> The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ship’s generator, leading to repeated blackouts, a source familiar with the vessel who provided commercial maritime services to it as recently as seven months ago.
Am I having a stroke or is this article translated?
I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true. Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
Comically inept does sometimes seem to be the country's MO, due to corruption and miscommunication (the latter often deliberate to hide the former) between the various levels of control. People get away with it for quite some time, until a mistake/accident too big to successfully cover up occurs or there is other reason for an audit from above, at which point some are removed from their positions (often to particularly unpleasant penal arrangements, or perhaps being moved on via a defenestration "accident", as an example to others) and things improve for a while. This is often the case in other autocratic or anocratic countries too, but it seems particularly endemic in Russia (perhaps due to its wide geographic spread?).
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
As others have said, other reasons of the article are that the ship has recently been used as a ship for spying, but equipment relating to that was not present at the time of the sabotage mission it was intercepted during.
I'm not suggesting the ineptness is present at the top or in key organs of the system, particularly parts responsible for enforcement and espionage.
It naturally forms in the wider system through layers of control with people at each point doing the minimum required (well, the minimum they think that they can get away with) and creaming off any remaining resources.
The obviousness of reactions from the near top when enacted, against those that are too close to failures or deliberately act against the system, while often difficult to directly link to the top, yes, is very deliberate, and generally not ineptly executed.
In fact the individuals further down are often not really inept: they are can very good at doing what must be done with what little resource filters down while benefiting from what they can cream off, passing actual responsibility downwards, and keeping apparent responsibility for themselves (and their circles) when things go well. The comical ineptness is an emergent behaviour of the overall system that results from these behaviours.
This is in stark contrast to some other regimes, for instance the UK under BoJo the Clown and his next couple of replacements where the ineptitude was at times frighteningly and obviously present at and near the top, or over the longer term things like the post office scandal & cover-up which has dragged on for so long through an apparent endemic immorality rather than localised manipulation at each level.
I cite in evidence of Russian ineptness the entire history of their invasion of Ukraine.
Given their vast and extensive advantages at the beginning of the invasion, if they were even vaguely competent they really would have been holding a parade in Kyiv within a few months.
A competent military wouldn’t have lost their flagship, or let Ukraine counter-invade taking thousands of square kilometres of Russian territory. A competent regime wouldn’t have dismissed US warnings of an imminent terrorist attack on a specific music venue in Moscow and just let it happen.
Loading up a tanker with power hungry kit it’s not able to properly support without discussing the idea with the crew, while threatening the crew if they don’t keep quiet, is par for the course.
Before the invasion Ukraine had a total military force (including reserves) of 1.2 million backed by sizable numbers of highly motivated and heavily armed 'nationalist' forces. Since 2014 the West had been gradually arming Ukraine and various cities like Bakhmut were essentially fortified citadels enabling a defensive force to pose extreme resistance.
There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over. Iraq and Afghanistan were humble villages by contrast - one which we lost to, and the other which our 'victory' amounted to bombing the government then hiding out in tiny little ultra fortified 'green zones' while waving a victory flag. In both cases with the wars dragged on for decades. Now imagine if Russia had decided to jump in one of those invasions and start shipping hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to them, providing intelligence, and so on.
Russia obviously just thought they were ambushing Ukraine and could get some agreement for them to not join NATO without a real war. Then the West decided to get involved, similarly thinking they were ambushing Russia and that the first sight of HIMARS or a Panther tank would send the Russian army scattering.
Everybody was wrong, so we got a real war that nobody wanted.
> There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over.
That's a huge hindsight bias. Even the most optimistic scenarios from various secret services / think tanks predicted only weeks / few months of resistance at the most. If you read Ukrainian accounts, most weren't very optimistic either. You can also read up how many commanders in the south defected - having more such defectors could flip the war quite quickly. The question of whether to defect or not (or simply run) is something which many did on the spot based on their personal circumstances and outlook, it's extremely difficult to predict.
There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. As long as people have access to weapons there will be enough resistance to make an area a constant war zone.
In the past you needed large armies standing in a line, and tanks to crush that line. When armies made enough progress the remaining soldiers either surrender or ran away. Today you can have a handful people operating a drone to sink a warship, or fire a missile against a plane, or just planting random explosives and mines. They get killed and a new group pop up elsewhere doing the exact same thing. The only method to actually win by eliminating resistance becomes burning down every building and killing every person who used to live there, which obviously is immoral and hurts military moral, takes a lot of time, a lot of resources and people, and diplomatic resources. For a country like Ukraine or Russia it would take decades or centuries.
It's a roughly equal part of underestimating Ukrainians and overestimating Russians.
> Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes.
You mean like Crimea where the resistance never died down and was an active battlefield with daily activity of partisan groups? /s
That article doesn't offer much in the way of citations - instead assuming the claims and mocking the implied makers without clearly stating who they are. I think that's probably because the original quote about Kyiv falling in days didn't come from Russian political or military leaders, but from Mark Milley [1] - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After that claim was demonstrated to be clearly idiotic, the propaganda machine then began subtly (and then not so subtly) suggesting it was actually Russia that was making such claims.
But that was always plainly absurd. The last normal war Russia had was against Chechnya, another country that was tiny and practically unequipped relative to Ukraine, yet that war lasted a decade and had tens of thousands of deaths with a huge culture of great music [2] perpetually reminding people how brutal that war truly was.
You won't find a single source from a Russian political/military leader saying it'd be short, because they all knew it wouldn't be if there wasn't a quick agreement reached. The one quote people were able to find was from some television personality in some segment. But I hope Russia(ns) aren't citing e.g. Rachel Maddow to get insight into American positions on issues !
Putin assumed that those 1.2 million are just "forcibly separated brothers" that will if not support the "reunification" outright, then at least refuse to fight for a country they don't believe is real. Ukrainian nationalists before the war were presented in Russian agitprop as an extremist minority holding the rest of the country hostage.
Ships are often balanced between providing power and consuming it. Excess power gen is wasted fuel. Excess power draw is a blackout so it’s very typical of a ships captain or owner to max out power consumption while minimizing power generation. Its a cost index.
I do this on my own sailboat with a solar power source and battery setup.
Not exactly. A diesel engine uses less fuel at 80% load than 50%. At maximum load it uses the most fuel but in general as load increases the engine gets more efficient and so the calculations are weird.
Note that generators need to run at constant rpm to provide the correct ac frequency. Your car has gears so that it can run at lower rpm at low loads and so you won't see the same effect.
An independent diesel generator could have been loaded onto the ship as easily as the spy equipment. It was a tanker, there was plenty of room for a genset and its own fuel. Then the ship's power plant wouldn't be taxed at all.
Then you have radio equipment in addition to an independent diesel generator and fuel to explain…
Yes it was a tanker. The bigger the ship doesn’t mean it has more people or more power generation like a cruise ship. A tanker has a crew of 4 plus captain, maybe?
You've got the spying equipment to explain if boarded. An extra generator is hardly a concern. If anything an auxiliary generator can be explained as a backup/replacement for the ship's mandated backup generator.
Generally the people ordering radios don't think about that. They are used to land where you have more power to the building than you could possibly use.
Whilst basic, its a critical and valid point. It is being made on a forum where shipping, ships, and related engineering issues are not well known (at all).
It does lead to questions about how backup and failover power work on large ships. Secondary generation? Central batteries? Per device battery failover?
Batteries, yes. And there's an emergency generator that runs on diesel (big ships run on "bunker oil") which can be started with batteries or manually.
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
Perhaps it wasn't brazen sabotage, but incompetent attempts to attach something to the lines?
Or conflicting agendas trickling down to the same ship, where the left-hand of "go cause some mayhem" didn't know what the right-hand of "collect signals intelligence" was already doing with that asset.
I don't think it was incompetent attempts to attach something to the lines. It severed 4 data data cables and electricity cable called Estlink 2. If it hadn't been stopped, it would have severed also Estlink 1 within half and hour later perhaps also Balticconnector gas pipe.
About year ago Balticconnector gas pipe was already damaged by a Chinese ship, which had been dragging the anchor for long time in a very suspicious manner:
And again in August several data cables were severed by a Chinese ship. According to one analysis, that time they may have dragged the anchor for 400 kilometers:
What do you consider 'exact'? Approximate positions are drawn on nautical charts, so that ships don't accidentally go and try to anchor in the vicinity. Plenty accurate enough for a ship to 'accidentally' drop an anchor and drag it along the seabed for miles.
The strategy of the shadow fleet has historically been about using disposable and cheap commercial ships for dual purpose of military and economical operations, with plausible deniability as a bonus.
Ducktaping spy equipment onto barely operating merchant ships fits perfectly for this purpose. It is the peace time version of the merchant raider.
Russia has many of these types of boats. They are inexpensive. The "equipment" is portable in suitcases. There is a lot of marine traffic in the Baltic Sea. They may have thought they could do it during the holidays and move the equipment to another ship nearby without detection. Or, a Russian port is very close, perhaps they thought they could take off and make it to Russian waters before Finland intercepted them. Check out the route on marinetraffic.com. The cable is between Helsinki and Tallinn, St. Petersburg Russia (the "destination") is about 200 km away to the east.
