[HN Gopher] Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
___________________________________________________________________
Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
Author : mooreds
Score : 523 points
Date : 2024-11-18 14:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| bell-cot wrote:
| It'd be nice to see stories about a western navy or two getting
| off its butt, and actually trying to discourage "accidents" which
| damage critical infrastructure.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| On the other hand, I'd rather see cables get cut than watch
| shells get lobbed between world powers.
| myworkinisgood wrote:
| at these points, these cable cuts are more dangerous than
| actual bombs
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I'm not convinced that cutting an internet cable - even a
| vital one - results in more actual death and human misery
| than actual bombs falling on urban centers.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| There is a point where this kind of aggression, left
| unchecked, may ultimately lead to actual bombs falling on
| urban centers. It's already happening in Ukraine. The
| global peace we all enjoy in the West is based on the
| idea that the price of aggression is higher than the
| benefits.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| "this kind", "left unchecked", "may ultimately"; that's
| three levels of maybes used to defend a definitive "are
| more dangerous" claim, not exactly inspiring rigour.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| There is a point where this kind of aggression, left
| unchecked, may ultimately lead to actual bombs falling on
| urban centers. It's already happening in the Ukraine. The
| global peace we all enjoy in the West is based on the
| idea that the price of aggression is higher than the
| benefits.
|
| Also: Internet cables today, essential power distribution
| cables tomorrow. Infrastructure is fragile, and human
| lives will eventually be at stake.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I mean, you're not wrong. And in general, this is ...
| high-stakes bullying. And if you let them get away with
| this, I agree that they'll keep pushing the boundary,
| even more than they already have;
| bobnamob wrote:
| ? Seriously?
|
| Cables getting cut is only dangerous because it's an
| escalation that may lead to bombs. There aren't thousands
| of civilians dying because Finland doesn't have high speed
| fibre to Germany.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I'd prefer if the devs added resilience to network outage
| over having navies fight each other...
|
| Especially as navies are just fundamentally not constructed
| to defend extended things like a cable: starting a war over
| them is the best way to ensure every cable is cut.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Like it or not, somebody will have to do something about
| Russia, sooner or later.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Could you maybe be _specific_ about what you mean by
| "somebody" doing "something"?
| rightbyte wrote:
| 'Somebody' is 'the US' and 'something' is 'extended
| suicide'.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Sure, let me find my crystal ball.
| bell-cot wrote:
| There are quite a few response levels between "don't even
| bother monitoring the sabotage" and "start WWIII".
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| As the saying goes, who lets others cut cables to have peace
| deserves neither and will have both taken away.
| toss1 wrote:
| They do already, but do need reinforcement.
|
| >>""We put in place a National Maritime Information Centre in
| about 2010 and we needed a Joint Maritime Operations
| Coordination Centre alongside it, because we said very firmly
| we have to take threats to our territorial seas and exclusive
| economic zone very, very seriously.
|
| They are now in place, which is good, but they need to be
| really reinforced and the departments involved need to fully
| man them, because otherwise we are not going to be able to
| counter what is a very real and present threat and could cause
| major major damage to our nation."" [0]
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-
| undersea-...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Alas, some would rather let criminal governments invade
| sovereign countries, commit acts of global sabotage and murder
| dissidents all over the world rather than take any action at
| all to dissuade them. Peace through appeasement is likely to
| work as well as it has at any other point in history.
| whythre wrote:
| Right? Turns out having a spine is really annoying and
| inconvenient for the ruling class who now find themselves
| actually having to fend off interlopers.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Are you referring to the US or Russia here? Hard to tell when
| you talk in riddles.
| faizmokh wrote:
| Not gonna lie. I thought of US first instead of Russia.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65309687
|
| Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication
| cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations.
|
| The details come from a joint investigation by public
| broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
|
| It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing
| trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.
| meiraleal wrote:
| It is time to get off your high horses and realize that western
| military might doesn't rule the world anymore.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Closing in on at least 3 years of hybrid warfare and yet this is
| nothing but a "mystery".
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| As big of a mystery as who poisoned Sergei Skripal or who shot
| down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
| toss1 wrote:
| Substantial Russian activity _also_ near UK, raises concerns that
| Russia would cut off UK. [0]
|
| Russian ships 'plotting sabotage in the North Sea' [1]
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-
| undersea-...
|
| [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-
| ships...
| whythre wrote:
| Do these nations not have navies? Can't they tell the Russian
| non-combat ships (or _pressure_ them) to get lost?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| And risk escalation!? /s
| toss1 wrote:
| Just because it is not publicized does not mean it is not
| happening. Most military operations do not take along
| journalists, and are not reported to the press. Some are even
| secret.
|
| That said, there is a limited amount that can be done in
| international waters without creating an international
| incident. Law Of The Seas, Freedom Of Navigation, etc.. It is
| to our advantage for example, when we want to prevent CCP's
| from denying access to international waters around Taiwan or
| Phillipines, but to Russia's advantage when scouting undersea
| cables in international waters.
|
| They can field more "research" vessels than we'd typically
| field mil vessels, but I'd bet real money that that ratio
| just changed _a lot_ in the past few weeks, as it hits the
| press.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > They can field more "research" vessels than...
|
| Back during the cold war, there was very often a Soviet
| "fishing boat" trailing after any substantial US Navy
| fleet. Said fishing boat may have had far more antennas
| than any fisherman would expect, but far less interest in
| catching fish.
|
| Fast forward - what would be the cost of having cheap
| western drones hanging around nearby, when suspected
| Russian assets were close to undersea cables, pipelines,
| and such?
| XorNot wrote:
| Fuel costs I suspect, which is where those continuous
| flight high altitude solar powered planes NASA was
| experimenting with really come into play.
|
| That said, satellite tracking shipping is pretty easy -
| It's interdicting ina timely fashion which is not.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Agreed that interdicting - if that means a naval or coast
| guard ship, or a submarine - is far more difficult and
| expensive.
|
| But cheap drones can transmit "don't do that!" warnings.
| And also video footage of the situation. Which would
| seriously change both the maritime law and political
| situations.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| We do but ocean and air is big :)
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nato-jets-
| in...
|
| Also with cables, they can be destroyed with "innocent" ships
| that have a right to be there actually :)
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65309687
|
| Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and
| communication cables in the North Sea, according to new
| allegations.
|
| The details come from a joint investigation by public
| broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
|
| It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing
| trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.
| taneliv wrote:
| Who says they don't do that constantly, but missed it this
| time?
| lxgr wrote:
| > Can't they tell the Russian non-combat ships (or pressure
| them) to get lost?
|
| Not in international waters, which is where submarine cables
| are largely located.
|
| And even if they could: The oceans are... kind of big. If it
| were that easy to "just patrol" shipping lanes/submarine
| cable tracks etc., why would piracy still be a concern?
| willy_k wrote:
| Would relatively cheap AI-piloted satellite connected ships
| with sensor equipment work as a solution?
| lxgr wrote:
| I doubt it. It seems to be a similar problem to missile
| defense: When you have a lot of ground to cover and can
| only be in one place at a time, the defender will always
| be at a huge cost disadvantage compared to the attacker.
| That's only in one/two dimensions - add a third
| (submarines) and the cost imbalance shifts even more.
|
| And even if it works, this will only give attackers pause
| that are deterred by attribution.
| XorNot wrote:
| Basically if mass produced something makes defense
| "cheap" it likely makes offense even cheaper.
| rsynnott wrote:
| They do:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-
| sh...
|
| However, another one will be along soon.
|
| I'd assume, at the moment, that the primary goal is
| intimidation rather than anything else.
| petre wrote:
| The Irish just chased away a Russian "research" vessel.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-sh...
| sparky_ wrote:
| Interestingly, Ireland is not a NATO member, so it's somewhat
| surprising Russia is poking around there. Although they're
| still EU, so maybe that's why.
| pitaj wrote:
| Are there not cables run through the Channel Tunnel? Seems like
| a no-brainer.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, there is fiber infrastructure in the Channel Tunnel [0].
| I'm pretty sure that while any one good link is vastly better
| than zero links, no one link is sufficient to carry all
| traffic from/to the British Isles?
|
| [0] https://www.colt.net/resources/colt-successfully-
| completes-t...
| detritus wrote:
| If you're routing through the Chunnel, I suspect you could
| fit at least two seperate links.
| corint wrote:
| I mean, the UK has 20+ fibre links to other lands. If one goes
| down, fine, if a second goes down, it's suspicious. If a third
| goes down, and there are Russian ships milling about over the
| location of the.. yes, there goes a fourth, it doesn't take
| long to realise what's going on.
|
| Now, what the British Navy would do about this I'm not
| precisely sure. But even to escort the ships away would put a
| stop to it, and the UK wouldn't be cut off.
| detritus wrote:
| The silly thing is they know entirely well that we can do the
| same to them. The US/UK at least have at least the same
| capability, if not moreso.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| sharks. maybe even Russian sharks.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I look forward to everybody completely missing the resolution to
| this mystery when it turns out it was something like a Danish
| sailing boat that got unlucky with their anchor...
| lxgr wrote:
| How does the saying go? Once [1] is happenstance, twice [2] is
| coincidence, but thrice [3]...
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/finnish-
| governme...
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-says-telecom-
| cab...
|
| [3] https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/europe/undersea-cable-
| disrupt...
| threeseed wrote:
| Also a Russian spy ship was escorted out of Irish waters a
| few days ago:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-
| sh...
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Wrong thrice, the third thing NewNew Polar Bear destroyed
| that day was a Russian telecoms cable:
| https://www.marinelink.com/news/russian-firm-says-baltic-
| tel...
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| A Danish sailing boat with 460 meters of anchor chain? Really?
| philip1209 wrote:
| It seems that the obvious solution could be Starlink-style
| meshes.
|
| Can anybody comment on how fragile the Starlink protocol would be
| during a war? If its line-of-sight, presumably it would be hard
| to jam?
| mempko wrote:
| Did Russia make a threat to Elon Musk at some point that it
| would take down Starlink satellites?
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| The Swedish part of AMPRNet [0] has some ambitions to be a
| fallback in case of a crisis[1]. It seems cheaper and easier (a
| bit of an understatement) to deploy and repair, in case it gets
| attacked.
|
| 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMPRNet
|
| 1: https://amprnet.se/images/Kriskommunikation-2014-01-27.pdf
| aredox wrote:
| Send some sharpnel on the same orbital altitude as Starlink and
| the whole constellation disappears.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| True, if by "some" you mean a few thousand rocket launches
| worth of shrapnel.
| nixass wrote:
| few dozen crashed satellites quickly become shrapnel on
| their own, spreading in all directions. not at "shrapnel
| speed" but nevertheless..
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| At Starlink altitude there is still operationally
| significant volumes of air. So much so that Starlinks
| need to altitude raise regularly. Starlink shrapnel would
| drop below Starlink orbit almost immediately, and
| completely deorbit in a month or so.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| It's Starlink. It would take an sms from Putin at most for
| Musk to turn it off.
| jahnu wrote:
| Ignoring everything else, C-Lion1 has a bandwidth if 144
| Tbit/sec
|
| How much can a constellation offer say between many points in
| both countries? Seems unlikely it could get close but I would
| like to know.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Lion1
| verdverm wrote:
| Nuclear detonation(s) in LEO would likely cause significant
| harm
| wood_spirit wrote:
| Elon Musk is not someone Europe feels it can rely on in a
| crisis when Russia attacks
| Gud wrote:
| Elon Musk is probably the private individual who has done
| most for Ukraine.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-
| Ukrain...
| looperhacks wrote:
| Russia already demonstrated that they are able to take down
| satellites [1] and that they can interfere with Starlink [2]>
|
| 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/world/europe/russia-
| antis... 2:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/technology/ukraine-russia...
| wil421 wrote:
| How much of this is news and how much of it is normal occurrences
| due to shipping or fishing?
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I've found this example of a proven sabotage:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21963100 which
| involved a few guys caught in the act less than 1 km from
| shore, then there are a lot of "suspicious" events where
| intention is never publicly proven.
| wil421 wrote:
| Thanks. I was trying to figure out if the news is reporting
| on every little anchor snag or if it is an abnormal
| occurrence.
| taneliv wrote:
| Well, it's a major cable and entirely unoperational at the
| moment, so newsworthy irrespective of the reason.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Yeah, people seem to agree that
| [maybe](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42176108)
| latency has been affected!
| wslh wrote:
| https://archive.is/ZucmV
| gnabgib wrote:
| Discussion (44 points, 5 hours ago, 43 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42172565
| schroeding wrote:
| It's a different cable, even though they were close together.
| gnabgib wrote:
| CNN and Bloomberg mention both cables (although both articles
| have update times)
| nyeah wrote:
| It seems very likely to be the same incident.
| dang wrote:
| Merged hither. Thanks!
| mg wrote:
| Hetzner seems unaffected? ping
| hel1-speed.hetzner.com
|
| Gives me 52ms from Germany which should be about normal?
| deliciousturkey wrote:
| It should be around 25 ms in normal conditions. That's what I
| got when pinging Hetzner in Germany, from Finland, when the
| cable was still in use and when using a connection that routes
| through the cable.
| usr1106 wrote:
| I am don't use Hetzner, but I use ssh between Finland and
| Germany every day. As a matter of fact even back and forth
| because of tunneling. After reading the news this morning
| (Hetzner incident is date 3:30 UTC) I was surpised that I had
| not noted any lag. It remained very reponsive all day.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I have a persistent VPN tunnel between Finland and Germany
| and I've not noticed really any disruptions. If it had cut
| out for even a moment, it would've interrupted my services
| (since they don't recover gracefully at the moment) and I
| would've found out.
| Stagnant wrote:
| I think it is slightly higher than normal. I remember getting
| 30-40ms pings to germany in recent years. 45-55ms is around the
| range it used to be in early 2010's before the direct cable
| from finland to germany was built.
| thewavelength wrote:
| Hetzner says they are affected:
| https://status.hetzner.com/incident/ec8a2f28-e964-46cb-94fa-...
| Hamuko wrote:
| That is a very terse statement all things considered.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It was written in the middle of the night. I expect they'll
| update it later.
| sigio wrote:
| I'm getting 25ms from my mailserver at hetzner helsinki to
| amsterdam. Looks more then OK to me.
| 256_ wrote:
| 48ms from England, for whatever that's worth. Would that've
| used the cable?
| coretx wrote:
| If you want to know if they are affected, search for "Looking
| glass hetzner". It will help you better than ICMP PING. See
| https://bgp.he.net/AS24940 for example.
| hengheng wrote:
| I keep wondering if that scale of operation that we are
| witnessing is their "testing the waters" phase and it is 1% of
| their true capability, of if what we're seeing is already their
| full-steam operational pace.
|
| They do a good job of instilling fear, but we've learned from
| Ukraine that there are a lot of paper Tigers in that army that
| aren't as capable in a real fight as they are in a demonstration.
| Etheryte wrote:
| So to keep score, in the last year we've seen cables sabotaged
| between Finland and Germany, Lithuania and Sweden, Estonia and
| Sweden, Estonia and Finland. Any others I missed? You might say
| it's too early to call it sabotage, but the earliest two cable
| incidents were exactly the same, so it's hardly a coincidence at
| this point.
| barryrandall wrote:
| Russia warned that they were going to do this last week. I
| think it's pretty reasonable to conclude that 1) this was
| sabotage and 2) it was Russia.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Russia warned that they were going to do this last week_
|
| Source?
| farbklang wrote:
| first result: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-pipeline-gas-
| patrushev-putin...
| stavros wrote:
| https://www.newsweek.com/russia-pipeline-gas-patrushev-
| putin...
|
| I guess they warned in their own way, of "nice cables
| you've got there, it would be a shame if someone...
| sabotaged them".
