideal arena to carry out sabotage operations. It is relatively shallow and is crisscrossed with essential undersea cables and pipelines that provide energy, as well as internet and phone services, to a number of European countries that are NATO members. Russia has relatively unfettered access to the sea from several ports, and its commercial vessels, protected by international maritime law, can move around international waters largely unmolested... The suspicions that Russia was using shadow vessels for more than just escaping sanctions existed before this week's cable cutting. Last April, the head of Sweden's Navy told a local news outlet that there was evidence such ships were being used to conduct signals intelligence on behalf of Russia and that some fishing vessels had been spotted with antennas and masts not normally seen on commercial vessels. Since the war began, there has also been an uptick in suspicious episodes resulting in damage to critical undersea infrastructure...
Hours after Finland's energy grid operator alerted the police that an undersea power cable was damaged on Wednesday, Finnish officers descended by helicopter to the ship's deck and took over the bridge, preventing the vessel from sailing farther. By Friday, it remained at anchor in the Gulf of Finland, guarded by a Finnish Defense Forces missile boat and a Border Guard patrol vessel.
The cable incident happened just weeks after the EU issued new sanctions targetting Russia's shadow fleet, Euronews reports. "A handful of Chinese companies suspected of enabling Russia's production of drones are also blacklisted as part of the agreement, a diplomat told Euronews." The "shadow fleet" has been accused of deceptive practices, including transmitting falsified data and turning off their transporters to become invisible to satellite systems, and conducting multiple ship-to-ship transfers to conceal the origin of the oil barrels...
Russia will dig its own grave (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Russia will dig its own grave (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with you, I wanted to add that the problem with this plan is the Russian elite does not care if Russia is poor, as long as they can be rich. They follow Paradise Lost "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven". Any sanctions are essentially an ethical obligation for Europeans/Americans, but won't bring the Russian leadership to change their plans an inch.
The rest of the population is living as poor as ever, and has nothing to lose. To the opposite, the wars finally brings them back their lost pride as Russia shows its power and is being feared by its enemies again.
This isn't the classical wars the European kings and emperors once fought between each other. Putin "isn't an old English gentleman who will be satisfied with a bit more of territory. He is Genghis Khan." And while the opinion (which I quoted) paraphrases an historical opinion about Hitler*, the comparison of Putin and Khan is something the Russians are happy with https://www.asianews.it/news-e... [asianews.it] https://www.wsj.com/articles/r... [wsj.com] https://www.csmonitor.com/Worl... [csmonitor.com]
* I believe, given by a European ambassador on the leave from Berlin at the beginning of the war; according to Julian T. Jackson 'France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain'
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I'm not sure that's limited to Russia and their elite.
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he Russian elite does not care if Russia is poor, as long as they can be rich.
The problem is, those elite are now worried rebuilding those oil refineries, chemical plants, optics, and manufacturing plants will have to be paid out of their pockets. There are several oil refineries which are out of commision and need millions of dollars of repairs. This is on top of the loss of revenue since they're not working. Banking services are grinding to a halt because outside banks won't do business with them for f
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Yes, it will cost them, but as long as Putin is alive and coherent the Ukraine War will be continued, and the Russian people will simply take it.
They seem to enjoy suffering when others are also suffering. They don't care about the dead in Ukraine, or their own dead. 1000 Russians dead a day.
The elites now seem to have more control of the central bank and can go back to making profits.
Russia is at a war time economy. If you don't think their are massive profits being made by those elites you are citing you
Re:Russia will dig its own grave (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as the Russian people go? Well, the interesting thing about dictatorships this century is that they’re perfectly happy to let the unhappy people leave. Last century, a lot of dictatorships tried to maintain the fiction that “we’re a utopia, and we’ll shoot you if you think otherwise” but nowadays only North Korea takes that approach. More modern dictators realized that it’s actually easier to maintain power if they just quietly let the unhappy people leave. Which is what a million young, educated Russians with young children did when the Ukraine thing started. The people who are left are too weak, poor, sick, apathetic or ignorant to emigrate, mixed in with the large number of Russians who sincerely support Putin.
Oh, and comparing Putin to Genghis Khan is giving Putin WAAAYYYYY too much credit. IIRC, Genghis Khan used elite, mobile, well-trained people. Basically the special forces of the time. And their tactics were designed to make maximum use of what they had. Putin is coasting on the tech they built last century, plus mass-human-wave attacks using meth’d-up untrained recruits and a small number of mercenaries. That’s about as wasteful and simplistic as a military strategy can get. The birthrate in Russia is cratering - those dead young men wont be replaced anytime soon.