The transmitting and receiving devices were used to record all radio frequencies, and upon reaching Russia were offloaded for analysis.
...
They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge, but other devices were placed on another related tanker, Swiftsea Rider.
What seems implied is that the ship was previously used for spying back in June, then the spy equipment was offloaded from the ship and it was later repurposed to cut the cables.
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
That part seemed odd to me too.
Spy folks aren't the ones conducting sabotage? If one division has installed apy equipment then surely they don't want that fact plastered all over documents, so perhaps the sabotage guys just saw a suitable ship in the harbor and presuaded/replaced the crew?
The way I read it, this is reportage from a person who worked with the ship about things which happened some months ago. There is nothing to say this equipment was still on board.
> They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge
> I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true.
I mean it's the 1000+ day of the 3 day special military operation, we've seen Russians with ww2 era rifles and gear, ww2 era tanks, &c.
Being inept is the only thing the Russian army seems to achieve consistently.
Why not? Let me remind you the Russian capital ship of the Black Sea fleet during this war had most of it's self-defense systems inactive and half of them broken and was destroyed with 2 missiles. And the only Russian carrier - Kuznetsov - is famous for sailing everywhere with tug boats in escort because its engines are broken more often than working :)
Carriers are great at projecting power against poor people but sitting ducks against a near peer. And you probably know about the UKs recent propulsion system boondoggle…
Anyways, they just launched this very potent sub yesterday as well as several other hypersonic carrying boats this year (4 subs, 7 surface ships - all fake according to Reddit):
And it's not like the ships are badly designed. The Kuznetsov sister ship that was a casino for a while and now is Chinese works perfectly well.
The problem with Russian navy is lack of maintenance, total disregard of safety and procedures, 0 fucks given about human life, uneducated, drunken crews and widespread corruption.
I recommend reading about K-429 - a nuclear submarine that sunk not once but twice. First time because it was ordered to do exercises while the hull was in maintenance. Despite protests of the crew. Second time in dock during repairs after it got recovered. Worker negligence apparently.
Fun fact - it's not the only Russian nuclear submarine that participated in 2 disasters.
Where do you think those big missile barrages are coming from - Black Sea dolphins? You clearly spend too much time on reddit - sure, their carrier, Mosvka and that sub were ancient. But their recent boats are capable and pack a lot of offensive punch. One of their new corvettes could probably disable a carrier battle group. Only fools and immature people play the "the other side is incompetent and has shitty gear" game. I can assure you, the Pentagon and other Western militaries take it all very seriously.
The task of Russian navy was to invade Odessa and sabotage Ukrainian grain trade. They didn't even attempt Odessa desant, because they knew it was futaile. And they failed at sabotaging Ukrainian grain trade, but not for a lack of effort.
Otherwise these ships served as missile lunchers, but even then they had to widraw to ports far away from Ukraine, because of drone attacks.
Ukraine won the naval battle at tiny fraction of the Russian navy cost.
For one simple statistic - USA has about 2 times the number of nuclear submarines Russia has. Despite that Russia/USSR has lost 7 nuclear submarines and USA have lost 2. You cannot dismiss accident rate higher by order of magnitude as propaganda or bias.
Russian fleet is good enough to launch missiles at a country without fleet from long range. It's not good enough to do it without significant loses. It's also not good enough to do it while keeping the sea in question under control.
There's a reason Russian Black Sea fleet left Crimea and rebased to a port in occupied Georgia.
The US has more than twice the population of Russia and didn't collapse in 1991 and have to crawl back from sub-Saharan Africa economic conditions, so of course America has more. And there's a reason the US Navy backed off from Houthi antishipping missile and drone range. All surface ships are sitting ducks to antishipping missiles (read about the boats the UK lost in the Falklands). In in a hot war, all of the carriers and other capital ships in the theatre would be sunk with a week, probably faster (on all sides).
> there's a reason the US Navy backed off from Houthi antishipping missile and drone range
Well, yes. If I can shoot you without your shooting me, that’d obviously better. Just because you have armor and defences doesn’t mean you want to always use them (or broadcast their capabilities and limitations).
I'm Russian, and I agree with them. It's not even exactly a secret in Russia itself. The country has always seen itself as a land empire, not a sea one. You can even see it in little things like, which parts of the armed forces are considered more "elite" compared to the common infantry (it's paratroopers in Russia, not the marines). See also Dugin with his "tellurocracy vs thalassocracy" etc. From this perspective, it makes sense that center of gravity of its military is the army, not the navy.
I'm having a hard time believing that "a few suitcases" of equipment would strain the generator of a large ship. There's also no way _three_ countries (one of which is a member of NATO, further straining credibility of the article) would be using the same super secret spy equipment.
The article said “huge portable suitcases” which in my mind went to those giant rock concert equipment suitcases with caster wheels. And then the article is talking about how these ships are ancient and in poor repair. The power was probably going on and off long before they overloaded it.
I guess it's long enough for poor maintenance to let salty water do its thing. AFAIK even cars sent across the Pacific show damage when they arrive and special care is put to coat them.
Turkish "monitors" had _their own keyboards_ if the article is to be believed. Nobody foreign would be anywhere near any real spy equipment, let alone someone from a NATO member country, whether "mercenary" or not. It just doesn't make any sense.
> I'm having a hard time believing that "a few suitcases" of equipment would strain the generator of a large ship.
Perhaps it's a mistake in reporting, and the added equipment strained the local wiring/breakers of the bridge area it was installed into, causing "blackouts" that weren't ship-wide.
Power on a ship isn't like power on land. It may be that this gear was all on one phase of the 3-phase generator output, which would make sense if this was radio equipment. Overloading a particular phase/circuit with unplanned-for equipment can quickly trip switches and other safety system, cascading into a blackout.
In the year of our lord 2024 russians are assaulting using Mad Max modified Ladas and push bikes, its no longer a meme! USSR stocks of armor are finally running out.
27 Oct 2024 'THE ARMOR RAN OUT - THEY WENT IN PICK-UPS. They reach the trenches and the assault ends.' - Combat group K-2 54th brigade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uy2KpKj0t8
Patriot batteries have shot down every missile type that isn't an IRBM like Oreshnik, and those are closer to Mach 11 than Mach 5.
Kinzhal and Zircon have been at least semi-reliably shot down. Iskander is very reliablly shot down. The main issue is that Ukraine just doesn't have enough Patriot batteries to defend the whole country, so the Russians stopped shooting where the air defense is.
They also use a bunch of S-300s as ballistic missiles (a secondary capability to their primary role as air defense) but primarily against cities that don't have air defense. But they're too inaccurate and inexpensive for the Ukrainians to bother attempting to intercept even if they had enough of the appropriate air defenses.
Their wonderweapons are artisanal products. That Mach 5 missile needs several days of preparations by specialists from the manufacturer before it is ready for launch. In tech terms: it doesn't scale. And such long preparation leaves ample time to destroy launch sites at any indication of preparations for an actual attack. When Russians fired one without a warhead at Ukraine, they made sure to notify the Americans in advance to avoid exactly that.
It's just a PR stunt. Notice how troll farms tried to hype doomsday scenarios, and how little traction such fears got in the actual national security circles.
Unlikely to happen. In Russia, all the modern weapons - from Armata tanks to Su-57 stealth planes to doomsday missiles - are mocked as "multiki" (cartoons), because they don't really exist beyond a few barely functional prototypes that are paraded around on national holidays.
All the weapons actually fielded in large numbers are either directly from the Soviet era, or endless upgrades of upgrades of obsolete designs - like their T-90 tank, which still has a fatal flaw that sends turret flying when the tank gets hit. Russian weapons industry has for more than three decades consistently shown total inability to produce anything new. I'd start worrying as soon as Russia finally produced a decent car; that would be an indication that something has fundamentally changed.
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
Sorry, but I am just unconvinced. Let's see whether the story is "revised" after a few weeks/months. There is also a massive propaganda war sponsored with billions of dollars by the U.S.
As a citizen of a non-NATO nation, I have lost all faith in the media of NATO nations, esp after the Nordstream sabotage was blamed on Russia with extraordinary outrage against Russia demonstrated everywhere in the media and esp here on HN. Even used as justification for new sanctions. The facts were then slowly transformed over time. No one bothered to discuss the incident later and investigations were all curtailed - hell, the Polish prime minister even said to stop the investigation and keep quiet about it.
Russia would simply have no logical reason to deliberately do this because it gives NATO all the casus belli to break the long standing, centuries-old naval treaties here regarding free ships. The overwhelming advantage goes to NATO nations - all the disadvantage goes to Russia for any sabotage carried out here.
Sure if it turns out that Russia is directly responsible through deliberate intent of sabotage, ban Russian shipping here by all means. But I am willing to bet that the "facts" regarding this incident will be revised over time. We have already seen this happen in the past.
You are either just clueless or Russian troll and that is that. For the first point you can do something.
Living next to Russia means being target of bullying for whatever reason. Now the probable main reason was Estonia getting rid of electricity imports from Russia within coming months.