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| They're constantly saying this about everything.
| baq wrote:
| every once in a while they actually follow through with
| some. they need some prison mafia credibility to not look
| like total clowns.
| ivandenysov wrote:
| They also threatened UA with a full scale invasion by
| doing troop trainings on the border for several years
| before the real thing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The point isn't that they don't do things, it's that
| there are people issuing a constant stream of threats and
| people doing things, and it's not entirely clear there is
| even a correlation between the two.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| in other words, we need their false negative rate
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we need their false negative rate_
|
| We have it. It's almost 100%. They've been threatening
| WWIII and nuclear armageddon since 2022.
| lazide wrote:
| That is not as comforting a comparison as you might think
| it is.
|
| In my experience, the problem is also that one group of
| people refuses to act on what the other side actually
| says (because it's inconvenient/dangerous).
| severino wrote:
| Hey, hold your horses. Biden also threatened to blow up the
| Nord-Stream 2 pipeline, yet after the sabotage, everybody
| said "it was Russia". Now about this incident, to be
| consistent, I'm inclined to think it was the Americans.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Biden also threatened to blow up the Nord-Stream 2
| pipeline,_
|
| Nope. He said it would be "ended", meaning the one thing
| that it obviously means -- that it would be shut off.
|
| _everybody said "it was Russia"_
|
| Nope -- _some_ people said that.
|
| The reasonable, level-headed people said: "We just don't
| know yet".
| Supermancho wrote:
| Was probably the ones who didn't want to be on the hook
| for their end of the contract being violated by _not_
| sending resources down the pipeline.
| okasaki wrote:
| Come on dude. He said "we will bring an end to it", and
| when the reporter challenged him how he's going to do
| this given that it's a deal between Germany and Russia,
| he said "I promise you we will be able to do it."
|
| People have been convicted of murder on less evidence.
| geysersam wrote:
| > He said it would be "ended", meaning the one thing that
| it obviously means -- that it would be shut off.
|
| When Biden said that he was talking next to the person
| with the power to legally shut it off, the German
| chancellor. If he and Biden were in agreement on that
| point, that Nord Stream would be shut off if Russia
| invaded Ukraine, why did Biden say that explicitly but
| not Scholz, even after being asked directly by the
| journalists present? If they were not in agreement on
| that point, how could Biden promise that they would put
| an end to it?
|
| > The reasonable, level-headed people said: "We just
| don't know yet".
|
| Agreed.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _If they were not in agreement on that point, how could
| Biden promise that they would put an end to it?_
|
| Typical politician nonsense.
|
| None of which means he was intending, or suggesting the
| idea of actually blowing it up.
| tptacek wrote:
| I believe at this point we have a pretty good guess as to
| who sabotaged the pipeline, and it wasn't the US.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| Who is we and please enlighten me.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The rest of the world who aren't mainlining Russian
| propaganda.
| csomar wrote:
| No we do not. Saying it with "confidence" and "authority"
| doesn't make true either.
| tptacek wrote:
| Sure we do. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-
| security/2023/11/11/...
| csomar wrote:
| The same article you link only quote "speculation" on the
| role of Ukraine. There is no detailed evidence of the
| people involved (and if some certain other agencies are
| involved in this).
| aguaviva wrote:
| _The same article you link only quote "speculation" on
| the role of Ukraine_
|
| It does not, and you're misreading the one sentence in
| the article where that word appears.
| fractallyte wrote:
| The article's only sources are "people familiar with the
| operation". That's a heck of a lot to take on trust,
| _particularly_ considering the increasingly disjointed
| relationship between Ukraine and the US, and the
| increasingly evident reach of the Kremlin 's intelligence
| services and supporting propaganda machinery.
| baq wrote:
| The peaceful Russian Baltic research fleet is doing research,
| nothing to see here.
| tyfon wrote:
| Between mainland Norway and Svalbard.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40484591
| mopsi wrote:
| Swedish telco Telia reports that the undersea internet cable
| between Sweden and Lithuania was also damaged on Sunday:
| https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2416006/undersea-ca...
| leshokunin wrote:
| The constant Russian interference, combined with the regular
| escalation from the jets patrolling, and the radar jamming,
| really needs to be dealt with.
|
| We're stuck between having to do timid actions and full NATO
| escalation. This feels like constant creep.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I have read reams of rhetoric regarding relations with Russia
| rehashed as "don't poke the bear".
|
| No one ever seems to want to discuss what to do about the bear
| going around poking everyone else.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Those discussions are had all the time. One of downside of
| this bear is bear strapped with explosives that could kill us
| all if bear gets angry enough.
|
| Also, once you are 12 miles offshore, technically you are in
| international waters and thus cannot be stopped by any Navy
| except your own unless there is UN Sanctions. If NATO
| Countries decided to violate that, it obviously opens up
| massive can of worms that could impact worldwide trade.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| That's a good point, there's no formal mechanism to punish
| any country that has 'anchor accidents' 12.1 nm offshore.
|
| It's probably not even a de jure crime, so what is there to
| punish on the record?
| echoangle wrote:
| In what country is intentional property destruction not a
| crime? You're not arguing that it's really accidental,
| right?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| 12.1 nm offshore is not any country, which is the
| point...The laws of zero countries matter, and only
| certain multilateral agreements matter, at least on
| paper.
| echoangle wrote:
| It's still a de jure crime on the ship itself, because
| the laws of the flag country apply there. If the captain
| of the ship intentionally damaged something in
| international waters, he still committed a (de jure,
| which was the question) crime.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| No? Why would the laws of the flag country matter for an
| anchor slowly drifting to the seabed detached from a
| vessel several km away?
|
| Edit: I'm pretty sure most, if not all, such countries
| don't even ascribe any legal status to wrecked and sunken
| lifeboats, let alone anchors. Probably most countries
| don't even have a formal penalty, of any kind, for
| lifeboats detached and sunken, for any reason, for anyone
| on the ship.
| echoangle wrote:
| The ,,anchor accidents" with cables are normally when a
| ship is dragging an anchor over the cable. That's
| property damage of someone else's stuff, which is a crime
| in pretty much any country. And even if you drop your
| anchor to intentionally destroy someone else's property,
| that would be a crime anywhere. You don't need a specific
| law for anchors.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Do you not know how ships typically operate?
|
| Vessel captains drop anchor all the time if they are
| caught out of port in a stormy area. And if it's a big
| enough storm they are quite literally dragged around
| along with the anchor.
|
| It literally happens every month on Earth.
|
| It just's implausible that dragging alone would be a
| crime in any flag country.
|
| Edit: Maybe they can criminalize dragging it for a very
| long distance, say 10+ km, but I'm pretty sure the most
| popular flag countries do not, e.g. Liberia.
| echoangle wrote:
| That's why my first question was
|
| > In what country is intentional property destruction not
| a crime? You're not arguing that it's really accidental,
| right?
|
| So you are arguing that it's an accident? Do you agree
| that it would be a crime if it was intentional?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _technically you are in international waters and thus
| cannot be stopped by any Navy except your own unless there
| is UN Sanctions_
|
| What? No? How do you think we arraign pirates?
|
| > _it obviously opens up massive can of worms that could
| impact worldwide trade_
|
| No? Why? Worst case it would be considered an act of war.
| Practically, they'd just be arrested.
| stackskipton wrote:
| >What? No? How do you think we arraign pirates?
|
| Because piracy is one of exceptions to "No stopping not
| your flag ships in international waters."
|
| Here is list of exception: (a) the ship is engaged in
| piracy; (b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade; (c)
| the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the
| flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article
| 109; (d) the ship is without nationality; or (e) though
| flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the
| ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the
| warship.
|
| https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/
| unc...
|
| >No? Why? Worst case it would be considered an act of
| war. Practically, they'd just be arrested.
|
| So under which clause would you like to stop Russian
| ships cutting cables in international waters?
|
| UNCLOS does have this provision around submarine cables:
| Every State shall adopt the laws and regulations
| necessary to provide that the breaking or injury by a
| ship flying its flag or by a person subject to its
| jurisdiction of a submarine cable beneath the high seas
| done wilfully or through culpable negligence, in such a
| manner as to be liable to interrupt or obstruct
| telegraphic or telephonic communications, and similarly
| the breaking or injury of a submarine pipeline or high-
| voltage power cable, shall be a punishable offence. This
| provision shall apply also to conduct calculated or
| likely to result in such breaking or injury. However, it
| shall not apply to any break or injury caused by persons
| who acted merely with the legitimate object of saving
| their lives or their ships, after having taken all
| necessary precautions to avoid such break or injury
|
| But Russia is obviously ignoring the rules so now what?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _So under which clause would you like to stop Russian
| ships cutting cables in international waters?_
|
| Piracy. Duh. That or you'd break the treaty. (Like China
| has been [1].)
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Sea_Arbitration
| ocatzzz wrote:
| You are evidently unaware of UNCLOS and the adoption of
| many of its provisions into customary international law
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Also the practical reality of countries not giving a shit
| about any of that when someone starts breaking their
| shit. There is a reason Russia is knocking out European
| lines while leaving American ones alone.
| stackskipton wrote:
| I'm completely aware, used to be involved in this stuff.
| In international waters, these are UNCLOS requirements to
| board a ship not of your Navy Flag.
|
| (a) the ship is engaged in piracy; (b) the ship is
| engaged in the slave trade; (c) the ship is engaged in
| unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the
| warship has jurisdiction under article 109; (d) the ship
| is without nationality; or (e) though flying a foreign
| flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in
| reality, of the same nationality as the warship
|
| Which one would you like to use to board and/or force the
| ship to depart against Russian cable cutting ships?
| ocatzzz wrote:
| To be clear, I am not proposing boarding Russian ships.
| That is pointless.
|
| But the answer to your question is a. Referring to UNCLOS
| 101(a)(ii) the cables are "property in a place outside
| the jurisdiction of any State".
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > Which one would you like to use to board and/or force
| the ship to depart against Russian cable cutting ships?
|
| High seas (which is what that list applies to) is not the
| EEZ. I don't think anybody could legally argue thar a
| country wouldn't have the right to board (or fire at, if
| it didn't comply) a foreign ship from it's coast 24
| nautical miles if it suspected it was doing something
| illegal. Whether that right extends to the entire EEZ
| isn't exactly clear.
|
| However there are no "high seas" areas in the Baltic so
| all of the listed items are irrelevant.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Probably don't want to fire at the nuclear powered cargo
| ship that is suspected.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Unless the reactor is directly hit there shouldn't be any
| significant problems? It's not a warship so there
| wouldn't be any need for heavy munitions to force it to
| surrender.
|
| Of course the Baltic is very shallow so if the reactor
| started leaking it might be a bit more problematic than
| if a nuclear ship/sub was sunk in the middle of the
| ocean.
| wbl wrote:
| The EEZ only applies to resource extraction. Otherwise,
| it is the same as high seas. What lets you board is the
| territorial sea, and outside that, the contiguous zone.
| Even then there are limits.
| valval wrote:
| > customary international law
|
| If only there was such thing.
| maxglute wrote:
| High Seas "international water" start at after 200 nautical
| mile EEZ. There's a few explicit articles dealing with
| malicious submarine cable damage.
|
| But IIRC the TLDR is it has to do with indemnities and
| putting a vessel/person up for prosecution after the fact.
| And it doesn't apply if cable damaged while trying to
| prevent injury, which RU can always claim.
|
| More broadly I think you're correct on paper... RU damaging
| subsea infra is under UNCLOS is technically punishable, but
| after the fact. And they're not going to lol pay damages to
| countries that sanction them. NATO kinetically trying to
| prevent RU damaging subsea infra (especially in highseas),
| in lieu of formal UN policing mission against such acts, is
| closer to act of war.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| NATO kinetically trying to prevent Russia from damaging
| subsea infrastructure WITH a formal UN policing mission
| is also an act of war, its just more clearly not an act
| of _aggression_.
|
| Of course, that would also be true of NATO doing so as
| part of a broader collective defense operation reported
| to the Security Council, directed against Russia and
| explicitly aimed at rolling back the Russian (UNGA-
| condemned) aggression in Ukraine under Article 51 of the
| UN Charter.
| maxglute wrote:
| Fair distinction.
|
| International law can be selectively applied for
| different party according to different scenarios
| (relative to different geopolitical power). NATO
| triggering art5 (self defense) won't make it valid /
| feasible to trigger at parallel UN art51. RU using UN
| art51 to target UKR a soveign territory, is also going to
| be different than NATO / or NATO country using art51 to
| do whatever they want on non-soverign / international
| high seas. All of which is to say while international law
| doesn't matter much to the motivated, not everyone is
| powerful enough to normalized/destablize with impunity.
| NATO might, but not without RU security council (trumps
| UNGA) approval, of course NATO can supercede from UN
| Charter framework which IIRC that NATO explicitly states
| they operate within. But then we have NATO going
| independant of UN, which goes back barrels of worms.
| exceptione wrote:
| The bear metaphore is indeed nonsense. Russia is not a bear,
| you are dealing with a bunch of state level criminals.
| The state of Russia is essentially better understood as a
| criminal gang masquerading as a country.
|
| Those stealing, money laundering, killing, trafficking an
| warring circles of oligarchs are heavily rooted in
| Intelligence Services, inside and abroad. Some of those
| oligarchs even have private militaries.
|
| Those people primarily care for themselves. They know they
| can get away with a ton of insane and inhuman shit, as they
| calculate the other well-behaving party will back off. They
| however do not want to get nuclear consequences themselves,
| it is pure bluff.
| rainingmonkey wrote:
| Without knowing any of the individuals involve, this
| intuitively seems like a useful model to predict the
| actions of the state.
|
| I wonder how effective the technique would be for the US
| government and our own oligarchs?
| sofixa wrote:
| > The bear metaphore is indeed nonsense. Russia is not a
| bear, you are dealing with a bunch of state level criminals
|
| With nukes, which makes them pretty scary.
| gorbachev wrote:
| The "academic" term for Russia's style of governing is a
| kleptocracy.
|
| Your description is 100% accurate.
| gmerc wrote:
| Americans are about to get intimately familiar with this
| mode of governments anyway
| Svoka wrote:
| time to cut its paws off, tbh
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I agree. Do you want to sign up and go fight in a war? Or
| should other people besides you die? It's easy to say it "needs
| to be dealt with" but it's not an easy thing to do.
| leshokunin wrote:
| I lived in Finland most of my adult life. Gladly. Freedom
| isn't free, I understand that
| nazgob wrote:
| Some of us live close enough that it's not really an option,
| surrendering to Russians don't work that great if you live in
| Eastern Europe. I will volunteer first day to join Polish
| Army.
| abraxas wrote:
| Ditto. Even though I'm an expat right now if Poland calls
| to arms I'm coming home and fighting to defend my country.
| leshokunin wrote:
| I can't tell if you guys or the Finns are better at
| dealing with invaders, but I can't think of a higher
| compliment on this matter.
| ocular-rockular wrote:
| It's never an easy thing to do or one that should come to
| fruition, but yes, I would contribute to the effort for my
| country if it was so.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If you would have asked me while I was a young Marine I'd
| say, "hell yes." I recall the commandant visiting in
| Afghanistan and Marines were asking him where the next combat
| zone is because they are eager for more action.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Or should other people besides you die?_
|
| Yes. We literally have a country willing to do this for us if
| we give them the weapons.
|
| Otherwise, a country whose population is unwilling to fight
| for itself isn't a country, just a convenient demarcation on
| a map.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Living in a country next to Russia, it basically feels more
| and more likely that I will actually have to participate in a
| war effort. Not really sure how since I have not undergone
| military training, but it's definitely something to keep in
| mind these days.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Against Russia? Yes.
|
| My grandfather did it the last time, I'm ready any day for a
| rematch.
|
| For now I'm hoping that our brothers in Ukraine slap Russia
| hard enough to deter any invasion plans for a few more
| decades.
| petre wrote:
| Best course of action at this time would be to properly arm
| Ukraine.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| It's the right thing to do anyway, but especially as a way to
| respond to Russia.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Which happened and kept happening for a long time now,
| including the US sending billions of dollars and weapons
| (among other things). That did not help, did it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Which happened and kept happening for a long time now_
|
| We've been drip feeding and hand tying Ukraine. Practically
| every military expert has said this is not the way to win a
| war.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I heard US sent so many weapons that even US' supply of
| weapons were running low if and when it came to defending
| themselves. Is it true? I have no clue.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _heard US sent so many weapons that even US ' supply of
| weapons were running low if and when it came to defending
| themselves. Is it true? I have no clue._
|
| No, it's not. For small-scale war, we are amply stocked.
| For large-scale war, stocks don't matter, production
| does.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Surely if the US was actually in a situation where it was
| attacked and had to defend itself, they'd be able to do
| that. If nothing else, the civilians have a whole lot of
| guns too and attacks on the US (think Pearl Harbor, 911)
| have a massive rallying effect. As far as I know, the
| biggest thing preventing a civilian semi-automatic from
| being converted to an automatic firearm is the risk of a
| long prison stint.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The USA is a giant ocean away in any direction from any
| meaningful threat. No-one is invading the USA. Everyone
| will be nuked to oblivion before that would ever come to
| pass.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| No, but it's a good way to put some fear in our NATO
| allies and it is a good way to waste a bunch of Russian
| resources.
| libertine wrote:
| > That did not help, did it?
|
| I'm sorry, but this is the type of claim of someone who
| gets news from the Joe Rogan podcast.
|
| Ukraine managed to defend its capital from annexation,
| liberated thousands of miles of territory, and managed to
| improve its protection of civilians thanks to air defense
| systems, has lower casualty rates than Russia, and now is
| starting to create a buffer zone into Russian territory.
|
| How isn't this a sign that it didn't help?
|
| Now... could, and should, Ukraine receive way more help, on
| time to help them even more? Of course. The drip feed has
| been one of the worse strategic decisions in this conflict,
| almost like there's no strategy in place.
|
| But Ukraine needs to develop its deterrence.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such,
| it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so.
|
| Something that people seem to not realize is that the
| Minsk Agreements refer to two accords (Minsk I in 2014
| and Minsk II in 2015) aimed at ending the conflict in
| eastern Ukraine, specifically in the Donetsk and Luhansk
| regions, where _pro-Russian separatists had declared
| independence_ with alleged support from Russia.
|
| That said, while Russia claimed that Ukraine failed to
| implement the Minsk Agreements, this does not justify a
| military invasion. Diplomatic mechanisms were available
| to resolve disputes, and _both sides_ bore some
| responsibility for the lack of progress on Minsk. It can
| be attributed to challenges and shortcomings on _all
| sides involved_. With the election of Donald Trump, there
| may be an increased opportunity to revive diplomatic
| efforts and achieve meaningful progress, given his
| emphasis on unconventional approaches to negotiation and
| relationships with key stakeholders, potentially (and
| hopefully) providing a better opportunity to bring an end
| to the long-stalemated conflict.
|
| > Now... could, and should, Ukraine receive way more
| help, on time to help them even more? Of course.
|
| I am sorry but providing additional aid at this stage
| would likely prolong the war rather than bring about a
| resolution. This protracted conflict has already pushed
| global economies toward collapse, with ordinary taxpayers
| shouldering the financial burden of a war they never
| chose to participate in. It is irrational to continue
| pouring taxpayer money into a long-stalemated conflict
| without a clear path to peace or resolution, particularly
| when _domestic priorities are being neglected in the
| process_.
| petre wrote:
| > I am sorry but providing additional aid at this stage
| would likely prolong the war rather than bring about a
| resolution.
|
| That would only give Putin time to replenish his forces
| and attack again. The time to act is now.
|
| If the Russians lose, we might be looking at another USSR
| style dissolution of Russia: more breakaway Central Asian
| and Caucasus republics and maybe a break from Russian
| interference. Make no mistake, these are the people that
| Putin is grinding in this war.
|
| This is a good opportunity for the US to weaken Russia
| without firing a shot and consolidate its power in
| Eastern Europe with reliable allies.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > This is a good opportunity for the US to weaken Russia
|
| Have you ever considered that US giving Ukraine lots of
| money & weapons weaken the US, too? <conspiracy theory>
| Imagine if Ukraine and Russia worked together to achieve
| it. </conspiracy theory>
| libertine wrote:
| > I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such,
| it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so.
|
| I simply stated that's the same level of shallow analysis
| and severe lack of understanding of what's at play,
| sprinkled with mystical thinking and conspiracy theories,
| which is prevalent in the right-wing media and amplified
| by Russian propaganda. I don't think it's inappropriate,
| it might just be a coincidence.