When the hangover hits, Russia is gonna need a full century to recover. They have well and truly screwed themselves.
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It doesn’t matter if they win or lose in Ukraine.
Assuming they only make minor gains. Winning the whole of Ukraine would be a different story; 44 million men and women who demonstrated worthiness, creativity, persistence.
Putin is coasting on the tech they built last century,
It seems effective. They are able to fire missiles on regular schedule. OTOH today's news was that Ukraine is scaling down missile strikes due to scarcity of Western-provided missiles.
those dead young men wont be replaced anytime soon.
Agreed. The dead+wounded (~1700 /day) according to Ukrainian-provided data ( https://mstdn.social/@noelrepo... [mstdn.social] ) -- perhaps optimistic numbers but several s
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It doesn’t matter if they win or lose in Ukraine.
Assuming they only make minor gains. Winning the whole of Ukraine would be a different story; 44 million men and women who demonstrated worthiness, creativity, persistence.
They will capture the land, but not the people, especially not the ones showing "worthiness, creativity, persistence". These will go west and will be welcomed there. Russia will end up with land full of ruins, mostly depopulated spare for a few old and/or silly people. No way to run a place, as can already seen in the parts of Donbass occupied by Russia.
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Oh, and comparing Putin to Genghis Khan is giving Putin WAAAYYYYY too much credit.
When Genghis Khan had to deal with the kings of his age, he was exceedingly disgusted by their trappings of finery and luxury. Ghengis Khan lived in a tent. He saw weakness in the luxuries and he was absolutely correct.
Re:Russia will dig its own grave (Score:4, Insightful)
the wars finally brings them back their lost pride as Russia shows its power and is being feared by its enemies again.
I'm curious who exactly is fearful of Russia?
North Korea? Because they're forced to fight for Russia, no more Russians are jumping up to get killed.
Ukraine? This russian war machine has been hollowed out and all profit pocketed by oligarchs.
I'm guessing Europe is? I think that is because raising gas prices and russian immigrants fleeing the oligarch land.
In the end, Russia is just a 95 year old Freddie Kruger running around trying to scare people and say remember me, while riding around in a wheelchair with a flat tire and a broken axle.
Sad and hilarious!
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We've seen this play out in Syria, where Russia's ability to project power was shown to be very weak indeed once HTS got going. That was a really big deal, because Russia used Syria to stage operations into Africa, and now its ability to project power across Africa is also substantially weakened. And of course, its allies and proxies have all been strategically damaged recently too -- Iran most of all.
However, it's easier to break things than fix things, and Russia may retain enough power to continue breaki
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Russia dug its grave decade
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The grave is dug. They are working on the casket now.
And we should keep bleeding them via supporting Ukraine and keeping up the embargos.
While it's ripe (dead), let china take it's share on the East and Ukraina clean up the nukes from the rest of the carcas.
Then, there finnally be peace on Ukrainian-Chainaise border.
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and they learn not to trust you
Trust them? You slept through history class when they discussed Finnish-Russian relations didn't you. The Finnish don't trust Russians as far as they could throw the fattest of them. This incident hasn't changed anything.
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Finland was basically forced to be allied with Germany. You've got an angry army on one side, and an angry army on the other side, and taking a neutral stance as a small country is not feasible. So, side with Germany because Russia and the Soviets were a much better known threat. The same with Baltic states. Now, to Russia with its overinflated pride thinks that anyone who allied against them must be totally evil, and they don't get over that. After all, the ship in Russian citizens, force everyone to lea
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Tell the people in Kursk that they are winning the war. Why does Russia need to import N. Koreans and Chinese to fight for them? Why has Russia been emptying out its prisons to fight for them? It is not because they have an infinite supply of well-trained soldiers to hand.
Russia's nuclear arse
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"Russia is blowing through its soviet era stockpiles at an unsustainable pace and will be mostly dry within the next two years. "
Meanwhile, it is spinning up wartime industry to replace those weapons with newer models, at the thousands. So, within two years (do you know how many missile attacks that is, how many dead Ukrainians per day?) the soviet era stockpiles will be gone. They will have been producing more for those two years.