And if a ship that left from St. Peterburg has anchor chain down when Finnish Border Guard tells it to get it up and anchor is missing, that is as smoking gun as it can get in the crime scene.
This is only part one and the Putinist media just started their shit-throwing against Finland's Pirate Tsuhnas (namecalling for Finns)
Aaah..the usual brain-dead and brain-washed response. Eyerolling and tiresome quips about Putin and Moscow. Never been to Moscow nor Russia and I don't have their Visa, so not sure how I can even "return" to it.
Are you referring to your statement about how russia is innocent and is being targeted for no reason since they never invaded another country and there are many sources for their attempts at sabotage and even assasinations, as braindead? Yes, you are indeed speaking braindead comments. Just re-read what you wrote, and then think about the events of the last 2 years. Try harder comrad.
No such statements/claims were made. Congratulations sir! You have won an award at the "Strawman Argument". Just re-read what you wrote and then refresh your knowledge of basic logical fallacies. Try harder at reading comprehension.
In terms of international law and international maritime law, this is a fascinating case. Without directly applicable precedent, an actor does what it can/must within existing law.
Finland has always been very conservative in such matters, and you can be sure that they thought long and hard about what their public legal position will be before they boarded the ship.
The Russians will be conservative here too, because obviously the existing body of law has worked in their favor, giving them space to operate a "black fleet" - and to use it to execute sabotage. Or so they thought...
> the ship was boarded in Finland's EEZ and then escorted INTO Finnish territorial waters
You have misread. At least here in Q2 (https://yle.fi/a/74-20133775) Yle writes that first the ship was asked to move to Finnish territorial waters, and only then it was boarded.
Its not very sneaky, they got caught rather easily.
The damage is annoying, but deep sea cables have problems from time to time, its not like it created critical downtime or is unrepairable damage.
Is this just russia trying to give some sort of warning? A sort of, you have lots of exposed infrastructure, if you keep calling my bluff i might start going after it for real-zies?
The estimated time to fix the electric cable is over 6 months. Underwater fibers have been quicker to repair as was with another recent case. Electricity exports from Finland to Estonia went down pretty significantly due to this. Estonia was to stop importing electricity from Russia within 1-2 months so this is Russia being Russia as we (Finns, Estonians et al.) know here living next to it.
EDIT: Hamuko basically said the same thing earlier, did not notice
Neither Finland or Estonia have socialist governments at the moment though, most of Europe is run by centre-right liberals these days. They are generally fine with anything that doesn't directly affect the economy so I guess Russia still has a wide margin of escalation.
It takes the Finnish–Estonian transfer line offline for about six months when it's still cold, and Estonia (with the other Baltic states) is about to disconnect from the Russian electric grid.
The data cables are gonna be fixed in weeks. Yi Peng 3 got detained for over a month for creating a 10-day downtime on two submarine data cables.
Difficult to say but I'm guessing some kind of military response with adequate previous warning would have happened. There's no way NATO would have let slipped an assassination like this, this would open up the path to more assassinations if unanswered.
Incrementally stir shit to desensitize everyone to their doing shit. It is basically them mocking and openly defying the US-led rules-based world order. It sends a "see, what a useless world order if I can just do this with no recourse" message.
A warning would be 'lay off or we might hurt your cables'. Attempting to break all the things counts as an attack, a crime, or if you don't want to say crime you might say, an act of war.
I wasn't aware Russia was at open war with NATO, but perhaps their desperation has grown to the point where they are at open war with NATO now.
They want to damage NATO members' infrastructure without resorting to an overt kinetic attack, which would likely be answered with a precision hit against Russia's own infrastructure/ships.
Seriously, confiscate the ship, charge everyone on board with espionage, give maximum jail sentence, and close all maritime corridors going through NATO territory for Russia. Putin always tests for a response, and if there is none, he doubles down.
Russia violated Turkey’s airspace only once, the jet was shot down immediately, and, save to say, Putin was on the phone with Ankara to prevent an all out escalation with a NATO member that can trigger article 5 at any time for self defense after an apparent aggression. Turned out, no more airspace violations happened again.
As long as the West fails to respond with strength, Putin will never stop.
> Russia violated Turkey’s airspace only once, the jet was shot down immediately, and, save to say, Putin was on the phone with Ankara to prevent an all out escalation with a NATO member that can trigger article 5 at any time for self defense after an apparent aggression. Turned out, no more airspace violations happened again.
I was on the same page as you for a long time, but aggressively defending your airspace also increases risk of collateral damage, leading to, for example, your military shooting down Azeri passenger jets. Or Malaysian ones. Or Iranian ones (to name one not committed by Russia).
> close all maritime corridors going through NATO territory for Russia.
Probably too extreme for maritime law. OTOH a tighter inspection regime might fly. There is a precedent in ports of call that enforce their own inspection regimes.
Profile and optionally board boats entering the Skagerrak. Registry? Condition? Incident history? Hazards of declared cargo? Too many suspicious antennas?
"charge everyone on board with espionage, give maximum jail sentence" won't help: most of the crew has no choice in those operations, some might not even know what is going on. They also have dozens of ships that can do such damage, so no way to scare them by seizing or jailing one.
>Seriously, confiscate the ship, charge everyone on board with espionage, give maximum jail sentence, and close all maritime corridors going through NATO territory for Russia.
You’re such a tough guy. However, you could learn something from the reality that that’s not going to happen. Because it would mean war. And because your dear leaders know that for every Russian tit there’s been a Western tat.
>Turned out, no more airspace violations happened again.
Yeah, no, something else happened. Turks don’t like to be reminded.
It's been long time coming, Russia needs to be dealt with.
Give Ukraine a couple hundred longer-range missiles, let them attack the oil fields, powerplants, refineries etc. Seize the shadow fleet tankers. Sanction Russia for real.
It will be cheaper and safer than the alternative. If we did this 2 years ago this war would be over by now and hundreds of thousands of people wouldn't die for no reason.
Every month of delay makes the costs higher and larger-scale war more likely.
This. You cannot fight a purely defensive war, you must attack the enemy's logistics and command infrastructure. These are slways behind the ftont lines.
>Give Ukraine a couple hundred longer-range missiles
while it would make a lot of pain to Russia, it wouldn't change the strategic situation. Russia is ok with taking the pain (more precisely Putin and his ilk are ok with subjecting Russia to the pain)
You need strategic hits, a knock-out, making it physically impossible for them to continue as it is the only language they currently understand. So, for example, Russia has like 10K of S-300/400 missiles. That is key part of the strategic defense of Russia (notice how Russia recently had a hysteric meltdown when just one drone hit their strategic defense radar thus slightly impacting their defense against ICBMs/etc. and also notice that just a drone was able to hit such a valuable target) Ukraine can build several thousands of large drones (cheap, simple, like say German V-1, can be built for less than $5000 each including modern navigation, Germans built 20K of V-1 in year in just one factory inside the mountain) and fire them to the targets in Russia choosing routes, altitudes and targets such that Russia would have to use S-300/400 instead of say shorter range BUK/Tor/Pantsir (Russia is big and most of the coverage is naturally by the S-300/400). After several thousands of such drones Russia would be put into impossible situation - either to let those large drones (original V-1 had 850kg warhead, ie. double that of Tomahawk/Storm Shadow/SCALP) fly and hit the targets or to run out of strategic air defense.
Can Russia really not build counter-drones with the same capabilities?
Or is your suggestion more of "do something along these lines, choosing specifically something Russia cannot currently defend against and complete this attack before Russia even knows it needs to build the factory to make the counter drones to defend against it"?
counter-drones for 650km/h drones (taking V-1 as an example) is basically supersonic air defense missiles, much more costly and complicated and take more time and resources to build (and requires radars/launchers/etc. in addition to the missiles - all that is cost and complexity and there is very limited production capacity for that hardware). And to cover even just European part of Russia isn't really possible with short-range ones. So, you need something fast and long-range and being able to hit moving target in the air. And even if short rage were enough - I don't see Pantsir missile price, and the TOR missile is $800K. S-300 is much north of it. So even if all your drones, say 20K drones, which cost you $100M, were to be shot down just by TOR/Pantsir, your enemy is out at least, bare minimum, $10B - and to build all these missiles significant portion of military production capacity should be dedicated to it (basically no way to build 20K such missiles in a year, and also hitting each target 100% by one missile is not real).
If you look at the map you'll see a strategic problem of Russia waiting to be exploited (and no plausibly possible factory building would help to prevent it) - when moving from the Ukraine/Russia border the Russian territory becomes more and more vast, and there is no good way to defend it from mass cheap attacks.
Ah, so it's an inherently asymmetrical force, with the advantage to Ukraine to perform the attack? It can't just be defended against by pairing (or even 10-to-1-swarming) identical V1-class drones from Russia to be used as interceptors?
>Ah, so it's an inherently asymmetrical force, with the advantage to Ukraine to perform the attack?
yes. Before cheap modern electronics, the costs of attacking vs. defending missiles didn't have such orders of magnitude difference. Drones, ie. cheap electronics, changed the game.