|
| > (...) where pro-Russian separatists had declared
| independence with alleged support from Russia. That said,
| while Russia claimed that Ukraine failed to implement the
| Minsk Agreements, this does not justify a military
| invasion. Diplomatic mechanisms were available to resolve
| disputes, and both sides bore some responsibility for the
| lack of progress on Minsk. It can be attributed to
| challenges and shortcomings on all sides involved
|
| Just to point out two red flags here:
|
| - The separatists didn't have alleged support from
| Russia, there were Russian troops in both Crimea, Donetsk
| and Luhansk. By the way, those regions were at peace
| until Russia sent "little green men"[0]. The same
| happened in Georgia by the way, in 2008. Where do you
| think "separatists" got a Buk 9M38 to shoot down a
| commercial airliner killing 300 people? [1]
|
| - Russia did not just claim that Ukraine failed to
| implement UNCONSTITUTIONAL parts of the Minsk agreement,
| Russia itself failed to comply with the agreement - and
| they were the ones on sovereign Ukrainian territory,
| killing Ukrainians. An agreement goes both ways, so the
| general sense was that Russia never looked to abide by
| the agreement, just gradually turning Ukraine
| ungovernable with cancer from within, by subverting the
| Ukrainian constitution.
|
| From the words of Macron in the talk with Putin before
| the escalation of 2022:
|
| "They are in front of my eyes! It clearly states that
| Ukraine's proposal should be agreed with representatives
| of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in a
| trilateral meeting. This is exactly what we propose to
| do. So I don't know where your lawyer studied law. I just
| look at these texts and try to apply them! And I don't
| know which lawyer could tell you that in a sovereign
| state, the texts of laws are made up of separatist
| groups, not democratically elected authorities."[2]
|
| > With the election of Donald Trump, there may be an
| increased opportunity to revive diplomatic efforts and
| achieve meaningful progress
|
| So your idea of a diplomatic effort is to appease a
| dictator with the subversion of Ukraine, a sovereign
| country of 40 million people, and target of genocide,
| that was at peace and posed a threat to no one. To the
| point of surrendering their nuclear arsenal in exchange
| for the guarantee of their sovereignty - with the
| signature of the USA representatives.
|
| > It is irrational to continue pouring taxpayer money
| into a long-stalemated conflict without a clear path to
| peace or resolution, particularly when domestic
| priorities are being neglected in the process.
|
| The only irrational thing is to push the Russian
| narrative that Ukraine should be left on its own, for the
| illusion of internal stability that stems mainly from
| propaganda.
|
| Again, this just confirms the same ill-informed narrative
| Joe Rogan-type podcasts are pushing around, some of these
| podcasts being funded by Russia Today operations.[3] I
| won't claim its deliberate, but as time passes it
| increasingly looks like so.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-
| Ukrain...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
|
| [2] https://babel.ua/en/news/80618-bloodbath-and-
| involved-zelens...
|
| [3] https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-
| presidential...
| johnisgood wrote:
| It all began with pro-Russian Ukrainians fighting against
| the Ukrainian government though...
|
| Are you in support of Israel too, by any chance?
| libertine wrote:
| Wrong.
|
| It all began when President Yanukovych rejected an
| agreement he promised to sign with the EU ( _which was,
| and is, a public document with known the terms_ ) in
| exchange for a deal with Russia, of unknown terms and
| vague promises, and framed with threats.
|
| This was a 180 turn that led to the Maidan Revolution and
| the impeachment of the president. It was the decision of
| the President against the will of the majority of
| Ukrainians who voted to elect Yanukovych, who promised
| close ties with the EU including signing the Association
| Agreement.
|
| This was followed by Russia invading Ukraine in late
| 2013/early 2014 with "separatists"/"little green men".
|
| By the way - "pro-Russian" Ukrainians didn't revolt
| against the EU Association Agreement, it got Yanukovych
| elected.
|
| So again, you have strong misinformed opinions aligned
| with the Russian narrative, of a subject you don't seem
| to know that much about. That happens to be oddly aligned
| with some alternative media like The Rubin Report, Tim
| Pool, etc.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > After the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and the ousting of
| President Viktor Yanukovych, a divide between pro-
| European and pro-Russian factions in Ukraine became more
| pronounced.
|
| > In the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, many
| residents harbored pro-Russian sentiments due to
| historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to Russia.
|
| > Following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014,
| separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, supported by
| local pro-Russian factions, declared independence from
| Ukraine.
|
| These statements are false?
|
| > aligned with the Russian narrative
|
| That is merely coincidental.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _That is merely coincidental._
|
| What matters is that it's a false and misleading
| narrative.
|
| _These statements are false?_
|
| Yup - either false, or misleading/irrelevant. Time is
| short so we'll just go over 2 of them for now:
|
| _> In the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, many
| residents harbored pro-Russian sentiments due to
| historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to Russia._
|
| True, but irrelevant. Simply put, that wasn't was caused
| hostilities to happen.
|
| _> Following Russia 's annexation of Crimea in 2014,
| separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, supported by
| local pro-Russian factions, declared independence from
| Ukraine._
|
| Except there were no indigenous "separatist groups"
| driving the action. It was entirely coordinated by Russia
| from the very start.
|
| In other words: a foreign invasion.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > What matters is that it's a false and misleading
| narrative.
|
| Whether or not it aligns with whatever you say it does,
| does not necessarily make it right or wrong.
|
| "It is pro-Russian, therefore it is wrong" is wrong.
|
| I do not dismiss you because your views align with the
| pro-Ukrainian narrative, nor do I claim that you are
| wrong.
|
| In fact, I do not even claim that I am right. How would I
| really know? It is mostly hearsay.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Whether or not it aligns with whatever you say it does_
|
| It's wrong on its own merits, not on the basis of
| anything I say.
|
| _How would I really know? It is mostly hearsay._
|
| Actually it's not. It's actually pretty easy to get a
| good sense of what's going on, just by reading whatever
| sources one does read with a reasonably critical eye. And
| if one is really bold, by taking the care to read
| _diverse_ sources. What brought me to respond to you in
| this case is that you seemed be echoing talking points
| you had heard or read somewhere, but which were just not
| grounded in the basic reality of the situation.
|
| Talking to people actually from the region (actual real,
| regular people) can be very helpful, also.
|
| In fact to make this very simple for you: just completely
| forget everything you've read on the internet -- and just
| talk to people _actually affected by the situation_ for a
| while. You 'll definitely start to get a sense of what's
| hearsay and what's fact, very very quickly.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > you had heard or read somewhere
|
| I wish I could provide specific sources, but my
| information comes partly from Wikipedia and partly from
| conversations with others, most of whom hold pro-
| Ukrainian perspectives. There is significant sentiment
| against Russia and China in general, and I understand why
| (I am pretty much in the anti-China camp myself and I
| admittedly hold a bias against China). I have not even
| heard of "The Rubin Report" or "Tim Pool". I am somewhat
| familiar with Joe Rogan, but I have only watched one of
| his popular podcasts, the one featuring Elon Musk.
| aguaviva wrote:
| As you like, and what you're telling me about your
| information sources is quite helpful.
|
| The additional context I've provided (in regard to the
| initial causes of the conflict) is intended to be
| helpful, also.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > In fact to make this very simple for you: just
| completely forget everything you've read on the internet
| -- and just talk to people actually affected by the
| situation for a while. You'll definitely start to get a
| sense of what's hearsay and what's fact, very very
| quickly.
|
| Where can I find people who have lived through that
| situation as it unfolded? Are you one of those people by
| any chance?
|
| Talking to people from the region may indeed provide
| valuable insights and perspective that might not come
| through in articles, reports, or podcasts, but it is
| important to remember that personal experiences, while
| genuine, are often shaped by individual perspectives,
| biases, and incomplete information. We know that people
| living through a situation may not have access to all the
| facts, may interpret events differently, or may even
| unknowingly perpetuate misinformation they have
| encountered. Even those directly affected by events might
| be influenced by propaganda, local media narratives, or
| their own personal hardships, which can influence their
| understanding. This does not mean their accounts are
| worthless, however. We need to cross-check details,
| separate fact from emotion-driven narratives as much as
| possible.
|
| I believe it can be valuable for me to hear your personal
| perspective, for example.
| aguaviva wrote:
| First, if you ever get a chance to travel to Eastern
| Europe, you'll be very glad you did. Western Ukraine
| itself is actually reasonably safe (compared to many
| large cities in the world), though you should definitely
| do some research on your own (and have at least a few
| local contacts) before going over there.
|
| Most large cities in the West by now have substantial
| Ukrainian expat/refugee communities. In general they're
| pretty easy to find, and are quite friendly. Talking with
| people from other Eastern European countries (especially
| Poland and the Baltics) can be very helpful, also. As
| with people anywhere, some will be a bit nationalistic or
| have other axes to grind. But proportionally they are
| small in number. The vast majority are just regular
| people trying to get on with their lives, and make sense
| of the current insanity just as you and I.
|
| _Are you one of those people by any chance?_
|
| My own background is unimportant, but I will offer that
| I've spent significant amounts of time in countries
| affected by both Hitlerian and Stalinist (and other)
| dictatorships, and have had all kinds of conversations
| with people about these topics. Hearing personal stories
| about what their families went through in those years
| (virtually none were not affected in some way) really
| helps to size things up in the bigger picture, and avoid
| the charms and traps of highly ideological narratives.
|
| Finally, any amount of serious reading about pre-1999
| (that is, pre-Putin) Cold War history, preferably by
| hard-nosed academic historians (and not pundits like
| Mearsheimer, Sachs et all; and unfortunately I have to
| say Chomsky also) can be very helpful also. (Technically
| the Cold War ended in by 1991, but another view is that
| it's still ongoing).
|
| _I believe it can be valuable for me to hear your
| personal perspective, for example._
|
| I apprecite your forthrightness, and if I came across as
| browbeating or arrogant, I take it back and apologize.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > My own background is unimportant, but I will offer that
| I've spent significant amounts of time in countries
| affected by both Hitlerian and Stalinist (and other)
| dictatorships, and have had all kinds of conversations
| with people about these topics. Hearing personal stories
| about what their families went through in those years
| (virtually none were not affected in some way) really
| helps to size things up in the bigger picture, and avoid
| the charms and traps of highly ideological narratives.
|
| This reminds me of videos from "Bald and Bankrupt" where
| people in villages have said that life was better under
| communism.
|
| > I apprecite your forthrightness, and if I came across
| as browbeating or arrogant, I take it back and apologize.
|
| No hard feelings. :) I did not read any arrogance into
| your comments. Thank you for your replies, I really
| appreciate them! I will need some time to reflect on them
| and delve deeper into what has been said.
| mopsi wrote:
| > These statements are false?
|
| Yes. The "separatists" were entirely a fiction created by
| Russian armed forces as a cover and pretext for their
| invasion. The lengthy verdict by the European Court of
| Human Rights[1] lays it all out and concludes that there
| is no reason to consider "separatists" anything less than
| unmarked members of Russian armed forces or security
| services. The entire story about ethnic tensions that
| resulted in "pro-Russian Ukrainians rising up against
| Kyiv government" and Russia coming to their support is a
| total bunk, a manufactured lie trying to misrepresent an
| unprovoked invasion by a foreign country as a
| stereotypical third world civil war that western
| audiences are accustomed to. Russians are playing
| directly into your stereotypes to erode support for
| Ukraine.
|
| [1] https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-
| 222889%...}
| libertine wrote:
| > After the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution and the ousting of
| President Viktor Yanukovych, a divide between pro-
| European and pro-Russian factions in Ukraine became more
| pronounced.
|
| This is a broad irrelevant statement. The signing of the
| EU Association Agreement was part of Yanukovych's
| campaign, and Ukrainians elected him. The "pro-russia
| factions" is a Russian construction.
|
| A small fraction of the Ukrainians might have disagreed
| with the impeachment, but it was THEIR ELECTED OFFICIALS
| in the parliament that impeached the president - BY
| MAJORITY VOTE[0]. So the elected deputies did what they
| believed was in the interest of those who elected them.
|
| That's democracy, and Ukraine is a democracy. Those who
| were unhappy could change their vote to elect other
| deputies on the following elections.
|
| No Ukrainians wanted their families killed, and cities
| occupied and razed by Russia.
|
| That's yet again, another Russian narrative spin, along
| with the "Ukrainians don't have agency/will of its own"
| implication.
|
| > In the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, many
| residents harbored pro-Russian sentiments due to
| historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to Russia.
|
| Ukraine was a former soviet state, where many Ukrainians
| have family in both Ukraine and Russia. I don't get the
| point you're trying to make from "sentiments" to a war of
| occupation with +1.000.000 casualties, 10.000.000
| refugees, +25.000 kidnapped children.
|
| > Following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014,
| separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk, supported by
| local pro-Russian factions, declared independence from
| Ukraine.
|
| Yes, there was a theatrical display of claims of
| independence, and Russia did some more of it in 2022 with
| the "referendums" of occupied territory - which of course
| no sovereign country recognized, except for Syria, and
| North Korea. What's your point here and why do you stand
| with Syria and North Korea in these recognitions?
|
| ----
|
| So, overall those statements are decontextualized,
| rendering some of them wrong or irrelevant/misleading. If
| you were trying to make some point here, I don't see it,
| just confirms what I said before.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_Ukraine
| johnisgood wrote:
| I am not trying to make a point; I am simply exploring,
| exchanging ideas, and sharing thoughts that provoke a
| response, allowing me to hear another's perspective on
| the matter. :)
|
| I may be wrong, and I want to get an understanding as to
| why that may be the case.
| aguaviva wrote:
| No, it began with Russia's regime sending paid
| mercenaries (to the Donbas) and regular troops (to the
| Crima) in March-April of 2014. There was no indigenous
| revolt of any significance before this happened. Even
| pro-Russian sources acknowledge this fact.
| petre wrote:
| Billions of dollars worth of Gulf War era weapons some of
| which they need to replenish anyway. It actually did help a
| lot but it's apparently still not enough to win this war. I
| beleieve that the US strategy is to slowly grind the
| Russians, supplying Ukraine with just enough weapons so
| that both sides are fighting a positional warfare. The
| trouble is this strategy is not working and Russia has
| already escalated by involving DPRK troops.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| What exactly would "properly" arming Ukraine look like? The
| entire Western world doesn't produce enough Patriot missiles
| to meet Ukraine's air defense needs, just as one critical
| example. We are aiming for a global production target of 750
| missiles/year ( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15354795
| ).... Russia has fired about 6,000 missiles and large drones
| per year ( https://kyivindependent.com/defense-ministry-
| over-2-000-russ... ).
|
| You can send Ukraine all of the F-16s in the world, it won't
| matter if there aren't enough Ukrainian pilots with the
| linguistic skills to get them through the Western training
| pipelines.
|
| The reality is that the West can't make the math work at a
| level of commitment/investment that it is willing to accept.
| To say nothing of the steadily-worsening problem of "lack of
| living, breathing Ukrainian men _willing_ to do the fighting
| in the first place "...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What exactly would "properly" arming Ukraine look like?_
|
| More long-range offensive weapons and clearance to hit
| sites in Russia. Let Israel know that we wouldn't mind them
| taking out the Iranian drone factories supplying Russia.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Even the pentagons own assessments say this won't make
| much difference.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Even the pentagons own assessments say this won't make
| much difference_
|
| I mean yes, it's also what the press secretary has been
| saying. They've been wrong at every step to date because
| Biden has been wrong about this.
| fractallyte wrote:
| The Pentagon made a number of flawed assessments, each
| one upended by Ukraine's determined actions.
|
| And let's use some Feynman-style common sense: taking out
| airfields, ammunition depots, and logistics _WILL_ help
| Ukraine 's defense immensely.
|
| I would go further and question which clowns are running
| the show in the Pentagon, but maybe I should keep my cool
| over that matter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _would go further and question which clowns are running
| the show in the Pentagon, but maybe I should keep my cool
| over that matter_
|
| They're not incompetent. But they do serve at the
| pleasure of the President. That makes their public
| communications political.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Can't believe I had to scroll so for the first comment
| based on reality and not wishful thinking.
| fldskfjdslkfj wrote:
| Take 100 NATO F-16 pilots and grant them Ukrainian
| citizenship.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Who would want _Ukrainian citizenship_? Nobody. Certainly
| not experienced aviators who already hold more valuable
| /useful passports, and are probably on a career track
| that leads to them becoming airline pilots and making
| very nice salaries.
|
| Gonky and Mover, two veteran US fighter pilots on YT, had
| a video segment discussing foreign pilots flying for
| Ukraine....they both totally shit on the idea. The risks
| are too high and the potential compensation is too low.
| These guys have no desire to tangle with Su-35s and
| MiG-31s chucking R-37M missiles, likely from beyond the
| effective engagement range of the F-16 + AIM-120 combo.
|
| https://www.eurasiantimes.com/mig-31-and-vympel-r-37m-a-
| form...
|
| https://warriormaven.com/russia-ukraine/upgraded-russian-
| mig...
| brohee wrote:
| The large drones (if you mean Shahed by that) absolutely
| don't need a Patriot response. More Gepards would help with
| those OTOH.
|
| The West could definitely manufacture enough counter to the
| ballistic missile menace.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We 're stuck between having to do timid actions and full
| NATO escalation_
|
| If only there were someone applying pressure to Russia we could
| have fight for us!
| PKop wrote:
| So sacrifice more Ukrainian men for the meat grinder? What
| has that accomplished so far?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _sacrifice more Ukrainian men for the meat grinder?_
|
| To the extent there's a meat grinder, it's of Russians [1].
|
| > _What has that accomplished so far?_
|
| Russia's disqualifying itself as a conventional military
| threat for at least a generation. It's not yet there yet,
| largely because Ukraine has been unable to target its war
| marchine. But the startling inefficacy of its army and
| technology has been made clear. Moreover, the front line
| has been maintained in Ukraine: that keeps them further
| from NATO and thus American and European boys at home.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-
| Ukrain...
| aguaviva wrote:
| _To the extent there 's a meat grinder, it's of
| Russians._
|
| That seems unfair. It's _more_ of a meat grinder for the
| aggressor, but it 's also one for the Ukrainians, by all
| indications.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I don't know where people get this idea from. Losses in
| trench warfare-ish should be roughly proportional to
| number of incoming shells. Which have been lopsided the
| whole war, by a factor of multiple times.
| aguaviva wrote:
| It has already been acknowledged that the rates are
| "lopsided", i.e. that Russian loss rates are higher than
| Ukrainian loss rates.