"By all accounts Russia should have won on paper yet their overconfidence, in
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Meanwhile, it is spinning up wartime industry to replace those weapons with newer models, at the thousands. So, within two years (do you know how many missile attacks that is, how many dead Ukrainians per day?) the soviet era stockpiles will be gone. They will have been producing more for those two years.
New production is wholly insufficient to keep up with attrition.
So is Russia! And? It's not like they haven't actually fought real wars that had good weapons built is Russia. Now that the only profit in Russia is in making weapons, what do you think the Oligarchs are going to do?
You tell me, the largest defense firms in Russia are publicly stating it is impossible to turn a profit with 21% interest rates.
So" Does Ukraine have that? Will the US, Europe and allies go to WAR with Russia? I doubt it!
Ukraine is ramping up domestic production in coordination with western defense industry and investments. In some categories like self-propelled arty they are outproducing the rest of Europe. Ultimately it doesn't matter where the weapons are produced so long as Ukraine gets them. It remains in the collective wests b
Re: Russia will dig its own grave (Score:2)
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Only since the Russians blew-up their own Pipeline [geopoliticaleconomy.com]
Russian Oil and Gas Revenues Surge in June – Reuters [themoscowtimes.com]
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Oh No! More sanctions on Russia? Whatever will it do, since it is already sanctioned to sh*t?
Russia has turned to a war time economy. The EU and the rest of Eastern Europe may do well to up their defense spending significantly, as well as support the war in Ukraine to a much larger extent, unless they want to see it come to their doorstep, if not their living room.
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So Finland asked for sabotage because they joined NATO?
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So Finland asked for sabotage because they joined NATO?
I think Putin would say "yes."
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Russia considers itself at war with NATO (a cold war) and does whatever they can get away with. Take were clever to take measured retaliations that they know won't escalate. Recent events have shown Finland and Sweden are taking big losses without much fuss.
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Was NATO seeking to expand into Ukraine or more accurately was Ukraine seeking NATO membership? It's an important difference. Russia keeps this crap up and nobody near them is going to want to not be a member of NATO. They cause their own problems by doing this and eventually they're going to get themselves nuked. Who even knows if they have a working nuclear stockpile at this point? How many of their weapons are being properly maintained? They can't even maintain a single aircraft carrier or replace tanks
we will grow stronger (Score:5, Insightful)
We will grow much stronger from the sabotages.
What we do is we practice low energy usage in our homes, we learn to depend less on electricity, oil and gas. And we learn to install solar, batteries, and thus reduce our footprint anyway, and as a bonus we become less dependent on external partners.
What happened to "the sun is shining somewhere"? (Score:2)
The usual response to "solar panels and wind don't work when it's cloudy and calm" is that the sun is shining or it's windy somewhere else.
And this is true. But that means we need the power cables to get the power from somewhere else to here.
Otherwise, we need a lot more solar and batteries. Which is more expensive than just being able to transfer power from one part of Europe to the other via transmission lines.
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Without solar and wind, you STILL need a power grid to transfer power around. Don't be like isolationist Texas, instead interconnect those grids for more reliability and flexibility,
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I believe nations will learn to build nuclear power plants.
Solar power fails on a seasonal basis because there's higher energy demand in winter than summer. Solar power fails on a daily basis since peak solar power output is at noon but peak electrical demand is at sunrise and sunset. If there's batteries on the grid to even out this disparity in electrical supply and demand then those batteries are available to any electrical source, such as nuclear fission.
If solar power was going to save Europe from fo
Impound it (Score:5, Interesting)
The ship is already trying to evade sanctions, and now it's undertaken sabotage. Impound it, use its oil for your own purposes, and put the captain and crew in jail. Rinse and repeat if this keeps happening.
Let Russia whine. The more ships they lose the less money they get to fund their war. They're already screaming about sanctions strangling them and Ukraine destroying their oil refineries, make them scream louder.
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That has already been done. Customs put the ship into confiscation status, crew is detained and being questioned.
But the reason it was possible is because action was done very rapidly, and in the section where ship was in our territorial waters. Previous ships made it to international waters before action was taken, and that limits ability of national authorities other than those of a flag nation to act.
Also this has nothing to do with NATO at this stage, as trolls below are spamming. Vessel crossing territ
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Those rules are for port entries, not passage. And if you start applying port entry rules as grounds for interdicting and arresting vessels, US will be forced to get involved. USN supercarriers (CVN) are nuclear powered and nuclear powered vessels are banned from most ports. So if someone starts arresting vessels because they're not allowed in nearby ports under port entry rules, and this rule becomes customary, it would mean USN carrier fleet would become banned from territorial waters under those rules.