>It can't just be defended against by pairing (or even 10-to-1-swarming) identical V1-class drones from Russia to be used as interceptors?
To intercept you still need to be faster (transsonic and especially supersonic doesn't come cheap/simple), to have radars, a large one on the ground for detection, and seeker on the interceptor (that is cost and complexity) or to guide interceptors using the ground radar (that would mean much less simultaneously attacked targets by your interceptors, less distance and other issues like with intercepting low-flying targets, etc.)
Their policy is to do whatever putin wants, they were never particularly strict about their policies (for example half the things Prigozhyn did were against the Russian law). Policy changes are just posturing.
Also - tactical nukes won't significantly change anything on the battlefield. There are no big concentrations of troops in this war. It's 20 guys storming a village defended by 100 guys repeat 100 times in a month. If you want to nuke 100 guys to get that village - sure, it could work. Will be hard to establish a base there, but you can kill these 100 guys. But then 3 km further there are other guys. You'll nuke them too?
> Also - tactical nukes won't significantly change anything on the battlefield.
its not about Ukrainian battlefield, its more if western missiles will be destroying Russian infra, Putin will strike objects/bases/infra in Eastern Europe, he was very clear about it during initial invasion message.
Ukraine is receiving outdated, underequiped and limited inventory. I won't be surprised if there are some direct negotiations with Russia about what is allowed and what is not.
There is line after which Putin will launch nukes, destruction of major foundational infra totally could be it:
1. Putin will want to suppress Nato from further steps.
2. Population will likely demand this as an act of revenge.
3. There will be some self defense justification.
It won't be massive attack, first nuke to be launched on Ukrainian infra, and second on some EU military base, after which NATO will stop and suck it up(likely after first nuke) if Trump won't decide to escalate which is very unlikely.
NATO can destroy russia conventionally in a response to a nuclear attack.
You can't sell a first strike nuclear attack to the rest of the world as "justified".
And a tactical nuke won't change anything significantly military or economically-wise. It would be a political statement (and a completely braindead one).
I'd add to that confiscation of all property in Europe owned by private and corporate owners of Russian origin (houses, securities, cars, jewellery, works of art, etc.), including those who have acquired European citizenship/residence permits after 1939, their families, next of kin, spouses, partners, children, and grandchildren, including those still to be born. Send them back on foot to Moscow, revoke their non-Russian citizenship, and do not allow them to ever obtain European citizenship or residence permit.
This is insane clown town stuff and echos "not-see" ideology. One of the core tenants of western democracy is we don't do collective punishment (racial, language, cultural or otherwise).
Oh, those poor Russians. If they loose something they cherish maybe they will want to change their own country and run it in some sane fashion without being a constant threat to its neighbours. If they stay in the West they'll bang on about Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and be a constant vector for Russian propaganda.
I think the poster refers to NATO countries. Considering you are a Russian citizen, it's safe to say you're not included in this "we". Although frankly I think you would also benefit in the end.
They are used to playing against a spineless opponent, which in theory could have gone on for quite a long time. In this case, I'm glad to see it didn't.
The act of turning AIS off can attract unwanted attention (higher resolution local satellite monitoring), less likely if you are entering waters where piracy is common and many vessels disable AIS.
If a vessel turns AIS off then cuts the cable, but their position is known by other means, they will be giving up plausible deniability.
Another sabotage by Russia or its allies on crucial EU infrastructure. I'm happy to see the Finns searching and stopping them, but we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
> we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Russian boats should be subject to boarding and searching when passing by Finnish and adjacent waters; for precedent, they can cite China claiming its sovereign waters include vastly adjacent waters to its own.
Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Europe is doing no such thing. They are preparing for physical war by drastically increasing military spending [1], and some countries are already sending out "be ready for war" information sheets. [2]
Europe isn't a homogeneous block in this question, though. Some parts do what GP said, IMO.
For example, Germany also increased its military spending, true - but from a low starting point, with an army even sometimes lacking basic supplies like dumb ammunition due to massive underfunding since the end of the cold war.
The (possible, maybe!) reintroduction of drafting will be agonizingly slow, as the military doesn't have the capacity anymore (and will lack it for years to come!) to even examine even a small percentage of each year, let alone equip and train them. There are no KWEAs (Kreiswehrersatzämter, drafting centers) anymore, and the new "Career Centers" have abysmal throughput.
We sold a very very significant chunk of our military bases and heavy equipment. Those are gone, the federal government often doesn't even own the land anymore. We have almost no working bunkers anymore, both military and public. Etc, etc.
Those are things which we would have to start to change immediately, as it takes ages until we see results. We do sorta, but on a tiny scale - it's not the massive investment you would expect for a country readying itself for conflict.
German politics / state departments are, IMO, in no way readying the public for the real prospect of military conflict. Pistorius, the German defence minister, basically screams into the void. Yes, many agree in talk, but the walk is quite underwhelming.
The defence ministry says we have to be ready for war until 2029. Most projects which are started now will, based on information by the same ministry, never ever be finished until before the 2030s. And yet, there is no hurry visible. We still have time.
A friend of mine visited Germany and talked to Germans about the threat of nuclear war and what they may or may not be doing. She said there was a very bizarre "it will never happen" vibe wherever she asked. Germans basically laughed at her for taking it as a serious concern worth discussing, even smart Germans with solid academic backgrounds. In the US it is a very different story. Whether a Stanford alumni or a rando at a bar Americans are much less likely to laugh you off for taking the prospect of nuclear war seriously.
You can also ask germans directly here. I would tell you, many people take it serious, judging from HN comments, way more than americans, some just like to remain in their safe space bubble.
Well, how does the answer change for an American? I mean we don't have the same thousands of megaton scale nukes anymore but still enough to fuck uf the world enough via one actor.
We're more realistic. We hope it will never happen. But we fear it might. Strategic nuclear bombardment is something that should be feared, not pooh-poohed.
And how exactly would that change the military strategy of a non-nuclear armed European strategy (save for NBC protection in armored vehicles I suppose...) or even individual people?
For me it just makes zero sense to lose much sleep about it, except for voting I can't do nothing about it
lol we get those pamphlets sent out every now and then. Of course it's related to the increase tension, but it's not the huge call sign you make it out to be. "be ready for war" means "be ready in case something happens", not "be ready for what's about to happen."
Common, everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018. Had we done it, we’d have DOUBLED our spending.
Russia is at 6.3%, USA at 3.4% (7x Russia’s in absolute spending), Europe at 1.3%.
Culture-wise, it’s unthinkable for Europe to come around and revive the military-industrial complex. We’re basically trying to win this war by crossing our fingers, like the French did in 1936 (the famous Congés Payés were offered in 1936, with beautiful photos of parisians going to the beach, while our German cousins were in factories manufacturing guns. Guess who won the war).
He also wasn't exactly disparaging it. He said we need it, but we must not let it become too powerful or influential. The truth of that hasn't really changed.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
He absolutely disparaged it, in fact he considered it a fundamental threat to democracy.
"Military industrial complex" isn't about maintaining a large, dominant military. It's about industry becoming so entwined with the military that they start calling the shots, and military decisions begin to be made for the benefit of corporations rather than the nation.
> everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018.
No, that's not what people had a problem with, and it's barely even what Trump said.
Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US, and threatened that the US would violate the treaty if they somehow didn't keep him satisfied!
That's the stuff that was new and controversial, and for damn good reasons.
Other parties were already violating the treaty by not spending 2%. It's simple Tit for tat.
> Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US
The US was shouldering the cost of international security (being a hegemon) You take European stability and welfare for granted, we can't know what the world would look like without pax Americana but I'm certain it would be worse. The 'rules based international community' You couldn't even stop a genocide on the EUs front door.
I'm as frustrated as anyone about Europe not pulling their weight, but it's not in violation of the treaty. The 2% guideline has nothing to do with the treaty itself. It's precisely that, a non-binding guideline.
>Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Zero further provocations doesn't seem right [1] [2]
Freedom of navigation is a part of international law major powers usually care about, because international trade serves their interests.
Maybe a bunch of small North European countries decide to blockade Russia in the Baltic Sea, and maybe Russia doesn't consider this an act of war, because NATO seems credible enough. Suddenly the Houthi attempt to blockade the Red Sea becomes much more legitimate, and Iran will certainly take note. Maybe Panama goes shopping for allies (since the US is starting to look unpredictable), and maybe China gains the power to decide who gets to use the canal. And maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea.
>maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea
Interestingly, Turkey is allowed -- by the Montreux Convention -- to close the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to warships and in fact have been doing so since 2022:
>Turkey has closed off the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships from any country, whether or not they border the Black Sea, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The strait closures will still allow warships through if they are returning to a home base in the Black Sea, according to reporting from Naval News. This would include Russian ships in the country’s Black Sea Fleet. However, the decision to restrict warships, a power given to Turkey by the Montreux Convention of 1936, will likely limit Russia’s ability to move ships from its other fleets to the Black Sea.