|
| But none of what you're saying means that Ukraine isn't
| _also_ suffering from a very high loss rate.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Sorry. I meant that I believe the loss ratio to be the
| opposite of what you wrote. My reasoning is that the
| artillery advantage should result in a proportional loss
| ratio to shells fired in a more or less trench war, and
| that most analysis made are wishful thinking with a lot
| of hand-waving. I.e. 4 times more shells fired at a side,
| about 4 times more losses.
|
| However, I feel like I am alone in the world to believe
| that. So, ye, I might be wrong. But I still feel
| gaslighted. Which to be honest, I quite often do fell
| without a good reason.
|
| I don't understand what is happening...
| chgs wrote:
| Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have died, maybe hunderds
| of thousands.
| rightbyte wrote:
| We have no clue what so ever. Like your range is 10x and
| I can give no better.
|
| I am only talking about the ratio of losses. I estimate
| them to be like in the 1:3-1:10 range solely on fired
| artillery shells numbers that are reported from time to
| time.
|
| But then again, those shell numbers might be inaccurate
| or propaganda too. The difference being that I don't
| think they believe those numbers to leak that info.
| aguaviva wrote:
| Not "hundreds of thousands". That's just pure anxiety.
|
| Reliable estimate ranges are out there. They're easy to
| find. If you want to, you can find them.
|
| They're all below 100k.
| PKop wrote:
| >To the extent there's a meat grinder, it's of Russians
|
| It's of both. Why deny the fact Ukrainian men are dying
| in droves? This is disrespectful of those that paid the
| ultimate sacrifice. Pretending this is not extremely
| costly to Ukraine in manpower is denying reality. They
| have been increasing the age of conscripts as they're
| running out of young men.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why deny the fact Ukrainian men are dying in droves?_
|
| Nobody is. Meat grinder means excessive loss relative to
| necessity. The Ukranians are being slaughtered, but not
| mindlessly. They're fighting efficiently in respect of
| manpower.
|
| Also, had we given Ukraine all the weapons it asked for
| in 2022, we probably wouldn't have had a meat grinder.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > The Ukranians are being slaughtered, but not
| mindlessly. They're fighting efficiently in respect of
| manpower.
|
| They are not fighting efficiently.
|
| The Ukranian army fall back way too late. E.g. in
| Buchmat(?) they lingered and sent in reinforcement while
| the town was surrounded on three sides more or less.
|
| The same is happening in Kursk.
|
| 'Spearheads' are sensitive to be sided by artillery. A
| simple matter of geometry.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| And, hence, we should give them all the arms and tools
| they need and the freedom to use them to end it quickly.
| The dithering on behalf of Biden and Scholz is what's
| prolonging this.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| 1. Ukrainian borders are closed from day one. 2. Russian
| borders are open from day one. 3. Ukrainian conscription
| is keeping on going from day one, taking radical form in
| recent year or so (men being violently dragged from
| streets) 4. Russia has had a single conscription which
| lasted 3 months. 5. Ukrainians are risking their lives
| fleeing the country via rivers and mountains. Many
| escapers were found shot. 6. You can take a plane and
| emigrate from Russia. No obstacles.
|
| Yet you insist there are much more casualties in Russia.
| Where's the logic here?
| Sabinus wrote:
| Russia has a 3x larger population and so far has had the
| luxury of being able to pay (relatively) extremely high
| wages to entice people to go.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| Military wages are more or less the same. Russia has 3x
| more population but we're told that Russia suffers many
| times bigger losses vs ukrainian.
| barrenko wrote:
| Well currently ensuring happy holidays for the western-er
| part of Europe.
| marssaxman wrote:
| What business is that of ours? It's up to the Ukrainians
| what they are willing to do in defense of their country.
| PKop wrote:
| >we could have fight for us
|
| C'mon. Their funding is entirely US dependent. What
| business is that of ours? We are enabling it. How could
| you possibly ask the question "what business is that of
| ours"? Explain yourself, that question is absurd.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What business is that of ours? We are enabling it._
|
| They clearly want to fight! This is like arguing giving
| someone chemo is enabling their cancer.
| PKop wrote:
| Who is "they" and what is "clearly"? They are running out
| of men they can find to fight, and for quite a while the
| government and military used very aggressive methods to
| force men into service. There is a huge desertion
| problem, in the military and the country itself. A whole
| lot of Ukrainians _do not_ want to fight.
|
| https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ukraine-running-
| out-s...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Who is "they" and what is "clearly"?_
|
| Who do you think?
|
| > _A whole lot of Ukrainians do not want to fight_
|
| Yes, there is not unanimous agreement on a big political
| question. Shocking. By this measure, nobody should ever
| fight for everything.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _A whole lot of Ukrainians do not want to fight._
|
| A whole lot of people don't want to fight in _any_ war.
|
| What matters is the _relative portion_. Though they my
| differ in the views as to whether the lost regions can be
| regained, or on what terms a cease-fire may be acceptable
| -- by all indications, a very solid majority of the
| society in non-occupied Ukraine supports the fight.
|
| _Who is "they" and what is "clearly"?_
|
| About 60-80 percent of the population. "Clearly" as in
| according to reliable polling data I can pull up later.
| Or by spending any amount of time talking to Ukrainians.
|
| _There is a huge desertion problem,_
|
| It is obviously a significant problem, but a better
| source is needed on the "huge" part. The link you
| provided does not support that view.
|
| If I hear "desertion is a huge problem", what comes to
| mind it the situation in Afghanstan after the notorious
| Trump-Biden pullout. The situation in Ukraine is nothing
| like that, not even remotely.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| Exactly because Ukrainians want to fight their borders
| are closed from the day one. Because the people that want
| to fight should be kept in their country by force, North
| Korea style. I'm not sure how it works, but well.
| Sabinus wrote:
| This perspective on conscription is odd to me. Countries
| do conscription during existential wars. The Allies used
| conscription in WW2. Was that wrong?
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >C'mon. Their funding is entirely US dependent.
|
| I believe you're misinformed about that.
| The majority of committed support by country has come
| from the United States, whose total aid commitment
| is valued at about $75 billion. The U.S. is
| followed by Germany and the United Kingdom for highest
| commitments overall. The European Union as a
| whole has committed approximately $93 billion in aid
| to Ukraine.[0]
|
| While the US is largest donor by country, the EU as a
| whole has contributed more than the US.[1] Which is
| unsurprising, given the circumstances.
|
| So no. Ukraine funding is not _entirely_ dependent on the
| US. Not even close.
|
| [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| countries/articles/these-co...
|
| [1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-
| ukraine/ukraine-s...
| GordonS wrote:
| Right... but the EU is acting as US' proxy; the EU only
| threw all that money at the Ukraine (destroying itself
| economically in the process!) because of US "influence".
|
| Many EU countries are now little more than US vassals.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Many EU countries are now little more than US vassals_
|
| They're nothing of the sort. Your perspective is
| seriously out of touch with reality.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| Given that Russia is invading them and that they are
| showing no reluctance to stand up to them, yes? Arm them,
| give them everything they need without restriction and
| Russia will be sent home to their borders, bloodied and
| cowed.
| jerlam wrote:
| From history: "Flexible Response" was a policy implemented by
| JFK in 1961, in response to previous administration's over-
| reliance on massive retaliation.
|
| Of course, it dragged the United States into Vietnam as things
| slowly escalated.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| IMO the right action is to counterattack with equal force,
| ideally in the same way. So cut one of their undersea cabals,
| fly jets near or over their airspace, etc.
|
| That way, there's a clear line for what NATO will and won't do
| that Russia can understand. If attacks escalate it will be
| Russia that escalated every time. If Russia feels it's
| threatened, all they have to do is stop the attacks and NATO
| will stop. If Russia is going to nuclear warfare over not being
| able to unevenly harass NATO, because we can't read Putin and
| the oligarchs' minds, and what objective measure would allow
| that but not allow Russia to go nuclear warfare over not
| enslaving all of NATO, or claiming they can/others can't do
| everything not written unambiguously in a treaty (which would
| extend to new technologies like partitioning the solar system
| that we couldn't have thought ahead-of-time)?
|
| But I'm no diplomat, so maybe I'm wrong and my idea would be
| catastrophic.
| fuoqi wrote:
| >fly jets near
|
| It's regularly done by both sides. And not only with jets,
| but also with nuclear-capable strategic bombers.
|
| >over their airspace
|
| Shooting it down will be a no-brainer for Russia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident
|
| >If attacks escalate it will be Russia that escalated every
| time.
|
| So sending jets into their airspace is not an escalation, but
| shooting down the plain is? Yeap, you are not a diplomat.
|
| Should I remind you how US reacted to the Soviet military
| presence in Cuba? On the US scale Ukraine is somewhere
| between Mexico and Texas in importance for Russia from the
| military point of view.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| I don't know whether Russia is flying jets over NATO
| airspace. If they're not then NATO shouldn't be flying them
| over Russia.
|
| In my idea it would be essential to confirm Russia is
| responsible for anything before the even counterattack. If
| there's an attack NATO can't confirm, the only thing they
| would do is defend and monitor more closely in case Russia
| tries the same attack in the future. Only the things that
| the Russian government definitely does to NATO, NATO would
| do to them.
| fuoqi wrote:
| So according to this principle, Russia can send military
| aid to the Syrian government to strike the US military
| bases on its territory and the US should not be able to
| retaliate?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Or station nukes in Venezuela
| armchairhacker wrote:
| In that case the US would be allowed to send aid to some
| other government to strike Russia (they're currently
| doing this with Ukraine but for a separate reason, for
| Ukraine's self-defense...)
|
| Or in an ideal world, the US pays Syria more to not
| attack them, maybe even gets them to sign a treaty and
| commits to building Syria's economy and protecting them
| so they don't feel compelled to take Russian bribes.
| Although, it's certainly not so straightforward, prior US
| involvements in foreign countries have been disasters so
| it would have to be different somehow...
|
| There are many other ways Russia could attack NATO that
| would be very hard to prove or evenly-counter. Russia
| could create a culture of NATO hatred and aggression,
| then set up "rewards" that are given out for obscure
| reasons, to get Russian NGOs and citizens to attack NATO
| in their own will. Then NATO can only encourage citizens
| to attack Russia, which I don't think any treaties forbid
| anyways, and creating a culture of hate is bad for other
| reasons. It's not a foolproof system.
|
| But like for this event, there's evidence beyond
| reasonable doubt that the Russian government is directly
| involved (https://www.newsweek.com/russia-pipeline-gas-
| patrushev-putin...). And there are other ways NATO can
| weaken Russia's influence without even attacking them,
| like not trading with them, and (indirectly, by having a
| more liberal government) encouraging Russian citizens to
| emigrate.
| fuoqi wrote:
| So you do understand that the world can not work
| according to your simple tit-for-tat principle of
| "counterattack with equal force". It's a multi-
| dimensional game where each player has its own fairly
| opaque "reward function". "Equal force" from one point of
| view can become "disproportionate escalation" from
| another. This is where a proper understanding of your
| opponent becomes important.
|
| Even worse, inside US and Russian governments there are
| groups with their own interests and agendas. The
| military-industrial complex can be interested in further
| escalation and fearmongering (i.e. "good war"), while
| civilian industry would prefer some kind of compromise as
| soon as possible (i.e. "poor peace").
| rightbyte wrote:
| > The military-industrial complex can be interested in
| further escalation and fearmongering
|
| They have these 'mad dogs' to push for more war. But they
| would not profit from a great war.
|
| Depending on scenario their operations might be
| nationalized or they end up losing everything in a MAD
| scenario like the rest of us.
|
| But I wouldn't count on them knowing that judging from
| alot of the comments here...
| paganel wrote:
| > really needs to be dealt with.
|
| Ignoring the passive voice, who do you suggest should deal with
| that, more precisely? And how do you suggest "dealing" with one
| of the two nuclear hyper-powers in existence? (the other one
| being the Americans)
| leshokunin wrote:
| Maybe I should clarify that I am not in charge of any
| executive or military branch in the EU or NATO. I express my
| frustration with our leadership.
|
| If you're interested in how I think it should be sorted: the
| cables are between Finland and Germany. I think we start with
| Finland and Germany: - stepping updiplomatic pressure. -
| Expulsion of Russian and Belarusian diplomats. - Confiscation
| of Russian owned properties. - Freezing bank accounts. -
| Increasing tariffs on their goods - Reducing overall trade. -
| Increasing spending on national defense - And weapons
| production. - Increasing aid to Ukraine.
|
| The military leadership is seriously considering that Russia
| might push for the Baltics (meaning, the EU) within 4 years.
| The EU is not at peace with Russia. They are biding time for
| a war they need to prepare for.
| staplung wrote:
| It's worth mentioning that cable breakages happen quite often;
| globally about 200 times per year [1] and the article itself
| mentions that just last year, two other cables and a gas pipeline
| were taken out by an anchor. The Gulf of Finland is evidently
| quite shallow. From what I understand, cable repair ships are
| likely to use ROVs for parts of repair jobs but only when the
| water is shallow so hopefully they can figure out whether the
| damage looks like sabotage before they sever the cable to repair
| it. Of course, if you're a bad actor and want plausible
| deniability, maybe you'd make it _look_ like anchor damage or,
| deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables.
|
| Cable repairs are certainly annoying and for the operator of the
| cable, expensive. However, they are usually repaired relatively
| quickly. I'd be more worried if many more cables were severed at
| the same time. If you're only going to break one or two a year,
| you might as well not bother.
|
| 1: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-
| undersea...
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is a misleading framing. The two cables last year were not
| taken out by an anchor as an accident, it was literally a ship
| putting down its anchor just before the cable and then dragging
| it over the cable. In other words, sabotage. There's no point
| in trying to color any of this with rose tinted glasses when
| it's clear who's done it and why.
| qingcharles wrote:
| They just released a statement saying it is sad that they
| have to be suspicious that it is, perhaps, sabotage:
|
| https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/-/2685132
| account42 wrote:
| Oh no, the EU is _gasp_ deeply concerned.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Have you filed your observations of the ships anchor at sea
| to the authorities? Because it does sound strange, if you
| indeed have a witness to this, that they dropped and then
| hoisted their anchors to damage infrastructure four times
| that day:
|
| > Swedish-Estonian telecoms cable at 1513 GMT, then over the
| Russian cable at around 2020 GMT, the [Balticconnector gas
| pipeline] at 2220 GMT and a Finland-Estonia telecoms line at
| 2349 GMT.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-telecoms-
| ca...
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> it was literally a ship putting down its anchor just
| before the cable and then dragging it over the cable_
|
| I don't understand. That's how I'd expect most accidents to
| happen. Someone decides to anchor too close to an undersea
| cable, the anchor fails to hold and the drifting ship drags
| the anchor over the cable damaging it.
|
| I'm not saying it wasn't sabotage, but there needs to be
| something a bit more than that.
|
| Source: have dragged anchors - thankfully never near undersea
| cables
| roenxi wrote:
| I can only upvote. How does the anchor come into contact
| with the cable if not by that exact sequence of steps? The
| ship isn't sailing through the Gulf with its anchor down,
| it has to go near the cable, drop anchor then drag.
| Otherwise the cable and anchor will not interact. This is
| the only way an accident could happen (almost).
| Loudergood wrote:
| The problem comes when most of these cables land right at
| major ports.
| lrasinen wrote:
| New New Polar Bear (the Nov 2023 case) was definitely
| sailing down the Gulf with its anchor down. Estonian
| defense minister stated at the time there are drag tracks
| in the seabed for "over 185 km".
|
| (Source:
| https://www.hs.fi/maailma/art-2000010015226.html)
| Maxion wrote:
| The case last year with the gas pipeline, the Chinese /
| Russian owned left Kaliningrad, and then while sailing,
| dropped its anchor before the pipeline and cable, and then
| dragged it over them, and then raised it. It was
| _apparently_ accidental, yet both the Chinese and Russians
| didn 't want the crew interviewed, the Estonian and the
| Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care,
| and the Estonian energy prices were severly impacted for ~9
| months.
|
| IMO very very likely sabotage, and brushed under the rug in
| fear of Russian escalation.
| card_zero wrote:
| * The Chinese / Russian owned _what_ left Kaliningrad?
|
| * Which pipeline?
|
| * Last year (2023), not 2022?
| smcl wrote:
| There are very few things which can be described as
| "setting sail" and can "drop anchor" so I think you can
| fill the gap easily
| jpc0 wrote:
| Of the big metal things that can "set sail" and "drop
| anchor" there happens to be a very large set of
| classifications...
|
| But using your heuristics, that catamarang crew should
| probably have been interviewed.
| smcl wrote:
| I think you tried to be a bit too clever there in
| choosing one of the "big metal things" that you didn't
| know how to spell :-)
| jpc0 wrote:
| Generally misspellings like this kind of proves the
| point...
|
| The comment means nothing, neither mine nor the one I
| commented on so I won't even bother looking up the
| spelling.
|
| It's more important to understand why the comment is
| there.
|
| The GP asked what boat, parent effectively said "a boat"
| which doesn't answer the question. My comment was one of
| the least likely options, but hey I could have said
| sailboat...
|
| Not an excuse either but realistically I on a daily basis
| speak two languages and often interact with people who
| can barely speak one of those two so I have some basic
| understanding of a third... Sometimes I can't remember
| which one spelling rules come from. Not an excuse, it's
| easy enough to look it up but just context.
| kookamamie wrote:
| A ship. The ship is named Newnew Polar Bear.
| ninjin wrote:
| Reference for those of us unfamiliar with the incident:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear#Damage_to
| _un...
| card_zero wrote:
| Thank you! Had heard nothing about this one.
| pelasaco wrote:
| "In August 2024, an internal Chinese investigation
| indicated that the ship was indeed responsible for the
| damage, claiming it was an accident due to heavy weather
| rather than intentional sabotage.[23][24]"
|
| The internal Chinese investigation indicated that was an
| accident.. LOL
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The Finnish authorities know exactly who did it, but what
| are they going to do?
|
| Sanction Russia? Fire a few missiles at Moscow? Write a
| sternly worded letter?