It
Re:Impound it (Score:5, Informative)
There is no way for a ship leaving a Russian port on the Baltic to reach the Atlantic without going through the national waters of Sweden or Denmark. That is, they would definitely be within 12 nautical miles of either nation. Smaller ships can traverse the Keil Canal, but that lies entirely within Germany. All three nations are part of NATO.
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So the question is - can a third country transport goods that are on the embargo list, through this teritorial waters?
And maybe another easy one - can a country completly controll the transit through their teritorial waters?
What does international marine law says about it?
The point being - does tranporting russian oil (now embargoed) via a teritorial waters of a NATO country obliges the said country to stop it?
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International treaties require "peaceful passage" (or some similar wording) through territorial waters. NATO nations might be able to have some say on the passage of warships but not civilian ships carrying cargo or passengers. Blocking peaceful passage is in effect a declaration of war and that's not a place we want to go, not yet at least.
Re:Impound it (Score:5, Interesting)
The ship has seriously violated the property of Finnish and Estonian businesses. So the lawyers here agree that we have the right to hold the ship (with cargo and crew) in custody while the police investigates the matter.
In Finland and other Nordic countries we're pretty strict about following the letter of the law, and this has caused a lot of problems due to Russia not following it. For example, Russia has repeatedly mobilized large groups of refugees at the border, which makes a kind of denial of service attack, since we're bound by international treaties to consider everyone's application for asylum. It took a lot of time to agree that we're actually allowed to close the entire border for a limited time without violating too many treaties.
So a lot of people have got the impression that Finland is the nice kid that never hits back when bullied. But now we're finally doing something, and we're still making sure to dot the i's with the law.
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"official" being the operative word.
They should impound all such operating vessels.
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How the hell is this Russian propaganda? I'm already implying that Russia is the bad guy here, which is kind of obvious to anyone reading the news. The problem is that we're dealing with events that could start WWIII, so we'll need pretty hard evidence before blaming a whole country with a nuclear arsenal. If you have such proof, please contact Finnish police.
FWIW, during WWII Russia invaded land where some of my family had lived for centuries, and we've never got it back. So I'm not exactly a great frie
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So, Russia attacking infrastructure is not increasing chances of war? Your solution is to roll over and show your belly when the bear is chasing you?
Russia's strategy from the last two decades is to do whatever the hell they feel like, because no one will dare fight back because of nukes. Invade Georgia and the entire West does nothing but wring hands and hope Putin calms down. The clucking of tongues and backing down does not stop a bully. The only mistake is that Ukraine was able to fight back. But i
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No, impounding Russian shadow fleet vessels is something they can do.
Further restricting trade, also.
Funding Ukraine, and sending more weapons is also something they can do.
Rebuilding Ukraine infrastructure while the war is ongoing with those Russian funds? Maybe!
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You are at best a useful idiot.
The west did not have "a big hand in this war". It is Putin's paranoia and his invasion of Ukraine that was the big hand in the war, dude.
Be easier to transfer the oil barrels... (Score:2)
if they left the transporters on.
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I was wondering how far down the page I would have to scroll before I found this comment! :)
Maybe we're thinking of countermeasures wrong (Score:2)
When we think about how to prevent this, people seem to think about altering / armoring the cables themselves. But what if, instead of making expensive alterations directly to the cables, we turned this around? I'm thinking about something lower-tech (like a heavy chain or thick metal cable), fixed to the seabed - with the specific intent of snagging and holding dragged boat anchors.
You wouldn't want to do this in a harbor where ships actually are expected to anchor - but different countermeasures could be
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That IS an expensive alteration of the cable, it IS armoring it.
And a ship caught on that would cut its anchor loose and move on. A malicious actor could probably manage to drop an anchor between the chain and cable anyway, with fairly inexpensive camera equipment. Or guide the anchor to where they need it with a small submersible drone.
If there is a state actor intent on destroying your undersea cable, that cable is going to get destroyed.
Careful dragging anchors (Score:2)
You might snag something [offshoresupply.co.uk].
Finland is fully prepped for war (Score:5, Interesting)
Finland is fully prepped for war, and getting more ready every day. They are watching the goings on in Ukraine with great interest, stockpiling materials of war, training, practicing. I am pretty sure these preparations will deter Russia from invading Finland (if they were thinking about doing it in the first place).