I don't see how things not being considered legitimate by the West currently stops anyone but the West and even that only a little bit, with exception of US that does whatever it pleases all the time.
International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
People like predictable rules. If the big guy says that the seas are open and they are open, you will probably support the rule, because it allows you to focus more on trade and less on protecting your interests by force. But if the seas are open, except for those the big guy doesn't like, then you may start wondering if you'll also end up on that list.
Big guys also try to enforce the rules. If piracy or an unjustified blockade threatens the freedom of navigation, naval powers will try to restore the status quo.
Reciprocity is an important norm in international politics. It makes things a bit like a mix of little kids arguing and common law. The key principle is that if the big guy and his friends area allowed to do X for their reasons, it sets the precedent that you are allowed to do what you consider the equivalent of X for your reasons. Either the big guy follows his own rules, or everyone is allowed to use their own judgment to break the rules. But if a random nobody breaks the rules, it doesn't set the precedent in the same way.
> International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
If someone violates the expectations but is not strong enough to defend his violation then expectations about behaviors of others towards him might be freely violated as well without destroying whole arrangement between conforming parties.
The last boat used for this stunt was Chinese, this one is registered in the Cook Islands. This is already happening.
There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those, cutting cables on purpose is at least a criminal act, if not terrorism. There's no problem handling this, even if you're fully playing by the books.
Russia would then need to switch to ships running only to Kaliningrad, which makes it even more obvious that it's an act of war.
> There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those [...]
I don't think it's as clear cut. Transit passage through straits is governed by special provisions in the UNCLOS; with a few exceptions, states can't just board vessels.
What could further complicate matters here is if infrastructure of states A and B is damaged, but a vessel leaves the sea through a strait bordering states C and D.
That's obviously only the theory, and it's unfortunately not like there is broad international consensus on matters of territoriality at sea at this point.
I don't think there are many penalties for breaking the international law. Clearly, in the environment where Europe's adversaries are flagrantly breaking it on the daily basis, keeping to it meticulously would be foolish and dangerous.
Just like pacifism, abiding by the international law in this case will only serve to embolden the totalitarian regimes, which neither desire peace, nor obey the law.
I think if you wanted to bring up meaningful words, those were not the best examples to give. In the recent years, somewhere amongst the endless nuclear threat screeching and the ignored ICC arrest warrants, they have lost a lot of meaning. The declaration of war is a pretty good example of that, actually, being an outdated and withered concept.
I'm simply pointing out that words do not matter as much, willingness to do something, to respond, to defend yourself, that's what matters. I'm not ignoring the value of laws, and rules, and regulations, but they clearly are not an ironclad defense. Just like Article 5 isn't.
Every nation uses novel words every time, to avoid parallels. In fact ambassadors have to research every historical speech when a president wants to coin a new term. It’s not rare we hear “He said […], a term not used since [last scuffle between countries]”, journalists do notice.
US has Guantanamo and they don’t call them prisoners of wars (PoW). Russia has special military operations. Australia doesn’t keep their illegal immigrants in detention centers but in “administrative residences”.
So declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms.
> declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms
One, sure, declarations of war aren’t academically outdated. By that measure neither are colonialism or chattel slavery, which are also avoided in modern speechwriting.
Two, we absolutely say we’re going to war with each other. We just don’t formally declare it. Declarations of war are obsolete, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone serious in government or international relations who claims otherwise.
> UNCLOS is ultimately just words, just like the Geneva convention, a formal declaration of war, a country's nuclear doctrine
UNCLOS is being ignored by China. The Geneva Conventions have been ignored by every current, former and emerging superpower, as well as several regional powers--again, without consequence. Nobody declares war. And Putin has been amending his nuclear doctrine by the hour, often with false starts.
Would I prefer these were law? Absolutely. Must I blind myself to the fact that they aren't? No.
> ways of responding to some UNCLOS violations while continuing to adhere to it
Sure. It's still, ultimately, a unilateraly rewriting of the terms. Something states can do in international law that individuals can't in a nation with the rule of law.
> because some states are violating it doesn't mean that we should throw the entire thing overboard entirely
Nobody is suggesting that. My point is we should be more open to such rewritings given they're commonly taking place. It doesn't make sense for Europe to treat UNCLOS as binding law when Russia, China and hell America treat is as nice-to-have guidelines.
International agreements were treated as law in the post-WWII era. That era ended some time after the fall of the Soviet Union. Slowly. Then suddenly.
They're now closer to LOIs. Some countries are realising this quickly. Others more slowly.
Trust is hard to earn and very easy to lose. The appropriate answer to somebody violating hard-won international laws and norms isn't to just also start violating them.
Laws are for participants who willingly obey them. If they don't they automatically shouldn't be covered by them. There might be separate subset of laws on how to treat them but they cannot be treated the same as conforming entities.
You have freedom but if you do a crime your right to freedom is void. Now you have right to get punished.
Not sure what to call a rule that immediately stops applying to any involved party as soon as one violates it, but "law" isn't a word that comes to mind.
Our usual understanding of law has an enforcement mechanism of the nation on individuals, not voluntary agreements sovereign nations enforce on each other.
Well then, maybe Russia is within its rights to punch some of these strawmen so that their heads fall off?
Unilaterally claiming more territorial waters and boarding ships is cool and all. Having a Russian Navy destroyer follow one of these ships and greet the boarding party would also be kinda cool.
> What about if Russia switch to just using Chinese boats as a proxy?
Beijing has no interest in this. If anything, it has an interest in becoming one of Russia’s sole buyers.
> you have to have a rule that says we can board any ship we feel like and that's super problematic
Why? China is literally doing this right now outside its territorial waters. It’s fine. America would too, if foreign trawlers started cutting its lines. Again, if one person is playing by restrictions everyone else has already abandoned, it’s not difficult to conclude who’s the sucker at the table.
It's highly unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient.
Classic American view point. Win at all costs, ignore the rules yourself but use another countries lack of adherence as an excuse to invade/bomb them.
You really think this is how we get a peaceful and civilised world order? You think this builds trust? Moral leadership? Long term reputation? Relationships?
Ridiculous. Sorry to be controversial but breaking international law should be avoided at almost any cost.
I guess one man's "sucker at the table" is another man's "gentleman who plays by the rules, and can be trusted"
> unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient
My entire point is this is already the status quo. Nobody—other than Europe—is following the post-WWII rules anymore. There is a new set of conventions being de facto agreed to, and they will be set by the players actually at the table.
Any punishment that involves breaking the same law to administer isn't the correct one. It infers no superiority and just kicks off the race to the bottom.
I’m sure Putin would love it if the west continued to turn the other cheek.
No, if your point is reasonable, it still doesn’t apply when dealing with a psychopath. Who TF cares about moral superiority in the face of an existential threat?
If moral superiority is so important, let Putin lead with it.
in peacetime. It's looking like right now isn't peacetime. When a country is breaking every peacetime rule to conquer its neighbors and not-even-neighbors, the rules saying you can't, become super problematic as they'll be weaponized like everything else.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers.
Appeasement is what Europe does when an aggressor comes knocking.
“Appeasement” is what saved the world from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK was so afraid to be labeled an “appeaser” afterward that he kept the deal he made with Khrushchev secret.
“Appeasement” is such a fake lesson from WW2. Chamberlain’s mistake was not negotiating with Hitler. His mistake was that he let wishful thinking cloud his vision.
Churchill just did much better in understanding his enemy. In this particular case, with an enemy whose goal was the eradication of whole parts of the world population, the result was that negotiating made no sense. But to say this is the lesson from Munich and to apply this as a cookie cutter template to any dictator is barking mad. Even more so in the age of nuclear weapons.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Some people, especially conservatives, have loved this narrative for forever: The rules-based order is soft, weak, wishy-washy, ineffectual fantasy; and tough, hard, reality is 'realpolitik'. And everyone knows 'tough' beats 'weak'.
IMHO it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda (because somehow a rules-based order, or any mass, peaceful, beneficial cooperation by humans, is now 'liberal' fantasy). But that pisses me off because it distracts and undermines people doing the real work. It's a person who, while we're under attack, freaks out, satisfies those emotional drives, and disrupts the team with verbal hand grenades. It's lazy thinking, IMHO, leaving the hard work of solving the problem - and now servicing someone's emotional needs and cleaning up their mess - to others, who must have the courage to be calm under fire and the courage to do right and find success.
That narrative also does what Putin wants more than anything, the destruction of the rules-based order: A world based on democracy, human rights, and associated international rules makes it impossible for Putin to carry out his imperial desires. The democratic, human-rights-based countries are powerful, unified, prosperous - Putin can't hope to compete. So he's destroying that order without firing a shot at its power base, because he has found many inside those countries to help him, many unwittingly.
The rules-based order isn't dead (as the narrative has declared since its birth). It's not wishy-washy fantasy, it was created by who knew 'realpolitik' and warfare far better than anyone living ever will, unless we are very unlucky; your 'realpolitik' fantasy is the wishy-washy and ignorant side. The rules-based order is not weak or ineffectual; 'realpolitik' is weak and ineffectual; it can't achieve anything; it destroys freedom, lives, and prosperity at massive scales; war, it's outcome, is the worst scourage of humanity. The founders of the rules-based order created it in part because, after WWII, they thought another war with then-current technology could destroy civilization - that was the technology of the 1940s. The rules-based order has been arguably the most powerful force ever in international relations, creating undreamt-of freedom, prosperity, and peace.