|
| It's just added to the pile of "shit that Russia does
| without repercussions" which is opened when (not if) they
| actually cross the border to Finland and find out what
| happens when you fuck around with a country who's been
| preparing for Russian invasion for 100 years.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| Action does not need to be immediate.
|
| Plan is clear: continue suppporting Ukraine, continue
| Russian isolation.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| Highly likely ))
| benterix wrote:
| > IMO very very likely sabotage, and brushed under the
| rug in fear of Russian escalation.
|
| But what can they do? Imagine you are the leader of a
| small European country like the Netherlands, and one day
| Russia decides to shot down your passenger plane with 300
| people on board. You can do absolutely nothing.
|
| But once a proxy war started, of course the Netherlands
| are doing their best to make Putin pay for the lives of
| these innocent people. He basically alienated many
| countries in this way and then complains of
| "Russophobia".
| m4rtink wrote:
| Yep, they can and they did:
|
| https://english.defensie.nl/downloads/publications/2024/0
| 9/2...
|
| Or the Netherlands section here:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_U
| kra...
|
| 350+ APCs, 150+ MBTs, Patriot bateries, SPGs, F16s - I'm
| sure those on the receiving end do think that their
| Donbas proxies could have been a bit less trigger happy
| when the loaned them that Buk AA system back in 2014.
|
| Those 298 inoccent victims, 193 of them citizens of
| Netherlands will be avenged many times over.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and
| didn't really care"
|
| Is this true?
|
| Or
|
| Are we now in a world where we are all living in fear of
| actual military retribution for speaking out?
| coretx wrote:
| NATO countries don't or barely respond because subversion
| requires a response. Russia is constantly pulling low
| hanging fruit hoping for as much commotion, fear, etc.
| It's party of their destabilization and subversion
| tactics. This is why authorities are not loud, but calm &
| stoic. And it works, very few people around me are aware
| of the fact that Russia has blown up NATO ammunition
| depots, liquidated politicians and has spread bombs on
| mail flights. During WW2 the British had a great slogan:
| /Keep Calm and Carry On/. It actually helps the war
| effort, unlike public outcry, wild speculation & unrest.
| alt227 wrote:
| > Russia has blown up NATO ammunition depots
|
| Can you give a link to some information on this please?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammuniti
| on_...
| holoduke wrote:
| For the non westerns the west is constantly bribing and
| threatening other nations to comply with their economic
| expansion drift. In the end we are all tribal nations.
| And even the west isntva tiny bit better than others.
| Unfortunately propoganda at all sides make people
| sticking to one side, condemning the other.
| brnt wrote:
| Yeah if I could just anchor these boats right when its
| windy just over your cables that'd be great.
|
| Whoopsy, well would you ever!
| stoperaticless wrote:
| Have you draged anchor for 100+km?
| Suppafly wrote:
| >I don't understand. That's how I'd expect most accidents
| to happen. Someone decides to anchor too close to an
| undersea cable, the anchor fails to hold and the drifting
| ship drags the anchor over the cable damaging it.
|
| In most of these cases, it's Russian ships dropping their
| anchors in areas where the cables are known to be and then
| driving around in circles until they snag and break it.
| It's not even slightly plausible that they'd be doing it
| accidentally.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| the culprits have been getting chased around the north sea
| for the past two months suspected of attempting to perpetrate
| the same in other locations.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| Well, you never know 100%. There is a small (really small)
| chance it was an accident. Just like there is a small chance
| that Al Capone was innocent man.
|
| (But really, it clearly has "Russia" written all over it)
| pelasaco wrote:
| just to be honest, the Pipelines explosion, had "Russia"
| written all over it, except after investigation, and a
| possible culprit, i.e not Russia, then nobody wanted to
| discuss about it anymore. I think the hysteria is too high,
| people are thirsty for War, looks like..
| mciancia wrote:
| > people are thirsty for War, looks like
|
| Russians, yes
| vasco wrote:
| I wish I lived in a world where it's so easy to know who
| is good and who is evil and to pinpoint them so well.
| peutetre wrote:
| You do. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not an ambiguous
| war. Russia is plainly in the wrong.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| Lot of Russian Apologist.
|
| Russia invades Ukraine -> It is Biden's fault, he ordered
| it.
|
| Russia actually invading and killing -> It was NATO's
| fault for discussing admission.
|
| Like, Russia is actually 'doing the bad things'.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Like, Russia is actually 'doing the bad things'.
|
| Yes, Russia is doing bad things.. But do we really need
| or want a third World War because of it? It's not
| Ukraine's fault that Russia invaded, but Ukraine bears
| responsibility for having been so corrupt over the past
| 20 years and for being irresponsible given its proximity
| to Russia. We still don't know how much of the aid sent
| to Ukraine is being lost to corruption... So I am not
| willing to fight this War.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| You should definitely stay home then. Other people are
| doing the fighting for you.
| pelasaco wrote:
| For me? Definitely not for me. But my country investing
| my pension, health infrastructure, education system to
| support their civilians. Even you and all other Ukraine
| that spend the day online here, are being paid by us.
| Still, no reason to Europe to go to war for Ukraine, but
| instead invest our military budget in our NATO partners
| and preparing to defend them.
| mopsi wrote:
| If you ask European military leaders where we should
| invest and how we should prepare, they'll tell you that
| strong support of Ukraine is one of the best investments
| into European defense that you could make at the moment.
| They calculate that it's better to stop Russia in Ukraine
| than to face Russia (with additional resources from fully
| occupied Ukraine) in Poland or elsewhere.
|
| Military leaders are pragmatic people and this is a
| pragmatic approach. We have a problem. We see that the
| problem has grown in time and will grow further if
| ignored. So it's better to deal with the problem now
| rather than waste valuable time and face an even larger
| problem in 5 to 8 years.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Military leaders are pragmatic people and this is a
| pragmatic approach.
|
| Military leaders are politicians. I am in the Military.
| The official position, is inline with what the political
| leaders want. Internally, the same Military leaders
| disagree with the politicians. Internally all say the
| same: There is no accountability and responsibility in
| Ukraine. Better is to concentrate our resources where
| matters: NATO. Ukraine is necessary strategically to
| consume Russian men, artillery, etc.. That's the military
| opinion that we hear internally.
| mopsi wrote:
| > Military leaders are politicians. I am in the Military.
| The official position, is inline with what the political
| leaders want.
|
| That's not the case in countries bordering Russia,
| starting from Finland and heading south, where military
| leaders take a lot of pride in being constitutionally
| independent like supreme court judges. Politicians would
| very much prefer to hide behind NATO guarantees and
| pretent that the risk does not exist and that the
| Americans would come to save us (without specifying any
| details), whereas military assessments are much more
| calculated and take into account hard facts like
| redeployment speed of a brigade or daily ammo
| expenditure. Assessments from military circles have so
| far been consistently the closest to how events have
| actually unfolded.
|
| They case they are presenting is a no-brainer. It is by
| all measures significantly cheaper - by orders of
| magnitude - to support Ukraine in halting Russians in
| Eastern Ukraine than to fight invaders on our home turf.
| pelasaco wrote:
| Exactly. They need Ukraine to keep Russia busy. Other
| than people try to convince us, Men matter. Every single
| russian soldier that dies, fighting in Ukraine, is one
| less potential barbarian in their border, that's all
| truth, but people should understand, it's not about
| saving Ukraine, but about protecting themselves.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| What would Reagan have said to this?
|
| "USSR, why bother pushing back, not my problem, can't I
| just go to the mall and hang out?"
| pelasaco wrote:
| That's not how it goes. We are supporting Ukraine in a
| level that nobody does. Germany is investing the pension
| from everyone under 45 years old, education and health
| system, just to support ukraine. All Ukraine online
| warriors here in Hackernews, are here being support
| financially by us. It doesn't mean however we should go
| to War for it. The online warriors here aren't there too,
| but here in Germany, "figthing online" with +1 or -1...
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Guess I was thinking in terms of 'support'.
|
| During the Cold War, the US and Russia were not 'At War'.
| But US did financial support a ton of countries, with a
| lot of money.
|
| So why not do that now? Still fighting Russia. Still not
| 'head to head', but with Proxies.
|
| This seems like arguing to stop supporting our Proxy and
| let Russia take them. But there is still an argument to
| not give up.
|
| Lets say Russia wins, and re-integrates Ukraine.
|
| Now what does the world look like in 20 years when Russia
| is eye-balling Poland?
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Lets say Russia wins, and re-integrates Ukraine.
|
| It won't happen. If you think so then, you are not well
| informed about this topic. Russia has no manpower to "re-
| integrate" the whole Ukraine. Ukraine will always exist,
| but for the next years, maybe not as big as in 2014.
| Ukraine can still prepare itself to take the lost area
| back in the future. That's up to Ukraine, not to Europe.
|
| Said that, one possibility, for now, which is part of the
| negotiations is Russia keep the conquered land, Ukraine
| joins EU/NATO. Realistically, it would be Ukraine joins
| EU and US won't block Ukraine applying to NATO.
|
| > Now what does the world look like in 20 years when
| Russia is eye-balling Poland?
|
| Poland, other than Ukraine, isn't one of the most corrupt
| countries in the World, and did their home-work. Beside
| it, other than Ukraine, Poland is NATO.
| vasco wrote:
| I don't know what goes on to comment. I'm not there and I
| don't fool myself into thinking that I know geopolitics
| just because I read some articles. My comment was
| replying to someone who said the Russians are the war
| thirsty people of the world. It's a bit rich because,
| there's a bunch of other ongoing wars in the world and
| people aren't just "bad" or "good"
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Objective facts though: Russia invaded Ukraine, in 2014
| and 2022. There was no formal declaration of war. There
| were widespread and indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
|
| Which parts of those are "good" in your opinion? Do you
| believe Russia's "denazification" claim?
|
| There are no international laws that legitimized Russia's
| invasion of Ukraine. If Ukraine was in violation of
| something, there's procedures in place to declare war
| legitimately - but before that there's the nonviolent
| approach, which Russia skipped.
| vasco wrote:
| No parts of the war are good - I didn't make any claims
| about the Russian war, I don't know what caused it or why
| it's going on, and I don't like wars. I don't believe
| most claims by either side, I doubt there's advantage in
| revealing the real reasons by either side - the articles
| we read are to craft an opinion either to support one
| side or the other and I don't think it's that simple -
| that's my whole point. I don't need to think a war is
| legitimate to have a reaction to someone saying there's
| one country with warmonger people and one country
| without. In general I think it's normal to side with the
| invaded party and I'm personally inclined to support that
| side - but it doesn't mean I tell myself I'm making some
| informed decision.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| With this rigid logic you might as well not trust
| anything you can't observe first hand yourself.
| peutetre wrote:
| > _I don 't know what goes on to comment._
|
| And yet you are commenting. Ignorance and a lack of
| curiosity are not compelling arguments.
|
| Maybe it's time to grow up and start paying attention.
| oneshtein wrote:
| This planet voted in UN that Russian Federation is
| aggressor. Which world you represent?
| limit499karma wrote:
| Maybe he is an Israeli.
| esarbe wrote:
| It is easy; nations that attack other nations unprovoked
| are "evil" (at fault).
|
| Ukraine has never infringed on Russia's sovereignty or
| territorial integrity before it was attacked. Therefor
| this war is entirely Russia's fault.
|
| The world is mostly shades of gray. But this case it
| black and white.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Are you aware of why NATO was founded? Are you aware that
| NATO expansion into Ukraine seemed very likely at the
| time of Russia's invasion?
|
| I am neither Russian nor European, so I don't have any
| horse in this race. But Russia's concerns sure seen valid
| from the outside.
| esarbe wrote:
| Russia's "concerns" are not valid.
|
| It's not even that there was absolutely no active process
| of joining NATO when Russia attacked Ukraine in February
| 2014 and started all this. No; if Ukraine wants to join
| NATO, that's entirely Ukraine's decision. Russia has no
| say in it. Ukraine is sovereign and can join any military
| alliance it wants. Just as Russia is free to do so.
|
| No nation has extra-territorial security interests that
| it needs to defend by attacking a neutral, peaceful and
| friendly neighbor.
|
| You have been fooled into defending imperialism. Or
| worse; you're consciously defending imperialism.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Russia's "concerns" are not valid.
|
| Dismissing Russia's concerns is exactly what led to this
| war. > It's not even that there was
| absolutely no active process of joining NATO when Russia
| attacked Ukraine in February 2014 and started all this.
| No; if Ukraine wants to join NATO, that's entirely
| Ukraine's decision. Russia has no say in it. Ukraine is
| sovereign and can join any military alliance it wants.
| Just as Russia is free to do so.
|
| NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit that "Ukraine
| will become a member of the Alliance" and reiterated that
| statement in the 2021 Brussels Summit. I didn't even
| remember those details, it was easy to find with google
| and a vague idea that NATO had shown interest in Ukraine.
|
| > No nation has extra-territorial security interests that
| it needs to defend by attacking a neutral, peaceful and
| friendly neighbor.
|
| Then you know nothing of US doctrine. The Central
| Americans will tell you how the US will even invade just
| to lower the price of bananas - no joke.
| > You have been fooled into defending imperialism. Or
| worse; you're consciously defending imperialism.
|
| No, I really don't have a side in this. I'm simply
| presenting Russia's viewpoint as I understand it. I also
| understand the Western viewpoint as well, but there's no
| need to defend it in present company, we all agree about
| NATO, European, and US positions on the matter.
| mopsi wrote:
| This is not "Russia's viewpoint", but a narrative to
| advance their ambition of enslaving again the roughly 100
| million people who became free after the USSR collapsed.
|
| The Russian viewpoint is that Eastern Europe would be
| much easier to conquer if they were internationally
| isolated and could be picked off one by one like in the
| 1940s. The current war against Ukraine is an excellent
| example of this; international cooperation is a leading
| reason for the failure of the invasion. All the
| complaints about NATO lead back to the fact that for
| Russia it elevates the cost of invading Eastern Europe.
| Without NATO, they would face only limited conventional
| forces in Poland. With NATO, an attack on Poland go as
| far as activating American carrier groups or even a
| nuclear response.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > It's not even that there was absolutely no active
| process of joining NATO when Russia attacked Ukraine in
| February 2014 and started all this. No; if Ukraine wants
| to join NATO, that's entirely Ukraine's decision. Russia
| has no say in it. Ukraine is sovereign and can join any
| military alliance it wants. Just as Russia is free to do
| so.
|
| > NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit that "Ukraine
| will become a member of the Alliance" and reiterated that
| statement in the 2021 Brussels Summit. I didn't even
| remember those details, it was easy to find with google
| and a vague idea that NATO had shown interest in Ukraine.
|
| A little bit more competent Googling would fill in the
| context you've clearly missed:
|
| (1) The 2008 statement was a way of mollifying Ukraine
| after acceding to Russia's demand that Ukraine and
| Georgia be denied NATO Membership Action Plans at the
| 2008 summit. (Russia responded, by the way, to this
| accession to their demands by invading Georgia. Might
| have done the same to the Ukraine soon after, except by
| the time they were at a stable point with Georgia, they'd
| already managed to get a Russia-friendly government in
| Ukraine.)
|
| (2) Ukraine publicly abandoned any interest in a foreign
| military alliance between the 2008 summit and the 2014
| invasion by Russia.
|
| (3) Ukraine abandoned its neutrality stance and restarted
| attempts to join NATO only _after_ the 2014 invasion.
|
| (4) The 2021 statement was, again, a way of putting a
| nice face for Ukraine on NATO again rejecting Ukraine's
| attempts to join in the near term.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Dismissing Russia 's concerns is exactly what led to
| this war._
|
| Provided one accepts that those concerns are valid.
|
| And that its stated "concerns" were in fact its _actual_
| reasons for starting the war.
|
| But there is no compelling logical basis for us to accept
| either of these premises.
|
| I don't have time to fully dissect what you're saying
| about the NATO issue -- other than that you are leaving
| out some _very_ important details which for some reason
| were not presented to you in whatever sources you are
| reading from. (Which is a polite way of telling you: your
| sources are apparently misinformed, or worse).
|
| But the main point is: none of the NATO stuff ever
| amounted to an actual physical threat against the Russian
| state, or otherwise any _rational reason_ for Russia 's
| regime to start a war.
|
| More to the point, it wasn't the real reason it chose to
| the start the war. It's just something it says, for
| internal and external propaganda purposes.
|
| So no - we don't have to "accept that Russia's concerns
| are valid".
| esarbe wrote:
| > Dismissing Russia's concerns is exactly what led to
| this war.
|
| No. Russia invading a peaceful, friendly and neutral
| neighbor with unmarked military units is what lead to
| this war.
|
| > NATO stated in the 2008 Bucharest Summit
|
| FR, ES and DE made it clear that Ukraine would not be a
| candidate for NATO and nothing came of it. The first step
| in admitting a nation into NATO is a Membership Action
| Plan (MAP) - there never was a such for Ukraine. NATO
| membership for Ukraine was dead in the water in 2014,
| when Russia heinously attacked with unmarked military
| units.
|
| But that is besides the point, really; Ukraine is
| sovereign. It is a sovereign nation that can itself
| decide which alliances to join. Ukraine is not beholden
| to Russia and Russia doesn't get a say in Ukrainian
| politics. Russia is not the Soviet Union and Ukraine is
| not the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
|
| > Then you know nothing of US doctrine.
|
| Ah, yes. The "this one over there is a murderer too"
| defense. You're still defending imperialism, you're just
| defending imperialism with more imperialism.
|
| > I'm simply presenting Russia's viewpoint as I
| understand it.
|
| Russia's viewpoint is that Ukraine has no right so
| sovereignty. That's in direct violation with multiple
| treaties with Ukraine that Russia has signed.
|
| Russia does not want an independent Ukraine. That's why
| they have been attacking Ukraine for 10 years now, first
| clandestine and then ever more openly. That's why they
| have been bombing civilians, that's why the formally
| annexed Ukrainian territory, that's why they will not
| grant peace to their neighbor.
|
| Because without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Why do they seem valid?
|
| How long has NATO been on russia's border? This is an
| important question. Please try to answer it.
| pasc1878 wrote:
| 4 April 1949 the day NATO was founded.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| NATO has been on both Russia's western (land) border and
| eastern (sea) border since it was founded in 1949.
| db48x wrote:
| The whole idea that NATO is a threat to Russia is
| ridiculous. Read Article 1 again. <https://www.nato.int/c
| ps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...>
| aa-jv wrote:
| Do _you_ know whether a Tomahawk missile is nuclear-
| tipped, or not?
|
| No, you don't.
|
| And neither do the Russians.
|
| So, are you going to be so superficial when Cuba gets
| Kalibr's deployed?
| mopsi wrote:
| What Tomahawks, where? If this is supposed to be some
| kind of clever hint about weapons in countries that have
| joined NATO since the end of the Cold War, then
| unfortunately none of them have Tomahawks, or anything
| close to them, or anything at all beyond the domestic
| conventional forces, so this entire comparision bears no
| resemblance to reality.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| What does it mean to be "nuclear tipped"?
|
| As in uses depleted uranium (because of density
| characteristics) or radioactive waste stuff just for
| being radioactive?
|
| (Obviously mass of tomahawk is too low for any chain
| nuclear reaction)
| dotancohen wrote:
| Yes, and Russia had similar "we won't be the first to be
| aggressive" language for many years as well. You can see
| that with new leadership comes new interpretations of
| when "peaceful means" are no longer sufficient.
|
| From Russia's perspective, NATO has been infringing on
| both Russia's sphere of influence and on her buffer
| states. Russia has _twice_ been invaded by the Europeans,
| she hasn't forgotten that. And with Ukraine in NATO,
| there are no natural barriers between European powers and
| Russia.
|
| Need I remind you how the US responded when the USSR set
| up missile positions in Cuba?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > And with Ukraine in NATO, there are no natural barriers
| between European powers and Russia.
|
| I have already asked you in another comment to tell me
| how long NATO has been literally on Russia's border.
|
| Why are you dodging the question?