But if they do invade, the Finns will be punching way above their weight.
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Putin is not suicidal. He loves to threaten with nukes but at best he'd tried for a tactical nuke in Ukraine.
If he ever goes there he'll lose China. Xi made very clear how he felt about taking this conflict nuclear.
This war started conventional and it will end conventional - even if NATO gets involved.
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Re:Finland is fully prepped for war (Score:5, Interesting)
Because, despite all appearances, Putin is cornered and stupid moves could escalate things beyond his control.
He shouldn't have moved into Ukraine in the first place, but he thought he could get away with it. Now there are so many dead Russians, he's backfilling with North Koreans. Russia's burned through so much of its military hardware, it needs help from Iran, North Korea, and China. China is taking the opportunity to position itself to own a lot of Russian resources.
At some point, Putin could push too far and get a NATO response, at which point Russian politics could require further escalation if Putin wants to survive the night, and he'd do so and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.
If Putin was truly an evil mastermind instead of a huge annoyance with a lot of resources, Russia wouldn't be such a failed state it needed to invade Ukraine to prop itself up.
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Because, despite all appearances, Putin is cornered and stupid moves could escalate things beyond his control.
As much as I hate Putin I don't think this is the case, which is actually a good thing.
It means we can back Ukraine until they not only repel Russia's current offensive, but retake all of their territory (including Crimea) and we don't need to worry about all the Nuclear fear-mongering.
Putin is trying to play the 'madman with a bomb' card to deter western aid, no reason to help him out.
He shouldn't have moved into Ukraine in the first place, but he thought he could get away with it. Now there are so many dead Russians, he's backfilling with North Koreans. Russia's burned through so much of its military hardware, it needs help from Iran, North Korea, and China.
True, but Russia has been smart enough to dig the bottom of the barrel since day one, so it's hard to say that he's close t
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Because, despite all appearances, Putin is cornered
It seems to me its NATO that is cornered. Ukraine can't win and NATO can't win without overcoming Russia's nuclear arsenal.
Don't be daft, of course Ukraine can. The only time Russia's nuclear arsenal comes into play is when facing an existential threat, and losing to Ukraine is not an existential threat.
Even losing a direct confrontation with NATO isn't an existential threat, though there's a small possibility it could become one, hence NATO staying out.
Now there are so many dead Russians, he's backfilling with North Koreans. Russia's burned through so much of its military hardware, it needs help from Iran, North Korea, and China.
Ukraine is running out of troops and weapons from NATO. Ukrainians are freezing in their darkened homes, sitting in bomb shelters and trying to avoid being conscripted.
Russia is producing more military hardware than all of NATO combined and is successfully relying on recruiting volunteers to do the fighting. The result is that Russia is advancing all along a 1000+mile front.
Its dangerous to believe your own propaganda. Ukrainians are paying a very heavy price for that mistake. If NATO does the same, the price will be much higher.
That lesson about propaganda goes both ways, Russia is currently leading assaults with compact cars instead of tanks [forbes.com].
That doesn't mean that the Russian army is close to collapse
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I'm not sure how much of the rest of your post is Russian Propaganda because I know something about this:
"and is successfully relying on recruiting volunteers to do the fighting."
Nope. The bounties they pay to join continue to go up. There are no more voluntolds left in prisons. They are relying on N Korean troops! So this is false.
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If the US leaves NATO as trumps keeps saying it might do, it will be a much weaker coalition and it could MAYBE be enough to give him ideas that he could increase the war front if necessary.
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Yes, because Putin has not been acting rationally. Yes, he is evil, that much is clear. He's an out-and-out dictator, and dissidents or generals who screw up fall out of windows. He tries to micromanage it all and those who report to him do not do anything without his approval, so mastermind is a good term for that. And he's screwed up, so stupid is apt as well. He's an evil mastermind who is stupid.
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No, because his version of rationality differs from yours. His life has been dominated by the cornered rat story that he tells (this is an actual thing he does, based on an experience he had as a kid).
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How much $ to create drones to follow enemies? (Score:2)
Or for cameras to watch the whole length 24/7? Possibly duplicate/overlap it a bit just to be sure no funny business happens.
How does wifi do deep under water? Maybe time for an in water network?
Or have another bot that strings cables to mesh a number of units together. Extra cables for when the main line is cut again, but a vampire tap version could be cool. Just attach it, and it'll find the data line to pass along extra stuff on...