It was handed to us on a plate; you had to do nothing to build it, to create this incredible world out of the literal ashes of incredible destruction, hate, and violence - perhaps that's the problem, why some have a fantasy that they want to burn everything and return to living in ashes.
> it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda
It also accurately renders the actions of the U.S., Russia and China since the fall of the Soviet Union. I would love to move towards a rules-based world order. But the first step in doing so is admitting it isn't the status quo.
In a way, I agree: The US is one of the the biggest violators of the USLRBIO (US-led rules-based interntional order!), especially in Iraq but also, I think I read Serbia (1990s) wasn't legally scanctioned, and many other less significant situtations.
But at the same time, no institution, law, or legal system is 100%. The USLRBIO is overall extremely effective - almost no international wars (most have been civil wars), and the recent past being the most peaceful in (millennia?). It's an incredible feat of humanity and international affairs, and freedom exploded across the world, though since has retreated somewhat.
Also, beyond a doubt, military power is a necessary part of it. The reason Russia is violating it now in Ukraine is because others have not demonstrated convincingly that they will supply Ukraine with whatever is needed as long as it's needed (quite affordable given the relative size of economies of Ukraine's allies and Russia). If that was clear, Russia would have no choice.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t.
FWIW this perspective is currently known pejoratively, as "liberalism". As in "conservatives and liberals", not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird. Examples of this kind of party are the SPD (Germany), Labour (New Zealand) and the Democrats (USA).
Currently, left wing people are trying to make a big deal out of how liberals are (a) not actually left wing, but centrist at best, (b) generally incompetent (which is still preferable to the alternative most people have, mind you) and (c) enable fascism to take over, by attempting to follow the rules all the time, without updating the rules when fascists learn how to exploit them. (Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
> not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird
No, the core of the beef between leftists and liberals is over "liberty," or something that a liberal would call liberty and a leftist would not. Namely, property rights over financial assets. Liberals see these as a kind of liberty: "you own a farm, property rights over the farm connect the labor you do in upkeep and planting to the rewards you reap at harvest." Leftists argue that this might be a nice but temporary side effect and that the core purpose of financial assets is to ensure that rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are, thereby establishing, reinforcing, and perpetuating a class hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid to exist. They would tell a different story: "Bill Gates owns the farmland, you do all the work, you pay him everything he asks for, and if it's not enough he replaces you." In turn, the liberal would contend that market competition keeps this in check and the leftist would contend that ever concentrating capital interests ensure robust competition on the bottom and absent competition on the top, slowly crushing any market competition favorable to the farmer. At this point, if it hasn't happened already, the liberal will start lobbing horrific tales of leftists abusing farmers and the leftist will start lobbing horrific tales of property rights being used to abuse farmers and the conversation descends into "whose atrocities are bigger / worse / more relevant" discourse.
If you haven't seen this kind of infighting, it's not because the philosophical rift doesn't exist, it's because actual leftism has been outside the Overton window of popular discourse in the United States for the last 50-70 years. McCarthy's Red Scare was the first push, dissolution of the New Deal Coalition was the last. Class Warfare rhetoric was frowned upon by the liberal + conservative majority and kept out of polite company. Now that populism is back in fashion, leftists have been looking to change that, but they have been having less success than the populist right. Watch this space, though.
>Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
Hitler’s rise was not a product of strict adherence to democratic norms. The Weimar authorities repeatedly broke with "normal process" including banning him from public speaking, suppressing Nazi media, outlawing the SA, relying on emergency decrees, and bypassing parliamentary governance. These anti-democratic measures not only failed to stop Hitler but eroded trust in democracy itself, creating the conditions for his eventual ascent.
Moreover, the KPD (the German Communist Party) played a significant role in destabilizing the Republic. They engaged in widespread political violence, targeting both Nazis and moderate leftists. They fractured anti-Nazi opposition by labelling the SPD as "social fascists" unworthy of cooperating with. The Nazi's Sturmabteilung was hardened primarily in response to KPD attacks through the Rotfrontkämpferbund (attacks that the authorities refused to prevent).
The left's infighting, combined with its own undemocratic tactics, significantly weakened any systemic resistance to fascism and helped paved the road Hitler later marched down.
Every authoritarian measure instituted by Eastern Bloc countries was justified by the authorities as a necessary precaution against reactionaries/fascists. The Nazis similarly justified every act of inhumanity as a necessary preventative measure against the takeover of their country by the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of the murderous Soviet regime. The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
A lot of us in the US don't subscribe to the idea of "either you're with us or against us". I don't expect every single country in the world to drop everything they are doing and rush to help us invade whatever country we want to invade. I think it is ridiculous to say the EU is not with us because they don't blindly follow us everywhere.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to invade Iraq anyway.
I think you may be misconstruing that comment. I suspect the idea is that the US invading Iraq was a violation of the international rules based order, and the EU was complicit in it.
Probably not, but that’s a separate—if fruitful—discussion. (Better candidates: NATO bombing Yugoslavia.)
What’s not debatable is that it has changed. Given how lightfootedly Europe is playing its hand, it’s surprising it’s taken this long to get Putin at their throats, Trump at their wallets and Xi gutting their industry.
Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO? If they were to abandon it, they would need to replace all their foreign strategy.
> Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO
Nobody joins a defensive alliance because it's cute. To the extent a cogent geopolitical message has been delivered, between Bush and Biden, it's that the international order has two castes: nuclear-armed states and everyone else.
The EU paid its "protection tax" by implicitly or explicitly endorsing any US actions. It's what always gave legitimacy to any US military action, what gave them the sheen of righteousness. The EU didn't "just watch", they did what they were expected to do.
Going forward, if Trump's anti-NATO agenda materializes, the US will have to find a different source of legitimacy for their actions or be painted as just an aggressor on the world stage.
What's the EU got to do with it? The EU is a glorified trade bloc, it doesn't work for the union on defense; that is handled by individual nations.
The UK did a similar amount to the US per capita in Iraq, even though we had less to gain and, frankly, it has punched above it's weight in practically every war going since well before the US even existed. Including Ukraine for example, where we were the first to arm them in advance of the invasion.
This comes across as american ignorance, I'm sorry to say.
China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea. In that area there's no doubt that the vessels are sailing through waters owned by various NATO member states. Russia acknowledges this. But the vessels are exercising the right of innocent passage under the law of the sea.
NATO members can and should find some other pretext to stop, board, and search some of those Russian vessels. But if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then? It's worth thinking through the various escalation scenarios before acting.
It is not innocent passage if they attack the order and security of the coastal State. Article 19 and 21. Undersea cables are explicitly mentioned under 21.
By attack undersea cables the ship are no longer exercising the right of innocent passage, and thus is not protected under the law of the sea.
Lol, literally a few weeks ago we had NATO leaders talking about how "we need to find a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil" and now how convenient, we suddenly see that Russian taners are apparently doing things which conveniently give NATO a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil.
> if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then?
The whole point of doing it with a tanker was deniability. Doing it with a Russian-flagged ship makes it overt. The anti-escalation logic applies in both direction: Russia wants to sabotage as much as possible without triggering a huge escalation, because they're not sure they can win that either (and nobody could win a nuclear exchange!)
> boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
The ship that was boarded, is registered in the Cook Islands (an associated state of New Zealand), owned and operated by a company in United Arab Emirates. And the ship's crew were Georgian and Indian.
> China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
China retains the right to board any ship in what it considers its sovereign territory, UNCLOS be damned. A similar reading by Finland would let it legally board any Russian ship transitting "its" straits.
Fully agreed. They won’t react until Russia invaded them. They somehow expect NATO to hold. While Trump and his Russian leaning politics, has said he might leave NATO.
Even if they don't have American nukes behind them?
Given what we've seen in Ukraine, I agree that Eastern European countries can likely take on Russia in conventional warfare. But that's not the only thing on the table.
NATO without the US still has two member countries with nukes. That doesn't guarantee "NATO wins" but it does assure "Russia loses" if that particular cat comes out of the bag.
That’s assuming Trump means anything he says. An assumption that has a pretty poor track record.
As with the last time he was elected Trump has vehemently criticised a policy of his predecessor, and then immediately adopted the same policy as his own on being elected.
He did it over bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons, and he’s doing it over Ukraine now, making it clear he intends to continue fully supporting them, while also pushing for a huge increase in military spending. Both policies he and his party were adamantly against and did everything they could to undermine while in opposition.
Yes, he flipped on Ukraine, yes, it's a promising sign, no, it doesn't mean he can't flop on Ukraine.
The uncharitable scenario is that he's waiting for the RU bribe money to land before delivering -- and no one deserves charity less than this man. Remember when he stopped the Javelin shipments to Ukraine until such time as Zelensky could deliver dirt (real or manufactured) on Biden? This could be exactly like that, though at this time he presumably wants money not dirt.