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm not dodging questions. I'm demonstrating the Russian
| perspective. I don't care one way or the other.
|
| In any case, I'm not on HN constantly. Maybe once every
| hour or so I'll take a look. Aggressiveness and
| impatience are not appreciated on HN, if I get around to
| answering you I will. And maybe not if I don't feel that
| _I_ have something to learn from the conversation. I'm
| not here promoting some dogma, and I don't have to answer
| your questions.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| For. How. Long. Has. NATO. Been. On. Russia's. Border.
|
| Again, you are dodging the question.
|
| Either you will say they aren't, in service of your
| argument that russia invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO from
| coming up to their border, in which case you would be
| wrong since NATO has shared a border with russia in
| Europe for at least the past 24 years.
|
| Or, you will say at least the past 24 years, which
| undermines your argument that russia only invaded Ukraine
| to prevent NATO appearing at their immediate borders,
| since they were already there. For at least the past 24
| years.
|
| We can do this all day.
|
| I've got another question for you. Almost certainly you
| will dodge it, because it is blindingly obvious that you
| are not impartial as you pretend to be, and that you have
| a strong bias for the Putin regime and its illegal war
| and genocide, but let's go through the motions anyway.
|
| How did the Moskva sink?
| aguaviva wrote:
| _I 'm not dodging questions._
|
| You were absolutely, unequivocally were dodging the
| commenter's question.
|
| _I don 't care one way or the other._
|
| If you plainly don't care, and won't answer questions,
| and since you obviously don't invest the time to keep
| even basic tabs on the actual situation on the ground
| anyway -- then it's extremely difficult to see why you're
| bothering to engage at all, here. It looks like you're
| just out to stir the pot, basically.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Need I remind you how the US responded when the USSR set
| up missile positions in Cuba?_
|
| We can safely say "no", as the US never set up missile
| positions in Ukraine, or had any plan to.
|
| There's simply no analogy between the two situations.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Well, there was the Cuba missile equivalent of stationing
| missiles in Turkey. Which, seemingly as part of the
| negotiation to end the crisis, were removed from Turkey
| afterwards.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| NATO was founded to _defend_ against invasion from e.g.
| Russia, if it comes to pass. NATO has never and will
| never be an aggressor, see article 1 as someone pointed
| out.
|
| If anything, Russia has put themselves in serious shit
| for invading Ukraine. If they hadn't started this, over
| 600.000 of their people wouldn't be dead or wounded.
|
| How many countries has NATO invaded?
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| > NATO has never and will never be an aggressor
|
| Not to defend the regime in power then (nor now!), but if
| you ask Serbia they might offer some other lived
| experiences on how consensual Operation Allied Force was.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Why did NATO bomb Serbia?
| dotancohen wrote:
| > NATO was founded to defend against invasion from e.g.
| Russia
|
| Exactly. Russia views NATO as an anti-Russian entity. And
| both sides have phrases that amount roughly to "the best
| defense is an effective offense".
|
| Would you feel threatened if your neighbours set up
| weapons right outside your property line, ostensibly to
| defend in case you attack? And especially if they've
| already invaded your property twice (France and Germany
| both invaded Russia).
| mopsi wrote:
| What weapons? Cold War era stockpiles have been
| dismantled in Europe and nothing has been installed in
| countries that have joined since the Cold War.
| wbl wrote:
| Russia signed treaty after treaty saying countries can
| make their own alliances. NATO has not put nukes eastward
| or any permeant allied presence, other than the armies of
| the allied states themselves in the region.
|
| Russia refused to withdraw from Moldova to implement CFE
| II. This is not the action of a state worried that it's
| disadvantage in conventional arms will lead to invasion.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You act like there aren't a hundred missiles in Montana
| trained at russian targets for the past 70 years. Should
| russia invade montana?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Is Montana right up on Russia's border, severely limiting
| time to respond in case of launch?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| So why hasn't russia invaded Poland?
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Would you feel threatened if your neighbours set up
| weapons right outside your property line, ostensibly to
| defend in case you attack?_
|
| Except that never happened in Ukraine, or in any of the
| other NATO countries close to Russia.
|
| You know that, right?
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm showing you the Russian perspective. I don't care one
| way or the other.
| aguaviva wrote:
| Funny, it definitely seemed as if you were presenting it
| as your own.
| esarbe wrote:
| That's not the Russian "perspective", that's just a
| Russian propaganda lie.
|
| The actual Russian perspective is "Let's quickly grab
| Ukraine before they completely turn towards Europe,
| otherwise Russia cannot be an empire again."
| fsloth wrote:
| Bravo sir, this is Alexander cutting the knot of muddled
| relativism.
|
| It may be strange to modern western minds but Russians
| still consider their imperial project as wholesome, good
| and nearly sacred. To get into the correct mindstate, you
| can read for example how Churchill venerated the British
| empire. The Russians hold this same veneration to their
| imperial project today. They also know western audience
| probably would not appreciate this reasoning so they need
| to invent laughable excuses like "we were afraid of NATO
| expansion" that clueless western commentators happily
| repeat as the foundational reason.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| I guess it's one way to frame it. The other could be:
|
| Somebody is refusing to pay protection money and is
| forming a "neighbourhood watch". We need to make example
| of them.
| esarbe wrote:
| Ukraine was not a NATO member when Russia attacked it in
| February 2014, not was there a membership action plan to
| get Ukraine into NATO.
|
| This has nothing to do with NATO. Only with Russian
| imperialism.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Are you aware that NATO expansion into Ukraine seemed
| very likely at the time of Russia 's invasion?_
|
| Actually it was effectively impossible, as NATO's bylaws
| prevent the admission of states with active border
| conflicts. This is most likely (a large part of) why
| Putin invaded both Georgia and Ukraine -- to create
| permanent border conflicts, to prevent them from becoming
| NATO states.
|
| So in fact there was no imminent possibility of Ukraine
| becoming a NATO state at the time of the 2022 invasion.
| Which makes perfect sense, as it was never the reason
| Putin chose to launch the full-scale invasion, anyway.
| dmpk2k wrote:
| One thing I've learned watching politicians the past few
| decades is that laws are guidelines. If the political
| will exists, politicians will find a way.
| esarbe wrote:
| The war started in 2014. There was even less imminent
| possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO member back then,
| when Putin first sent unmarked military units to attack
| Ukraine.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _The war started in 2014._
|
| That's known, and already implicit in what I said.
| holowoodman wrote:
| West Germany joined NATO during an effective border
| conflict about whether it should actually be just
| Germany, reunified with the eastern parts. However, that
| conflict never actually was a war, just part of the "cold
| war".
| wbl wrote:
| They murdered an entire town. Well several. Raped and
| tortured those they didn't kill. Kidnap children to
| Russianize them. Torture and kill POWs. The only
| difference between them and the Germans is that they
| haven't carried out industrial slaughter of Jews.
| pelasaco wrote:
| And now Germans are paying Ukraine bills. History is much
| more complicated than we think..
| stoperaticless wrote:
| > I wish I lived in a world where it's so easy to know
| who is good and who is evil
|
| War and killings turn up the contrast, converting shades
| of gray to black and white, people to friends and
| enemies.
|
| I rather would live in peacetime, where it's less obvious
| who is good and who is bad.
| benterix wrote:
| > people are thirsty for War, looks like..
|
| Nobody in the West wants any war. The usual tactics of
| Putin is to do what he wants whether on his or foreign
| soil, using poisoning etc. in a way that everybody knows
| it's him but he will politely deny. It's a kind of a
| silly game, the GRU could just have put a bullet in
| Lytvynenko's head but they choose a slow death to show
| off.
| pelasaco wrote:
| I'm not sure that no one wants a war. I can see some
| groups profiting from it.. I see some politicians being
| quite blunt about it--some in Germany, for instance, who
| are well-known lobbyists for the defense industry.
| Biden's decision to allow the use of long-range weapons
| seems like a tactical political move designed to make
| Trump's life significantly harder from day one. It feels
| irresponsible, as it appears that war is being used both
| to weaken the opposition and to enrich the defense
| industry.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| A war in europe is not going to be profitable squared
| against the damage it will do to the global economy.
| Thats why the middle eastern wars were attractive for
| American coalition members. Defense contractors profit.
| You can demo new tech and tactics. And whatever damage
| you do in that corner of the world won't really impact
| anything at home.
| aftbit wrote:
| >Biden's decision to allow the use of long-range weapons
| seems like a tactical political move designed to make
| Trump's life significantly harder from day one.
|
| I have a different take on this, basically parroting
| Perun on YouTube. The lame duck period is the perfect
| time for escalatory steps, as the Russians always have
| the option of waiting until the new administration comes
| into office rather than responding aggressively. Trump
| will be free to re-impose whichever restrictions he
| wants, but he'll be starting from a stronger position.
| He'll have the "stop UA use of long-range weapons"
| bargaining chip, _and_ he'll be able to relatively
| costlessly blame Biden for the "bad decision" of allowing
| them.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Delivery of Russian gas was stopped by Russia in
| violation of contract. European gas companies demands $20
| billion in compensation. Nobody had incentive to blow up
| empty pipes except Russia.
|
| Of course, Russians used false flag as usual, to blame
| Ukraine, but Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on
| Russian infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right
| to defend itself.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Wait. Wasn't it Ukraine that blew up the pipeline? I'm
| all for them defending themselves.
|
| Are you saying it was actually Russia that did it? They
| blew up own pipeline?
| esarbe wrote:
| There's no actual evidence that Ukraine did it, lest
| alone solid proof.
|
| Russia is a probable candidate.
| calmoo wrote:
| There is some pretty compelling evidence that it was
| Ukraine. The CIA even tipped Germany off about the
| potential saboteurs
|
| https://archive.is/dPdoX
| esarbe wrote:
| What exactly is the evidence there? I read the article
| and all I see is hearsay.
|
| German investigations found that the Andromeda trail
| leads to Russia[0].
|
| [0] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/internationales/nord-
| stream-spur...
| gruez wrote:
| The "investigations" you reference were by German media,
| whereas the wsj article was allegedly from German
| authorities. Moreover, while you accuse the wsj article
| as "hearsay", the same is true for the tagesspiegel you
| linked. The crux of that article's claim is that the
| company that rented the yacht had Crimean owners with
| ties to Russia, but no proof was presented. We're asked
| to trust the journalists on that, just as we're asked to
| trust the wsj journalists on the facts of the German
| authorities' investigation.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| The Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD had
| infiltrants in Ukraine after MH-17 of a plot to blow up
| the Nord Stream, they tipped off the CIA, who in turn
| warned Ukraine not to do it, three months before it
| happened; source [0], translation [1].
|
| Germany has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukranian
| national [2] who along with two accomplices was on board
| the yacht Andromeda, which was located at the blast site
| days before the blast and on which traces of the same
| explosive was found as used on the pipelines, as well as
| DNA evidence.
|
| I suppose it's not "actual evidence Ukraine did it", but
| it's more than enough evidence to make a Ukranian
| national that since fled back to Ukraine a suspect.
|
| [0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2478770-vs-waarschuwde-
| oekraine-nord-... [1] https://nos-
| nl.translate.goog/artikel/2478770-vs-waarschuwde... [2]
| https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-explosions-germany-
| issues-...
| oneshtein wrote:
| > The two other suspects, a married couple who do not
| have warrants issued in their names, have denied knowing
| Z. and said that they were on vacation in Bulgaria when
| the attack took place.
|
| :-/
|
| So, one diver moved and installed 500kg of explosives in
| 4 places in front of a married couple?
| gruez wrote:
| >So, one diver moved and installed 500kg of explosives in
| 4 places in front of a married couple?
|
| Are you taking the married couples' claims at face value?
| The article mentions two divers, not one.
| gruez wrote:
| Why is "solid proof" required for the claim that
| Ukrainian nationals did it, but "probable candidate"
| suffices for Russia?
| esarbe wrote:
| To attribute culpability, you need solid proof. I'm not
| saying that Russia did it - simply that there's enough
| evidence that Russia had means, motive and opportunity -
| which makes it a probable candidate.
| eps wrote:
| There's an outstanding German warrant for 3 Ukrainians in
| connection with the incident.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-explosions-germany-
| issues-...
| oneshtein wrote:
| > The two other suspects, a married couple who do not
| have warrants issued in their names, have denied knowing
| Z. and said that they were on vacation in Bulgaria when
| the attack took place.
| nbman102 wrote:
| That is a very abbreviated history. There are two
| pipelines, NS-1 and NS-2, both of which have two pipes
| each. NS-1 was operational until a turbine had to be
| repaired in Canada. The bureaucratic process to allow the
| repair was arduous, but finally it got done and
| chancellor Scholz did a photo-op in front of the repaired
| turbine.
|
| _Then_ the Russians played coy and came up with counter-
| bureaucratic reasons why the repaired turbine could not
| be installed. Presumably to put pressure on Germany,
| which was afraid of the 2022 /2023 winter at the time.
|
| _Then_ two pipes of NS-1 and one pipe of NS-2 were blown
| up. Since no gas was flowing at the time, Russia had no
| reason to blow up its bargaining chip. Ukraine or the
| U.S. did have a reason.
|
| Russia also delivered gas to Austria through a pipeline
| that goes through Ukraine and for which _Ukraine
| collected transit fees_ until this year. Russia didn 't
| shut down or blow up that pipeline.
|
| From the point of view of the U.S. and Ukraine it does
| not make sense to blow up the Austrian pipeline because
| Austria is neutral anyway, so just let Ukraine collect
| the transit fees.
|
| Germany of course must be pressured to be the second
| largest financial and weapons supporter for Ukraine, so
| hey, let's blow up the pipeline of our "ally".
|
| Apart from Hersh's "the U.S. did it" theory, the Wall
| Street Journal recently blamed it on Zalushny. No other
| theories have emerged, but rest assured that if there
| were a credible Russia theory the Western press would
| shout it from the rooftops.
|
| Putin has offered multiple times to either open the
| remaining pipe of NS-2 or to route gas via Turkey:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-
| nord-s...
| oneshtein wrote:
| Russia had $20 billion reasons to blow up their gas
| pipelines and blame Ukraine for that.
| holoduke wrote:
| You mean vice versa i assume.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| While a false flag operation cannot be ruled out, I don't
| think the case is as clear-cut as you suggest.
|
| > Nobody had incentive to blow up empty pipes except
| Russia.
|
| I disagree: Russian gas was the one leverage Russia had
| over Germany. Blowing the pipeline ensured that Germany
| wouldn't be able to get out of the conflict quietly -
| "Germany still receiving Russian gas" would not receive
| as much condemnation as "Germany repairs Russian gas
| pipeline".
|
| > Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on Russian
| infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right to defend
| itself.
|
| True, but Ukraine doesn't have a legal right to sabotage
| the infrastructure of its allies. I live in Germany and I
| can tell you: that first winter was pretty bad for
| everyone, with plenty headlines about people who could no
| longer afford their heating costs. If it had been known
| that it was Ukraine's doing, popular support for the war
| would have sunk a _lot_.
| oneshtein wrote:
| European countries demand US$20 billion for undelivered
| gas from Russia[1].
|
| Maybe, $20 billion is pocket money for you, but it's big
| money for Russia. A false flag operation is much much
| cheaper.
|
| [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-countries-
| demand-us-...
| aa-jv wrote:
| >Nobody had incentive to blow up empty pipes except
| Russia.
|
| Nonsense. Biden had a great deal of incentive to destroy
| that pipeline.
| oneshtein wrote:
| LOL Biden has no balls to do that.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Biden had a great deal of incentive to destroy that
| pipeline._
|
| But far too many more obvious counterincentives.
|
| Unlike the Ukrainians, NATO/US were smart enough to see
| that blowing up NS2 would be hugely stupid, providing
| precisely zero strategic advantage while simply provoking
| Russia to respond assymetrically (in exactly the same way
| as it is apparently doing right now). In addition to the
| huge methane release.
|
| So if anything, the standpoint of "incentives" points
| squarely in the opposite direction (that is, _against_
| the idea that the US /NATO must have done it).
| pelasaco wrote:
| > Of course, Russians used false flag as usual, to blame
| Ukraine, but Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on
| Russian infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right
| to defend itself.
|
| This is completely wrong. It involved German/Russian
| infrastructure, and if confirmed, it would rank as the
| worst terrorist act in the history of the FRG (Germany)
| since the Munich Olympic Games. In fact, it could,
| should, or would lead to the activation of Article 5, as
| one of NATO's members was attacked.
|
| BTW from the Wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
|
| " In June 2024 German authorities issued an arrest
| warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of the
| sabotage.[13] "
|
| This (in German) shed even more lights on that
| https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ukraine/roman-
| tscherwins...