Obviously I'm not a fiber optics person so have no idea how likely tha
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How does wifi do deep under water? Maybe time for an in water network?
Or have another bot that strings cables to mesh a number of units together. Extra cables for when the main line is cut again, but a vampire tap version could be cool. Just attach it, and it'll find the data line to pass along extra stuff on...
Not well. Remember how wifi has trouble passing through multiple walls in a normal home & rainstorms cause DirectTV to 'fade'?
Even a small depth of water attenuates high-bandwidth radio signals down to zero very quickly. Sea water is even worse. You can use audio transducers to send soundwave data, but very fussy and also low-bandwidth. Essentially all undersea vehicles are either tethered to a data cabl or fully autonomous. Orbital imaging is good, but ocean surveillence is a very hard problem.
At
Lock up all marine traffic in/out of Russia (Score:2)
If a ship leaving Russina caused this damage (as it appears so) yet more reasons to blocade Russa completly. I do not undrestand why it was not yet imposed?
Blocade the Baltic and Meds which would leave them only the North Sea and Pacific all rather cold (frozen) in winter? Well maybe Murmansk still does not freeze but still.
Evidence (Score:2)
Vulnerable infrastructure (Score:2)
This is a symptom that the infrastructure is extremely vulnerable.
Undersea power and communications links are vulnerable.and relatively cheap to disrupt.
So is global shipping by submarines, however there is more of a case of mutually assured destruction in the case of shipping fleets so this is less likely..
Europe relies on undersea cables, Russia does not.
Europe relies on a global world order, Russia does not.
This is a lesson in security and system design.
Anyone feel like investing in an undersea power li
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Is Russia at war with the West now?
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It was asked with a Russian accent.
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
Read your history.
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Now? Where ya been the last 75 years?
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2, Troll)
Bad analogy. If the US invaded Cuba on some made-up pretext and the US and Russia had a treaty to guarantee Cubaâ(TM)s security, and then Russia gave Cuba said missiles, this would be more similar to Ukraine.
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Look, I don’t really see eye to eye with the OP
but your comment about us invading Cuba? Um, yeah, buddy, we sorta did. . . . And we also used a bunch of made-up bs to mess with them in all sorts of other ways as well. You should read up on the cuban missile crisis.
I’m no fan of the Cuban government, and I have no idea what Fidel Castro was thinking when he picked s fight with Uncle Sam. It’s like, buddy, you’re a rookie lightweight. Why on earth did you ste
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
Yes, the US really screwed up in Cuba and came away with a bloody nose. But thatâ(TM)s long history now. My comment was about this silly point Russian apologists keep coming up with about how the US would feel if Russia put missiles in Cuba or Mexico, AS IF THAT IS AN EXCUSE FOR PUTINâ(TM)S BEHAVIOUR. Russia invaded a sovereign country for the purposes of ego and 19th century empire building. The US and others are providing them the means to protect themselves and repel the invader. Furthermo
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Furthermore, thatâ(TM)s per the security guarantee provided for by the Budapest Memorandum,
To be more precise, the Budapest Memorandum says that any problems will be resolved at the UN. So...you know how that goes.
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To be more precise, the Budapest Memorandum says that any problems will be resolved at the UN. So...you know how that goes.
The same can be said of NATO. Even the infamous article 5 leaves it entirely up to each member state to determine the appropriate response. There are rarely ever any concrete commitments in these things.
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My point here is that the Budapest memorandum wasn't as strong as it's usually thought to be: Ukraine really didn't have any security guarantees, and the US doesn't have to give them anything.
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Yes, and for good reasons. WW1 started because of automatic declaration of war clauses in treaties
This is absurd. The WW1 did not start due to treaties on autopilot.
My point here is that the Budapest memorandum wasn't as strong as it's usually thought to be
The Budapest memorandum is a political document. From a legal perspective it is a completely worthless piece of paper with no force of law whatsoever. The political sentiment implied by the agreement is its only source of power. The general idea we agreed to gave up our nukes and you agreed to help us when we were attacked is relevant regardless of a strict parsing of the document itself.
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This is absurd. The WW1 did not start due to treaties on autopilot.
Saying it is absurd does not make it so. You are wrong, treaties triggered the major parties to begin military actions. This is well documented.
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Saying it is absurd does not make it so. You are wrong, treaties triggered the major parties to begin military actions. This is well documented.