The charitable scenarios is he’s realised that if he continues his commitment to drop support for Ukraine, he has zero bargaining power with Putin to negotiate a peace as promised.
How that wasn’t blindingly obvious from the start is a question, but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine. It is entirely instrumental to his personal political advantage in the moment. Being utterly opposed to support for Ukraine was politically advantageous in opposition and supporting Ukraine to the hilt is now politically advantageous in power. That’s all that matters.
Chemical weapons in Syria are an informative parallel. Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition, but actually bombing Syria for using Chemical weapons when they did so as soon as Trump gained power was an obvious necessity.
> Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition
Mostly because Assad did use chemical weapons and Obama didn't bomb them. Arguably the fact that Obama backed down set the tone for the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas.
It took a while to confirm they’d used them and Obama made the mistake of asking Congress for authorisation to take out their chemical sites. Mitch McConnell blocked that, which is where Republican opposition to bombing Syria for having or using chemical weapons started.
Until they were in power of course, and Assad mistakenly assumed the Republican position on this was coherent and actually used chemical weapons again.
> ...but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine.
His supporters absolutely would give a fig about Ukraine if Trump hadn't spent years sabotaging the GOP's historical positions on hostile authoritarians.
Oh absolutely, I say all this as a deeply dissolutions British conservative who wonders what the heck has happened to Republicanism. It’s not all down to Trump either, it started before him with McConnell and others as I pointed out in another comment.
You say that, and I recall a guy I know - a gun shop owner, die hard right winger, who in 2014 (i.e. a year before Trump even declared his candidacy) told me that he'd prefer to see Putin rather than Obama as US president, because he "knows how to run a proper Christian country".
Trump's election might be pretty bad for Russia after all. With Democrats already being committed to Ukraine and Republicans committed to Trump, the whole congress is ready for a pretty much unlimited (material) help to Ukraine if Trump wants it. And the threat of exactly that is necessary for successful peace negotiations, which in turn is what would score Trump major political points.
There was a big raid operation in the Turku archipelago in 2018, where a Russian bought a conveniently located property to spy on military installations of Finland: https://yle.fi/a/3-10431313
I appreciate that the Finns have the balls to confront the Russians while the rest of Europe just doesn't do much, or let themselves be held hostage by Orban and Fico.
I think it had helicopter pad, a harbor for relatively large ships etc. I think Russia had planned to use it as a place to land troops or "green men" during war as spying could happen without helicopter pad etc.
Russia has to have some option other than killing Ukrainian soldiers and immiserating Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainians are the victims of US and European belligerence, and there is nothing any of them could say or do to end the conflict. Nobody asked their permission to go to war, nobody asks them if they want to continue it, and when they're polled, they hate it. They voted for a Russian-speaking Jewish non-politician actor in order to stay as far away from the US funded Nazi militias and politicians as possible. Turns out that playing a ethical innocent in a TV show doesn't mean you're a ethical innocent. Even when Zelensky's had an attack of ethics, the US administration and media immediately starts to marginalize him and question his authority, which endangers& him. If he doesn't make it to that inevitable London apartment that most Western-backed rulers end up in, he's a dead man.
Nothing makes the West happier than the suffering of Ukrainians, because they can use it to market the war to a populace who has absolutely no idea why it happened, or why it's still happening.
Everything else Russia could do is too much of an escalation. They could fire a missile at a Polish base if they can connect it to attacks launched on Russia's soil, but that's an open attack against NATO, and even though NATO wouldn't respond with anything other than thoughts and prayers, the funding tap would open up fully again due to the propaganda value. That's crazy when Trump is coming in, and there could possibly be a big swing in US administration support for Ukraine. No chance after that. Trump doesn't want to look submissive to Putin, especially after watching Biden be emasculated by Bibi. It's better to have Trump wanting to show that he's not submissive to Zelensky (as if Zelensky could stop this train.)
The best target would have been Americans in Ukraine, which is why after the demonstration of the fact that Russia has missiles that can't be stopped and can reach all of Europe, the US immediately closed its embassy and ran. We'll support Ukrainian attacks with satellite targeting now, we're not worried about Russia firing unstoppable missiles into space.
What's left? Immiseration of European citizens to soften their support. What ability does Russia have to do that? They can sabotage cables. The West blew up Nordstream, it's silly to play superior. Nordstream was also* crucial European infrastructure, and its destruction has made the daily lives of Europeans measurably worse.
> we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
What does this even mean? There's nothing anyone can do about it. Making a serious face won't stop a missile. The only thing protecting European cities is Russian rationality.
Maybe we should stop sending NATO missiles their way via our proxy, Ukraine, maybe at that point nuclear de-escalation will become a thing again.
If that doesn’t work, and unfortunately I’m not confident that it will work, then it becomes an open confrontation between us, EU citizens who don’t care one bit about Ukraine and who certainly aren’t willing to die for it, and those EU citizens that are willing to risk conventional and nuclear war with Russia over the likes of Pokrovsk or Kurachove.
Which is to say, don’t assume that you people form the uncontested majority here in the EU, just look at the Slovak prime-minister or at the Romanian pro-peace presidential candidate who’s had his election victory stolen from under him (I’m Romanian myself)
That's still considered to be primarily Russia's doing, with an interesting new detail:
> On 17 December 2024 the Russian Navy sea rescue tug Yevgeniy Churov[36] was reported to have approached the anchored Yi Peng 3, passing it at very low speed and with its own AIS transmitter turned off.
The next day, investigators were finally allowed to board.
Russia annoying both Finland and Estonia may be unwise. Look at the geography.
There's only 20km of water between Helsinki and Tallinn.
If those countries act together they can cut off sea access to St. Petersburg.
Or just slow things down by inspecting every ship for cable-cutting capability.
NATO has already stepped up patrols in the Baltic Sea.[1]
Right now, Russia doesn't have all that much military capability near St. Petersburg.[2]
Some units are off at the Ukraine war. The Baltic Fleet is weaker than ever.
There's a "Free Ingria" movement that wants to make all of Leningrad Oblast a separate country. It's not going anywhere without outside support. It might get some.
> Look at the geography. There's only 20km of water between Helsinki and Tallinn. If those countries act together they can cut off sea access to St. Petersburg.
Closer to 90km. If it was 20, all ships to/from St Petersburg would have to pass through Estonian/Finnish territorial waters and we wouldn’t have questions around jurisdiction.
it's 38km from Naissaar to first Finnish islands, and the international waters there are wider than they should thanks to all the wars that were fought over it.
Every large ship with an anchor has cable cutting capability, at least in shallow waters. They just drop anchor near the cable (locations of which are clearly marked on regular nautical charts) and then run the ship's engine to drag the anchor across the cable until it breaks.
In terms of potential hybrid warfare targets, Kaliningrad looks soft. Many of the residents have little loyalty to Russia. A partial blockade combined with some sabotage and support of separatist organizations could accomplish a lot.
NATO is now patrolling that area, probably looking for that. Finland joined NATO in 2023, after seeing what Russia was doing in Ukraine.
It's a narrow corridor to patrol. Small boats watching large ships can tell if an anchor is run out. An ordinary fish-finder sonar should be able to tell if a ship is dragging something. Finland has many small coast guard vessels, and a long history of pushing back against border incursions from Russia.
The most recent incursion was [1]. "Since the beginning of August 2023, more than 1,300 third-country nationals have arrived in Finland from Russia without a visa. According to the authorities, it was clear that foreign authorities or other actors were facilitating instrumentalised migration. This phenomenon and the risk of its escalation posed a serious threat to national security and public order in Finland."
Migrants who escaped Afghanistan, etc. and ended up in Russia are apparently being given a hard choice - join the army and fight in Ukraine, or leave Russia.
So Finland closed the land border with Russia completely. Russia objected. Finland did not give in.
Finland started building a border fence on the Russian border, with surveillance gear, back in 2023.[2]
Russia proved incapable of invading all of Ukraine in 3 years. They do want all of former USSR but it is clearly impossible. And with that in mind, it is criminal and on the Western side to not provide Ukraine with enough military assistance to decisively defeat Russia. I don't know what West is doing, honestly.
So true. In Germany alone are about 250000 Ukrainian men of fighting age eager to get back and crush the Russian invasion as soon as the west gives them some gear and a gun. How hard can it be?
> Woodward writes that Biden's national security team at one point believed there was a real threat, a 50 per cent chance, that Putin would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Hopefully they are exaggerating for effect. A strategy of actively probing for Russia's breaking point is ruinously stupid; when you find it the odds are pretty good that it will be because they are at the point where they are willing to go nuclear. They might try some sort of escalate-to-de-escalate strike on NATO but there must be a pretty decent chance that would just escalate and the Russian command would be aware of that.
Not lobbing missiles in to Russia is an entirely reasonable red line. We got all the way through the Afghan war and the Iraq war without anyone launching missiles into the US and that restraint didn't seem to cause any long term problems. Extending similar courtesies to Russia is appropriate.