| oneshtein wrote:
| So, this is one man, who bought, moved, and then
| installed 500kg of explosives in 4 places in front of a
| married couple, right?
| gruez wrote:
| >in front of a married couple
|
| Is this supposed to imply the story is implausible
| because the couple wasn't in on the plot and would rat
| the third guy out? If so, all 3 are suspects and
| presumably are in on the plot, so this argument falls
| flat on its face.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Only one man is suspect, a married couple is not.
| gruez wrote:
| Says who? The DW article says otherwise.
|
| >The two other suspects, a married couple who do not have
| warrants issued in their names, have denied knowing Z.
| and said that they were on vacation in Bulgaria when the
| attack took place.
| matt-p wrote:
| I think most reasonable people realise that was either
| the US or the UK.
| a2800276 wrote:
| > when it's clear who's done it and why.
|
| Is it though? From my understanding it's clearly sabotage,
| but who's responsible is open to some debate. Compare to
| NordStream, it's still not officially determined who's
| responsible.
| lynx23 wrote:
| > officially determined who's responsible
|
| Becuase they are afraid to figure out the truth. It might
| not fit the propaganda narrative.
| oneshtein wrote:
| FUD
| account42 wrote:
| It's still not officially _made public_ who 's responsible.
| wedesoft wrote:
| There has been an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver.
| https://www.heise.de/en/news/Nord-Stream-Arrest-warrant-
| for-...
| castigatio wrote:
| But this person is just speaking the truth - I worked for an
| ISP with cable landing stations. These cables went down
| several times a year due to physical damage of non nefarious
| kinds. It's not obvious that this malicious. It certainly
| might be but it's not a slam dunk.
| ajuc wrote:
| Yeah and if you shoot someone and they die it might be an
| unrelated heart attack.
| castigatio wrote:
| Do you not understand probability? Or are you just
| suffering from confirmation bias?
| gruez wrote:
| Yeah but in this case, we don't know whether the guy in
| question actually got shot, only that he died. In that
| case it's premature to assume "this is murder".
| ajuc wrote:
| Chinese ship starting from Russian port went to sea,
| dropped the anchor just before the cables, dragged it
| over the cables, went away.
|
| Haven't reported anything.
|
| Declined requests to explain themselves.
|
| Sorry but it's bullshit.
| nbman102 wrote:
| _If_ this wasn 't an accident, given the recent Biden
| escalation that allows ATACMS strikes in Kursk in could mean
| two things:
|
| 1) Russia hastily retaliated, which is out of character. You
| can accuse Russia of many things, but not of retaliating
| instantly (against the West, in Ukraine they probably do).
|
| 2) False flag in order to drum up pro-war sentiment in the
| West.
|
| If Biden escalates in the last weeks of his presidency,
| presumably to make it more difficult for Trump to negotiate,
| why would Russia take the bait and escalate? It does not make
| any sense.
| numeric83 wrote:
| "Escalate"? Allowing Ukraine to use the weapons it has to
| strike back at an aggressor in order to mitigate or reduce
| said aggressors ability to continue attacking is ...
| "escalation"? I don't think so.
|
| If anything artificial limits have been placed on Ukraine
| that are not placed on other nations (or in some cases
| proscribed terrorist organisations) purchasing or being
| "gifted" weapons. Whether those weapons are from the U.S.,
| UK, France, Germany, Russia, RoK, whoever.
| air3y wrote:
| Yes. Weapons hitting places deep inside Russia that
| haven't been hit before is escalation. Whether one favors
| the act or not isn't how a step is considered as
| escalation. Now the Russians might or might not take
| steps that the other side considers escalation.
| numeric83 wrote:
| Ukraine has been hitting targets "deep" inside Russia for
| a long time now - further than ATACMS or the export Storm
| Shadow/SCALP-EG can reach. Whether Ukraine use their own
| weapons or those purchased/gifted from others seems
| irrelevant. This is Russia saying "we can hit you with
| weapons provided by other nations, but you cannot be
| allowed to hit us likewise" - it's pathetic.
|
| As for what Russia may do, they've been told publicly and
| privately by multiple nations: from the U.S., UK, and
| France, even China and India to wind their necks in with
| regard any nuclear escalation. However, they are very
| adept at asymmetric responses, and Putin has already said
| he would consider arming groups with anti-"western"
| sympathies - he probably already has.
| air3y wrote:
| Earlier hits were using Ukrainian drones, while the
| Atacms are reported as needing to be programmed by US
| military to hit the targets. So while it is Ukraine that
| supposedly fires them, it is the americans who will
| reportedly get them to their intended targets. I don't
| think there is any moral debate in Ukraine hitting Russia
| with missiles. After all it is a war fought by Russia
| against an Ukraine which has Nato proxy support. But it
| is an escalation nevertheless.
|
| It is now up to Russia on how to respond. And as you
| noted, one scenario being talked about, at least in
| social media, is some groups houthis, hezbollah or others
| getting Russian missiles and those being fired at western
| targets, ships or others. And I assume it would be
| Russian military who would control the targetting in that
| case depending on the missiles used. Or the Russians
| don't go for direct escalation with the intent of not
| jeopardizing the chances of Trump ending support to
| Ukraine in few months from now.
|
| But either way Russia's deterrence against Nato has been
| challenged yet again, and the chances of escalations and
| counter-escalations going out of hand remains a more
| nearer scary possibility in the unfolding scenario in
| process.
| wbl wrote:
| We need to make clear we have the cards. Russia invited
| us to slaughter the forces sent in in 2014 by making them
| deniable. They backed down when Turkey downed one of
| their jets. The instant they feel real force they back
| down.
| scrps wrote:
| There are sadly a lot of Chamberlains these days with the
| wool pulled over their eyes.
| ValentinA23 wrote:
| A 1 in 36 million chance for three breaks in one day.
|
| https://mathb.in/80217
| gleenn wrote:
| That's assuming independence. I'm not ruling out sabotage but
| the world is often not fully independent. A storm or an
| anchor both may affect multiple cables if they're in
| generally the same area which would definitely make the
| probability far more likely than those stated. (edit typo)
| ValentinA23 wrote:
| Indeed !
|
| https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/lithuania-
| sweden-...
|
| >Lithuania-Sweden subsea cable cut, was 10m from severed
| Finnish-German cable
| lrasinen wrote:
| I don't buy that number (no source is attributed to it),
| or rather, I don't believe there's a single incident
| causing this.
|
| The C-Lion1 cable is predominantly North-East - South-
| West whereas the BCS cable is NW-SE. They do meet, but
| the C-Lion1 operator Cinia says their cable broke about
| 700 km from Helsinki, east of the southern tip of the
| Oland island. That's easily over 150 km south from where
| the cables meet.
|
| Also, C-Lion1 was reported broken at 4m, and the BCS
| cable at 10am the previous day.
| froh wrote:
| the contrast with independent random events is exactly the
| point of the comment you've replied to, isn't it?
| jeltz wrote:
| The grandparent comment is total nonsense which sounds
| smart but is not. Damages from accidents are not
| independently random either. Or do you think it is
| virtually impossible that 140 people die on the same
| airliner? It is likely the same ship cut both either by
| accident or intentionally.
|
| I am leaning towards sabotage but that two cables were
| cut means very little.
| sach1 wrote:
| What are the odds 140 people would all die from an
| airplane crash on the same day? Wild
|
| /s
| amelius wrote:
| The point is that even without a malicious actor the odds
| are way lower than you'd think.
| UltraSane wrote:
| I was told in my stats class that events in the real world
| are almost never truly independent.
| defrost wrote:
| I'm supporting gleenn who beat me by seconds to much the same
| observation.
|
| Clusters are a thing.
| threeseed wrote:
| And what about adding in the chances of a Russian spy ship
| seen relatively near by only a few days earlier:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-
| sh...
| arandomusername wrote:
| Irish sea is relatively near to the Baltic sea?
| threeseed wrote:
| According to Google it's 854nm.
|
| The spy ship is alleged to be able to go 15 knots which
| means it could make the distance in 2.5 days.
|
| https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/russian-spy-ship-present-
| off...
| chgs wrote:
| Russia itself is nearer
| dboreham wrote:
| FFS: NM, not nm.
| CrazyCatDog wrote:
| "Knowing that 200 undersea cables break every year globally,
| estimate the probability that 3 cables break in the baltic
| sea on the same day."
|
| I'm stealing this to use for grad-student mock-interviews--
| thank you!
| Moru wrote:
| Hint: The cables are often very close. If one breaks, the
| otherone also breaks :-)
| gitaarik wrote:
| Why would cables close to each other break?
| leovingi wrote:
| because if it's an accident and someone is dragging an
| anchor behind them, if the cables are only meters apart
| then they are going to cut both
| dgfitz wrote:
| Are they?
| CrazyCatDog wrote:
| Right, if it's a case interview, then higher accuracy
| ought to prompt the interviewee to ask: (1) Do the 200
| cuts typically occur in clusters? (2) What's the typical
| density, eg are they usually collocated? (as an
| alternative to the above) (3) Are there pathways that
| avoid the sea but connect Europe and North America
| (getting at density in the sea in question) Etc.
|
| That's what makes this one so good--lots of opportunities
| to extend or roll-back difficulty.
| ValentinA23 wrote:
| I was surprised to see so many upvotes this morning and
| was disappointed when I realized it wasn't for another
| comment I made about the Anthropic Principle.
|
| My take is that in face of coincidences supporting the
| emergence of intelligent life, we should expect to
| observe coincidences unnecessary for the emergence of
| life too.
|
| An analogy: imagine you have lost the key to your mansion
| and try to cut one at random out of a metal sheet. If it
| can unlock the door, then chances are that you cut
| unnecessary notches (the analogy only holds for warded
| locks and the key you crafted is a master key).
|
| See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42178306
|
| I'm wondering where I'm wrong in my reasoning because the
| implication is weird.
| usrusr wrote:
| What are the chances that they break in close proximity
| spacially, but not temporarily? (I'm assuming that it
| would be headline material if the lines had disconnected
| within minutes)
|
| Tangent: an attacker trying hard to provoke that kind of
| accident would likely not have a very fast success
| feedback. "Let's try once more, for good measure"
| crote wrote:
| Still pretty decent, given the right circumstances.
|
| For example, the 2011 earthquake in Japan resulted in
| damage to 7 cables[0]. But it wasn't the quake itself
| which instantly broke all 7 cables - they were destroyed
| by underwater avalanches _triggered_ by the earthquake.
| Avalanches can occur hours after a seismic event, and
| some underwater avalanches go on for _days_.
|
| I highly doubt that's the case here, but if you're asking
| about chances it's not as unlikely as you'd think!
|
| [0]: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-
| undersea...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| A clever answer would be "it's a 50/50 chance, either it
| happens or it doesn't". That's statistics my simple brain
| can comprehend at least.
| kqr wrote:
| In what way is that clever? It's clearly wrong. If it
| were true, we'd experience three breakages at least 150
| days of the year, every year.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Today's that day. Start the clock for the next one.
| kqr wrote:
| Why is this analysis focused on the Baltics? That's p
| hacking, given that it happened to happen in the baltics.
|
| Let's instead say there are roughly 20 ocean regions we would
| post hoc consider "the same". Now, given a breakage, what is
| the probability of at least two more in the same region and
| day? This is a Poisson distribution with lambda=200/365/20.
| The probability of two more independent breakages is 0.04 %
| for that specific day.
|
| But again, picking a specific day would be p-hacking. Zooming
| out, an event that rare is expected to happen every seven
| years or so.
|
| Now, "every seven years" is a far cry from "1 in 36 million."
| Whenever you get crazy p values like that, there is often an
| error or overlooked assumption in the analysis.
|
| ----
|
| If you like this sort of thing, have a stab at forecasting
| competitions! I can recommend the Metaculus Quarterly Cup.
| The current one is in full swing so use the remaining 1.5
| months of the year to practice and then you're set for when
| the January edition starts.
| ValentinA23 wrote:
| I see, this was in fact what I had in mind. The maths I
| posted represent the horizon of my knowledge in probability
| and was surprised how well o1-preview was able to output
| correct numerical calculations.
|
| Having said that how would the odds look like if we factor
| in the fact the Baltic Sea is one of two zones with the
| most geopolitical tensions (along with Taiwan).
|
| ---
|
| Thanks for the Metaculus recommendation. I was a bit
| disappointed in the lack of maths in the comments in
| general. Can you recommend something in the vein of
| Leetcode with various degrees of difficulty, from very
| basic to advanced problems ? I'm both interested in
| probability and statistics
| kqr wrote:
| Something in thr vein of leetcode would be really useful
| to train people in forecasting, but given how subjective
| it is maybe difficult to pull off.
| red_admiral wrote:
| One a day is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times
| is enemy action.
| ikiris wrote:
| Or they're right next to each other and the laws of physics
| continued to exist for the object that struck them.
| gosub100 wrote:
| You can't even assume they follow a normal distribution. For
| all we know, ships drop anchor more on certain days or
| weather conditions. That's just the start of the rabbit hole.
| Findecanor wrote:
| I watched a rep from the operators of the cable claim that this
| particular cable is pretty tough, and anything other than
| deliberate sabotage would be very unlikely.
| MasterYoda wrote:
| The last time it happened, the Russian ship had also been seen
| unnaturally going back and forth over the cable where the
| damage occurred. These damages do not happen by themselves.
| Considering the current international situation and the fact
| that it happened in a short time in several places unnaturally
| in a limited region, the Baltic Sea, you have to be very naive
| if you do not see this as probable sabotage.
| amelius wrote:
| Do we have some kind of time-of-flight system that can find
| out exactly where a cable damage occurred, the instant that
| it occurs?
| alenrozac wrote:
| There's repeaters so the general area should be known.
| UltraSane wrote:
| They can measure the location of the break to centimeters
| by timing how long a light pulse takes to reflect back to
| the emitter. It is called time-domain reflectometry.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, then was it used? And if not, why not?
| UltraSane wrote:
| It was almost certainly used.
| amelius wrote:
| What was the response?
| trollied wrote:
| This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread-spectrum_time-
| domain_re...
| vlan0 wrote:
| I think you mean C-OTDR?
|
| https://www.anritsu.com/en-us/test-
| measurement/products/mw90...
| s800 wrote:
| yes, OTDR
| autokad wrote:
| well, we did blow up their pipeline, so not like we didnt
| open the salvo for making international resources fair game
| mantas wrote:
| Who is ,,we"?
| autokad wrote:
| you can call it NATO
| mantas wrote:
| So, Germany?
| twixfel wrote:
| It was 50% funded by the west so it was much ours as
| theirs. I think it was rightly bombed by Ukraine anyway,
| not nato.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Either Russia or Ukraine blew it up.
| 0points wrote:
| > and the article itself mentions that just last year, two
| other cables and a gas pipeline were taken out by an anchor
|
| Yes, by a chinese ship that dragged around a huge anchor over
| the seafloor of whole baltic ocean, widley suspected to be
| ordered by Russia to do so.
|
| This is in no way a reasonable argument for "shit happens".
| belter wrote:
| "Germany's defense minister says damage to 2 Baltic data cables
| appears to be sabotage" - https://apnews.com/article/germany-
| finland-baltic-data-cable...
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| English isn't my first language, but isn't "appears to be"
| inconclusive? It is or it isn't, "appears to be" is still too
| vague for my liking.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| "Appears to be", in English, generally means "on first
| look/glance." It runs very close to "I believe such and
| such."
|
| If I asked you for an answer to a math question, then you
| showed me the answer with how you got there, on a very
| quick glance I might say: "That _appears to be_ correct. "
|
| It could mean they've seen more evidence to make that
| assessment, or are basing that assessment on the same
| evidence we have. Regardless, "appears to be" is hedging in
| the absence of certainty.
| mettamage wrote:
| I love this about HN culture. HN culture, in general,
| feels really patient, empathic and knowledgeable :)
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| This is right. But I'd add that the fact that the speaker
| is the German defense minister adds an additional layer
| of meaning. Ordinarily such a person would not be
| expected to give such an initial assessment without
| careful consideration.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Correct. To add context from a German source
| (https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/ostsee-
| datenkabel-p...):
|
| > Bundesverteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius vermutet im
| Fall von zwei in der Ostsee beschadigten Kabeln zur
| Datenubertragung eine vorsatzliche Aktion durch Dritte.
| Man musse davon ausgehen, dass es sich um Sabotage
| handle, sagte er am Rande eines Treffens mit seinen EU-
| Amtskollegen in Brussel. Beweise dafur gebe es bislang
| aber nicht. Er betonte: "Niemand glaubt, dass diese Kabel
| aus Versehen durchtrennt worden sind."
|
| > Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius assumes the
| case of to damaged baltic sea data cables to be the
| intentional action of a third party. One should assume it
| to be sabotage, he said while at a meeting with EU
| colleagues in Brusseles. Proof, however, is not available
| yet. He emphasized: "Nobody believes that those cables
| were cut by accident."
|
| So while carefully not saying anything definitive and
| firm, he very strongly hints in the direction of
| sabotage.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| In a political and intelligence sense "appears to be" is
| a rhetorical tool for propaganda purposes, or / and to
| cover you ass. He could say "We have no evidence of this
| being sabotage and further speculation is not useful at
| this point" which is what he says, from one perspective.
|
| On the other he is framing a conspiracy theory:
| "Something happened that appears to be sabotage and
| sabotage would be done by the enemy. " and the European
| media has been stuffed full of conspiracy theories during
| the entire conflicts.
|
| Educationally you can look at the Nord Stream pipelines
| sabotage.
|
| Nearly every EU and US source writes in big letters that
| Russia was behind it. After a while, it became nearly
| impossible to keep that conspiracy theory alive.
|
| Sweden and Denmark ended their investigation into the
| matter with no conclusion drawn The present narrative is
| that the sabotage was done by a Ukrainian team with a
| shoe string budget:
|
| A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the
| Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Private businessmen funded
| the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top
| general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried
| unsuccessfully to call it off
| https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-
| explos...
| petre wrote:
| I've read the original Zeit article. What a bunch of
| mumbo jumbo.
|
| https://www.zeit.de/politik/2023-09/nord-stream-
| pipelines-at...
| dboreham wrote:
| It's inconclusive but only a little. There's a spectrum of
| conclusitivity through "possibly is", "might be", "could
| be", "very well might", "looks like", "appears to be",
| "almost certainly is", "is".
| dialup_sounds wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_of_estimative_probabi
| lit...