Right back at ya. You made a specific claim "WW1 started because of automatic declaration of war clauses in treaties" can you provide credible objective evidence to support it or not?
There are at least two specific claims in your statement:
1. WWI was started due to automatic declaration of war clauses in treaties
2. Automatic declaration of war clauses therefore must exist among text of WWI era treaties
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
You clearly donâ(TM)t understand what a sovereign nation is.
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
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Oh please, the US did invade Iraq on false pretenses
As wrong and evil as Bush era doctrine of preemptive war was Bush didn't seek conquest, empire or making Iraq a colony or state of the US. Iraq currently "enjoys" positive relations with Iran. Remnants of US military presence are not even protected by a customary SOFA.
And the war in Ukraine isn't as black and white as you make it out, the west had its hand in it when it helped the coupe in 2014.
There was no coup. The assertion the west had its hand in something that didn't happen in the first place does not make logical sense. There was a popular uprising in which the sitting president used too much force killing many dozens of pr
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
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Yeah, keep telling yourself there was no coupe in 2014... Rewriting history to suit your needs happens too much.
If you have credible objective evidence of a coup having taken place I would certainly love to see it. Don't worry I won't hold my breath waiting.
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Americans are firing missiles into Russia striking Russian civilian targets.
Where do you get your news from?
Re: Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:2)
Re:Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:5, Informative)
Americans are firing missiles into Russia striking Russian civilian targets.
No, they're not.
Americans (among others) are providing missiles to Ukraine, which Ukraine is using in its defensive war against Russia, if that's what you meant.
Re:Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus these guys never talk about the Iranian drones and North Korean troops that Russia is using by the bucketload. They're such revolting hypocrites.
Re:Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans are firing missiles into Russia striking Russian civilian targets.
When I first heard Putler spewing this bullshit I laughed my ass off. The notion Ukrainians don't know how to use these weapon systems and can't select targets and fire at Russia without western controllers in the loop is beyond absurd.
You tell me how we would feel if Russians brought missiles to Cuba, provided live realtime targeting to those missile systems from satellites, armed the missile systems with their crypto keys, hit apartments in Miami with their missiles, and then ran to the press shouting, "but a Cuban pressed the button!!!"
The US explicitly does not provide targeting to Ukrainians. Neither do they remotely fire weapon systems on behalf of Ukraine.
The only morsel of truth Ukrainians do receive intelligence from a variety of domestic, foreign commercial and military sources. Just as the Russians receive intelligence from Chinese sources. A number of high profile strikes in Russia using western cruise and ballistic missiles had accompanying Ukrainian realtime BDA footage posted online.
I swear, the inability to engage in empathy by many citizens (and all the politicians) may get us all killed.
Aggressors don't deserve our empathy.
Re:Are the West at war with Russia now ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Analogy is that Russia sends missiles to kill Ukrainian citizens. Now wait, that actually happens. Russia's propaganda ploy is to invade, killing civilians, and then whine if the invaded country retaliates. The story they tell internally is that Ukraine is not a "real" country, but it's a part of Russia, so its not an invasion, but a special military operation to protect the Russians living there (mirroring the Sudatenland). Oh, and shipping back kids to Russian soil to retrain them to be proper Russians (Russification has been a tactic for centuries).
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"Americans are firing missiles into Russia striking Russian civilian targets."
You are lying.
Why are you lying?
Are you a Russian Shill? It certainly seems like it.
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Looks like a false flag attack. Russia has absolutely nothing to gain from this. However, if it gives the US an excuse to strikeæ. Well, it would be just another example of how people get dragged in to war with us.
You really didn't think this through at all did you? Strategic demonstration of their ability to disrupt critical infrastructure between NATO and EU countries? Inflicting heavy economic consequences by disrupting their adversaries financial transactions? Testing EU and NATO response? Retaliation for sanctions? In case you haven't noticed. the US doesn't need an excuse to strike Russia. They are already engaged in war with Russia through Ukraine as a proxy.
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"In case you haven't noticed. the US doesn't need an excuse to strike Russia. They are already engaged in war with Russia through Ukraine as a proxy."
Wow, what a distorted world view you hold!
No, the US didn't "strike Russia". The US is giving aid to a country - Ukraine - that was INVADED by Russia, multiple times. First Crimea, which was a shame we didn't stop, then *more* of Ukraine!
Ukraine isn't some kind of "proxy" for a US Russia war, they were simply invaded by Putin.
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transporters
Very funny, Scotty! Now beam down my pants.