FWIW the US is also 100% aware of this. See the Proud Prophet wargames. [1] It was one of the most extensive, largescale, and 'realistic' wargames ever executed. It was essentially working out a variety of military strategies to try to gain an edge over the USSR - demonstrative nuclear strikes, limited-scale nuclear war, decapitation strikes against leadership, and so on.
The outcome of literally every single scenario was essentially the end of the world with billions dead and the Northern Hemisphere rendered largely inhospitable. This wargame was carried out in 1983. Its conclusion lead the US military and leadership to change course from the previous pattern of escalation as a means of victory, to de-escalation and collaboration. By 1991 the Soviet Union would collapse with their leaders holding hands with American leaders.
By 1991 ... yes, I remember, it was an exciting time, The Scorpions wrote a song, everybody was very positive. This lasted about eight years.
They've apparently changed the lyrics now. The opening lines are changed to "Now listen to my heart / It says Ukrainia, waiting for the wind to change." Meine stated, "It's not the time with this terrible war in Ukraine raging on, it's not the time to romanticize Russia."
I'm pretty sure the military industrial complex has had those leaders replaced with ones of the "let's hit them, they're bluffing" variety. The fact they're even testing the limits they've already broken through seems like a case study in strategic incompetence. AFAIK there is literally nothing in this for the US apart from an opportunity to set China up for greater success. Which, while a noble move, is probably not intentional.
Bear? It is more like a stray dog that keeps shitting on your living room carpet. You don’t need to hate the dog, you just keep it on the outside where it can run around and have a great time on it’s own.
This obviously isn't their goal anymore than the Russians are running out of missiles, the ruble is rubble, this 'game-changer' will imminently end the war (instead of obv just escalating it), and so on endlessly. Russia started negotiations to end the war 4 days (!!!) after the war began when, at that point, it wasn't even a war, but little more than some performative demonstrations!
And the main thing they wanted is what they've said all along - Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO or host foreign military bases. Everything else was negotiable - they were even willing to compromise on the exact status of Crimea! Then we got good ole Boris Johnson telling Zelensky to 'just fight'. One brilliant leader offering wisdom to another, with the outcome anybody could expect when such minds come together.
Notably Putin has also somewhat uncharacteristically shared the details of conversations he was having with Biden shortly prior to the war. And it was again all about Ukraine's NATO status. Biden refused to budge beyond agreeing to delay Ukraine's entry by 10-15 years (which was probably a defacto sort of 'we'll wait until you die' offer). Russian began amassing forces relatively shortly after that conversation.
This Russian agitprop always invites the question: why does Russia care if Ukraine is in NATO or not, if it actually respects its independence and territorial integrity? Russian claims all boil down to the notion that NATO wants to "move its forces to the borders" so as to ultimately invade and occupy Russia proper. If you don't believe that this is the purpose of NATO, then the entire construction makes zero sense. The reason why Ukraine wants to be in NATO is not because they like the logo, it's because they want to be safe from being invaded by Russia - and the same goes for every single country in Eastern Europe that has joined since USSR fell.
Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. I assume you obviously agree that even in this scenario China is not planning to literally invade the US, yet the US would obviously never in a million years allow this - and if China did not back down there would, with 100% certainty, be a war over it.
Come to think of it, this isn't even much of a hypothetical as this is essentially exactly what the Cuban Missile Crisis [1] was about, but the US was freaking out about weapons that were not even on a shared border, merely 'too close', bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war over it.
So, because Russia has nukes we should let them do whatever they want?
With that logic we should let them takeover the entire Europe, continuing their genocide until the Holocaust seemed like a small-scale event. Then you can give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
It is odd. I don't think throughout Biden was willing to say he wanted Ukraine to win and take back it's territories. The drip feed of aid seemed more aimed at having a stalemate. I've seen the theory they were worried that if Putin was defeated his government would collapse and the US was worried what would then happen to Russia's nukes.
All their warfare that's effective is the methods used to produce Brexit and elect Donald Trump. That's been way more effective than WWII munitions, and if they were satisfied with that, the world would be 'the Zone' for our lifetimes. But those who control Russia are old, and want land, territory. They've already spoken of wanting Alaska, and once you concede Crimea and Ukraine as 'really first', they'll be wanting to surprise everybody by taking the United States.
This is not realistic. They've got the power to destabilize to a shocking extent, but only while unobserved. To actually take territory, formally, from the United States would change a lot, and yet that's their dream.
By contrast, they're not fighting Finland first: not because Finland is that much tougher than the US, but because Finland knows them and is prepared.
You can have extremely hostile rhetoric from the neocons in the US, that does not mean it is official government policy. So you have a statement of Putin to showcase instead?
There's a key difference: Russia does not have freedom of the press nor freedom of speech. TV channels and newspapers get talking points from their coordinator in the presidential administration in the Kremlin and then do their best to hit the desired notes, or face takeover or closure. No independent mass media exists in Russia anymore. The Kremlin serves as the editorial board for every major outlet. This is the Russian government speaking.
Russian Media Monitor channel on Youtube maintains a collection of that speech. One of the most recent examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hULOZDqxv1Q In this clip from a prime-time TV show, propagandists keep repeating how they need to nuclear blackmail Trump into handing Europe over to Russia, with "Russian troops in Berlin, Paris and Lisbon" (02:12). Russian outlets hammer garbage like this into their population every single day, such rhetoric is everywhere. And words certainly lead to actions: when Russian POWs captured in Ukraine are asked what the hell they are doing in Ukraine, they can't come up with anything and fall back to repeating the same things word for word as if the were robots.
Russia under the tzar was imperialistic, Russia under communism was imperialistic, why is it extraordinary to believe Russia under Putin is imperialistic? Especially given what it did in Georgia Ukrain and Belarus etc.
There is a massive difference between belief and fact, and I would expect someone on this forum to know that. If you don't have a source, and you can't find one, then please make clear in your comment that that's your belief, not a fact. This goes for the OP, too
> Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire.
Your mean strong evidence like if Russia started invading and annexing its former-USSR neighbors?
Or perhaps you're confusing "clear" with "explicit": Consider a mob-boss surrounded by associates, casually observing into the air that "Example Ezio needs a fitting for concrete overshoes since I expect he'll be sleeping with the fishes."
> > invading and annexing its former-USSR neighbors
> Is Russia invading Poland and the Baltic states?
What goalpost-moving nonsense is this!? Why narrow it to those other areas while pretending the ongoing invasion of Ukraine doesn't exist, or forgetting the 2008 invasion of Georgia?
Must Russia attempt to attack or puppet every discrete former-USSR holding including Takijistan before you'll finally admit that Putin has revanchist dreams?
McCain on Putin in 2014. They want Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and Moldova and the Baltics if they can get away with it. He is rebuilding the Russian Empire.
We really don't need all that pollution in that particular small sea, thank you very much. Confiscated, most likely found lacking insurance, and auctioned off to fund EU defense.
some people in the suitable places are probably already thinking that way - just few days ago a Russian military cargo ship suddenly had explosion and sank in Mediterranean
"As for the equipment on board, the Navy spokesman noted that it was "quite expensive, sophisticated, foreign-made, and that russians do not do not produce such items."
"To understand the importance of this equipment is I remind you that for six months they were unable to load Kalibr missiles in Novorossiysk due to the lack of such equipment," Pletenchuk emphasized."
The EU should treat Putin's Russia like the aggressive evil predator and danger it so clearly is. And they should assume the US under Trump cannot be trusted. They must assume he's Putin's lackey. I'm American so it pains me to say it OTOH I don't want to see disaster to happen among our European allies.
I have no doubt that there was spying equipment. That is assumed. Curious that this story is only run by Lloydslist and now Breitbart of all places has picked it up.
It seems that someone has discovered tech people as willing amplifiers for war mongering (as chickenhawks, naturally, they won't be in the trenches).
It took less than a day to determine it was Russia and not only that but this specific ship that cut the cable. Yet years after the largest industrial sabotage and environmental disaster in recent memory (Nord Stream 2) absolutely no investigations into who caused that one and that story has been completely forgotten
What? No investigation? This is pretty close to the top of the Wikipedia article on the matter:
The Swedish and Danish investigations were closed in February 2024 without identifying those responsible,[16][17] but the German investigation is still ongoing.[18] In August 2024 media reported that in June German authorities issued a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of having used the sailing yacht Andromeda together with two others to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline.[19] As of June 2024 the suspect is still at large, having reportedly left the EU for Ukraine.[20]
This ship slowed down noticeably before destroying the cables so officials were quick to react. Also, not too long time ago another sabotage ship broke stuff as well so this was probably expected to happen again. Really does not have anything to do with Nord Stream 2 since it was different water areas and methods. But that whataboutism surely gives clue where your message comes from.
Officials are becoming more and more alert to these kinds of situations.
Newnew Polar Bear managed to escape the scene of the crime without any issues, Yi Peng 3 managed to escape the scene of the crime but was later detained in international waters but not boarded without Chinese officials, and now Eagle S was caught red-handed and boarded immediately.
Am I having a stroke or is this article translated?
I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true. Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
reply