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| In this case the phrase likely means "we think it was
| sabotage but can't prove it yet"
| Beijinger wrote:
| Since they likely used the German expression "es scheint",
| I think your interpretation is correct.
| fracus wrote:
| I interpret "appears to be" to mean "we certainly know it
| to be true based on factual evidence but we need to keep an
| exit door politically".
| brianleb wrote:
| The sibling comments are very relevant, but I wanted to
| provide a marginally different perspective. You have to
| take not only what is being said, but _who is saying it_
| into perspective.
|
| In this case, this is a government official speaking to the
| press (i.e. in an official capacity). If they were to say
| "this was sabotage," that is a definite declaration that
| the government believes - again, officially and on the
| record - that an outside party has deliberately done
| material damage to their country. Given the general
| situation, it is not a huge leap to come to the
| interpretation that "this was an attack against our
| country, and possibly an act of war."
|
| No government official would want to be within miles (or
| kilometers) of that sort of statement unless they have
| pretty much already internally decided from the top-down to
| escalate the situation. Almost no single government agent
| has the authority to escalate the situation in that manner.
| So what we end up with is "appears to be." This overtly
| says 'all available evidence points to this being the case,
| however something else cannot be ruled out.' (As a sibling
| comment suggests, it can also act as a type of propaganda).
| So it is not an official government declaration that
| another nation has damaged them, but they have reasons
| (probably both apparent and not) to believe what they are
| saying publicly.
| cwassert wrote:
| He just wants more funds for his department.
| dralley wrote:
| Reflexive cynicism about the military isn't as warranted in
| 2024 as it might have been a decade ago. And it wasn't
| really warranted a decade ago either, when Russia was
| blowing up Czech ammunition depots, airliners full of Dutch
| people, conducting assassinations in the center of Berlin,
| and sending "little green men" to Ukraine.
|
| It could be an accident, sure, but suspicion of sabotage is
| not paranoia.
|
| And also, like, the German government (and European
| governments generally) DOES need to spend more on their
| military. They _under_ invested for decades and are now
| stuck needing to catch up very quickly.
| coldtea wrote:
| If anything, cynicism is even more warranted now, after
| they have fought hard to kickstart, and then helped
| endlessly drag this proxy war...
|
| > _And also, like, the German government (and European
| governments generally) DOES need to spend more on their
| military._
|
| Yes, because this worked out great the last couple of
| times...
| dralley wrote:
| Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-
| starting" this war.
|
| And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get
| steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do
| so so that Russia can more quickly get around to
| torturing and repressing the population a moral right.
| loandbehold wrote:
| Russia is responsible but not alone. This war could have
| been prevented by not pushing Ukraine into NATO. It's THE
| reason for the war.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Compare: "The serial-killer is responsible but not alone,
| this second stabbing could have been prevented by _not_
| trying to protect yourself from being stabbed again by
| the same serial-killer! "
|
| That may be true in the most narrow and mechanical sense,
| but the way it presents blame is very wrong.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Quite the opposite. Ukraine has been prevented from
| joining NATO by the west, especially Germany and France,
| for fear of angering Russia. This course of action has
| led to war. The proper course of action in hindsight
| would have been to have Ukraine join NATO asap back then.
| fsloth wrote:
| That's bullshit. I'm sorry, but I'm tired of apologists
| falling to Russian state lies. Falling over to Russian
| lies is not independent thinking.
|
| The first rule of kremnology is that Russia always lies
| without a shame, as lies are usefull and they incur zero
| cost on the liar.
|
| Russia invaded because they felt Ukraine was showing a
| bad example of slavic people becoming a democracy.
|
| Also Russia has always had an affinity towards Ukrainian
| genocide. See Holodomor.
|
| Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor,
| Crimea, Catherine the great, and other idiotic pseudo-
| historical ramblings of a demented autocratic propagnada.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor,
|
| Useful word: Revanchism [0], for people who want to
| conquer places they claim they once-owned.
|
| [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revanchist
| threeseed wrote:
| So then the resolution to this war is simple:
|
| Russia returns Crimea, Donbass etc and Ukraine promises
| not to join NATO.
|
| Strange that Putin hasn't proposed such a deal.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Not joining NATO is just a way of deferring the genocide.
| A regional power has no chance to stand against a global
| superpower on its own. If not NATO, then a different
| coalition.
| dralley wrote:
| I understand what you mean but Russia is not a global
| superpower. They are not the USSR. Acting and speaking as
| though they are is part of how we got into this mess, the
| US and Europe didn't show any real backbone during the
| decade following the initial 2014 invasion, or during the
| Syrian crisis before that, or the 2008 invasion of
| Georgia before that.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Fair, but even if they are not a global superpower, they
| are a tier above most of their bordering countries. 2014
| was a direct result of Germany being dependent on Russian
| gas.
|
| I wouldn't argue that EU and the US did not screw up in
| 20{08,14} though. We did. Massively. We did underestimate
| Putins long game - had we known how far he wants to go,
| and I'd argue most post soviet countries knew, this
| would've been nipped in the bud.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > They are not the USSR.
|
| One strand of BS I've seen is "Ukraine now is a different
| country than the one we promised never to invade."
|
| If that's really how it works, Russia should be ejected
| from the United Nations and apologize for fraudulently
| casting votes in the UN Security Council, because it's a
| different country than the USSR.
| hughesjj wrote:
| You could always just bootstrap a nuclear program in
| Ukraine instead.
|
| They gave up their nukes in exchange for protection from
| Russia and the US. Both countries have failed to keep up
| their end of the bargain, so it's sensible for Ukraine to
| get back what they gave up.
| fatbird wrote:
| Ukraine wasn't a candidate for NATO membership in 2014 or
| 2022, and this was agreed to in all major
| treaties/agreements with Russia. It's still not a
| candidate, and can't be while it's actively engaged in
| war.
|
| NATO membership has never had anything to do with it.
| Note how Finland has joined NATO since 2022, and faces no
| repercussions from Russia, despite a third of their land-
| based nuclear missiles within 400 km of the Finnish
| border.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| What do you mean with proxy war? Are you saying russia is
| a puppet and a proxy for Iran and North Korea who provide
| the weapons and even soldiers?
| inopinatus wrote:
| The folks parroting that phrase live inside an echo
| chamber. They're so entrenched they never think to
| consider that their words might have an interpretation
| unfavourable to the Kremlin.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I suppose in today's world it's hard to know what was
| sabotage and what was an accident, and where the buck stops -
| particularly in marine matters. Was that anchor drag
| intentional? Did the operator know their charts were out of
| date? Did that trawl net really fail and snag like that?
|
| We'll go around in circles until it's irrelevant.
| dheera wrote:
| > deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables
|
| Can we not make the cables resistant to this? Like if someone
| drags an anchor over a cable, it instantly locates the break
| based on time-of-flight over the cable and instantly dispatches
| a drone from the nearest shoreline to spray nasty sticky shit
| all over the ship?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Doesn't need to be a drone, there should be coast guard etc
| of all neighbouring countries nearby that can dispatch a
| plane.
|
| That said, radar systems and sattelites should be active at
| all times too keeping track of every ship on there,
| especially if they don't have a transponder active.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Cables can be buried and ploughed into the sea floor. This is
| usually done in the shallow last miles when approaching a
| landing on a coast, because there the risk for damage due to
| anchors, fishermen and other human activity is far higher.
| However, sometimes the ground can be unsuitable, and burying
| is expensive, so this isn't done for the whole length.
| ajross wrote:
| Right. It's indeed worth pointing out that while this certainly
| looks like Russian terrorism, it's really fairly bad terrorism,
| all things considered, and not particularly hard or expensive
| to mitigate.
|
| It's basically a "Putin tax" on the industrial democracies in
| the reason. I don't see how this helps Russia at all, honestly.
| Putin has a real shot, given the state of US politics, at
| salvaging something approximating a "victory" in Ukraine and
| getting back to peacetime economics. Why rock the boat?
| nosianu wrote:
| > _it 's really fairly bad terrorism_
|
| The goal at this stage is not the outcome of some minor
| outage, but signaling that they are prepared and ready to go
| ahead with major acts of sabotage. This is the local thugs
| smashing some furniture in your store as a warning.
| radiator wrote:
| You offered nothing to support the theory that Russia is
| behind this. This reminds me of the Nordstream sabotage, when
| many jumped to accuse Russia even though that made no sense
| at all. Perhaps wait for the official investigations. If they
| like what they discover this time, they might publish it.
| fracus wrote:
| If cables break organically about 200 times a year then I'd
| think a bad actor breaking a cable to send a message would be a
| tear in the rain.
| foobarqux wrote:
| Predictable blowback and it's only going to get worse.
| waihtis wrote:
| Btw last time they damaged the finnish cables it was a chinese
| merchant vessel. Not just russians doing sabotage at the baltic
| sea
| Hamuko wrote:
| Russians could've also been involved in that since Newnew Polar
| Bear was en route to Russia.
| euroderf wrote:
| So what's the solution ? Assign a surveillance UAV to every
| Russian ship parked "without a good reason" over a cable ? It
| would be expensive, but doable, and create a reserve of vehicles
| for wartime use.
| lxgr wrote:
| That sounds borderline feasible - in a world where submarines
| don't exist.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I'm certain the sea is as mapped as you can possibly imagine,
| cutting say 50% of cables would lead to a lot of Russian
| ships sinking and a ban on them entering western waters.
| Their equipment is absolutely shit compared to ours and we
| know exactly where it all is. Surely they have been told this
| is a declaration of war which clearly they are scared of too.
| willvarfar wrote:
| The russians have been investing heavily and have some very
| good kit
|
| http://www.hisutton.com/Yantar.html
|
| http://www.hisutton.com/Belgorod-Class-Submarine.html
|
| http://www.hisutton.com/Russian-Spy-Submarine-BS-64e.html
|
| and so on
| regnull wrote:
| The solution is to project strength and hit them where they
| don't expect. You are dealing with a thug, not a cost/benefit
| accountant, as Obama seemed to mistakenly believe. As long as
| they do things and we respond, nothing good will happen. They
| have already calculated the response and found it acceptable.
| Instead of this, go to the mattresses. Oh, your bridge has
| suddenly exploded? Shame.
| petre wrote:
| "We" already screwed their pipeline, what's left? Provide
| Ukraine with the means to blow up the Kerch bridge maybe?
| They're the ones that could legitimately do that sort of
| escalation.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what 's left?_
|
| The other pipelines. Their shadow oil fleet. There are lots
| of options. But to my knowledge, only the British, French
| and Americans are capable of the long-range clandestine
| operations.
| petre wrote:
| Their shadow oil fleet is operated by third parties and
| shell companies. We are dealing with a mafia state here.
|
| https://windward.ai/knowledge-base/illuminating-russias-
| shad...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Their shadow oil fleet is operated by third parties
| and shell companies_
|
| Would be a shame if they started having engine troubles
| in the middle of the ocean.
| libertine wrote:
| The "problem" of Western countries is that the political
| sphere operates under different moral compasses: like
| taking down a shadow fleet tanker would be a natural
| disaster... taking down many would mean many disasters.
|
| The real question is, should security and defense
| concerns be placed on hold? If our basic freedoms and
| rights are being attacked, how big of a deal would be a
| shadow fleet tanker catastrophe?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Those ships are going to be transiting somewhere
| unloaded. That is when you engage them.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| That would be in the busiest shipping ports, channels,
| and anchorages in the entire world. Aka the most bananas
| place to interdict.
| mlyle wrote:
| If something bad happened to a mostly empty Russian
| shadow tanker in the Gulf of Finland, that impact is
| going to be mostly confined to Russia. i.e. past the
| major Finnish and Estonian ports.
|
| As long as we're all playing silly only-kinda-deniable
| games, that's an option on the table.
| geniusplanmate wrote:
| That's not where that shadow fleet is operating.
|
| The gas sold by Russia to France, Germany, etc. is
| transported using normal vessels, AFAIK.
| mlyle wrote:
| https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/30/7477500/
|
| Plenty of targets in the Gulf of Finland.
| petre wrote:
| Except it isn't in the Gulf of Finland but the East Sea
| or Soth China Sea. Most of these ships are transporting
| oil to China, India, Singapore, The Middle East. The only
| allies able to interdict most of these ships are Japan
| and South Korea. Japan doesn't engage in such activities
| after WW2 and South Korea is reluctant to because of
| retaliatory actions from Russia and China. Maybe they'll
| change course after the DPRK has sent triops into
| Ukraine, but don't hold your breath.
| mlyle wrote:
| https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/30/7477500/
|
| Plenty of targets in the Gulf of Finland.
| wbl wrote:
| What exactly do you think we spend all that money on fast
| attack subs and frigates and destroyers for? Of course
| the US Navy (and the French and British) can interdict
| those ships anywhere on the high seas.
| jojobas wrote:
| Western countries have intelligence services with
| sabotage departments and in general are not above blowing
| up things their leaders don't like.
|
| If the CIA or US Navy don't have the technical means to
| blow up the Crimea bridge with plausible deniability they
| haven't been paying attention.
| petre wrote:
| Thry do but it only benefits Ukraine. So they're the ones
| who should blow it up, preferably with with weapons of
| their own in order to avoid NATO escalation. Just lke the
| Moskva sinking.
| lottin wrote:
| How does destroying the Crimea bridge not benefit the
| West? They destroy our infrastructure, we destroy theirs.
| That's the whole idea.
| jojobas wrote:
| If Russian leadership doesn't change there's just no
| chance it will stop at Ukraine. Next those sharing your
| sentiment will say "it only benefits Poland".
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The problem is we (The US) used to swing our """nation
| building"""/Imperialism dick all around, coup'ing and
| invading whoever we want, but after Vietnam and wasting
| trillions bombing sand for 20 years, a lot of us have
| softened on the idea of forcing our desires through
| explosions.
|
| Add to that a natural conservative tendency in the US to
| jump at isolationism whenever there's an easy excuse (the
| guy you like is doing the "bad thing" so you don't
| actually want to stop him, the war is literally somewhere
| else and doesn't exactly involve us)
|
| So it's hard for people like me, who used to be pretty
| pacifist, to decide that yeah maybe violence is the right
| option _sometimes_?
|
| Also, the entire time we are trying to shake off bullshit
| "Democrats are warhawks" nonsense from the party that did
| the desert bombing just because Bush wanted to defend his
| daddy's memory. The same people who call the Dems
| warhawks spent the 2000s screaming that "you're either
| with us or against us" and calling anti-war people
| pussies so I guess they don't have very good memories.
|
| So for various reasons, some good, the US is extremely
| gunshy right now. Even those of us wholeheartedly in
| support of Ukraine, wishing we gave them a thousand
| Bradleys and tanks, feel uncomfortable with the idea of
| boots on the ground. Meanwhile Europe has forgotten what
| intervention is, and seems utterly unwilling to do
| anything, lest they have to get off their holier than
| thou pedestal.
|
| Appeasement definitely doesn't work, but the middle east
| is full of examples of "just bomb them all" also not
| working very well. Everyone is very nervous. It sure
| seems like Russia won't stop their horseshit until
| someone _makes_ them stop, but that 's going to require a
| million dead.
| geniusplanmate wrote:
| 1. They already do, because those are old, garbage ships
|
| 2. It's not exactly in the interests of NATO to have
| those ships start spilling tons of oil in the North
| Atlantic
|
| The problem of that "shadow fleet" is precisely that
| those are old, uninsured vessels that cause environmental
| risks.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not exactly in the interests of NATO to have those
| ships start spilling tons of oil in the North Atlantic_
|
| Since when did engine troubles cause an oil spill?
| aziaziazi wrote:
| In case of an engine failure, it's way more easier to tug
| the boat empty than full.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Ever blown a head gasket?
| gnabgib wrote:
| Bit of a personal question
| dgfitz wrote:
| Oh, its not. Why do you think that?
| instig007 wrote:
| since the times ocean waves decided to wreck ships that
| can't turn and navigate in storms without their prime
| mover.
| baq wrote:
| yeah just count the cases of unprovoked attacks on
| gazprom-related people by open windows.
| consumer451 wrote:
| They are planning on this:
|
| > Parliament calls for an EU crackdown on Russia's
| 'shadow fleet'
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-
| room/20241111IP...
| wbl wrote:
| They sink just the same.
| chii wrote:
| > "We" already screwed their pipeline
|
| unfortunately, "we" didnt have to pay a sacrifice to the
| economy for it, because germany paid it.
|
| The US is too afraid of nukes, and won't escalate. The
| russians rightly predicted this.
| petre wrote:
| Germany was told to stop buying Russian gas financing the
| Russian war machine by the previous Trump administration.
| They were told to pledge 2% of their GDP for defense,
| contributing more to NATO. They didn't listen. This is
| what happened: Ukraine got invaded, the pipeline was
| blown up to ensure compliance, their defense spending
| reachd 2% this year, more two years too late in a worse
| economic climate. Next year, the next Trump
| administration is going to demand more, because 2% is
| already insufficient.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-hit-nato-budget-goal-
| for-1s...
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Don't forget how Germany's exports of chips and machinery
| to places like _Kyrgyzstan_ skyrocketed since the
| invasion.
|
| > Exports of motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts to
| Kyrgyzstan grew particularly strongly in the first
| quarter, soaring more than 4,000% from a very small base
| to over 84 million euros... That came after a six-fold
| rise in German exports to Kyrgyzstan last year following
| Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/german-exports-russias-
| neighbo...
|
| I know people in Kyrgyzstan, trust me they did not
| suddenly become industrialized when Russia invaded
|
| Anecdotally, as a Russian, some of my craziest
| interactions with foreigners who support the thugs in
| Russian gov, blame US/NATO for Russian aggression and
| totally buy the propaganda were with Germans. (Not a
| proper data point, just venting frustration, Germany get
| your act together...)
| chii wrote:
| With the gov't coalition collapse in germany, there's
| definitely some voices that oppose western actino against
| russia (adf is one, see
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG4bxFKBNos).
|
| I can't help but suspect that russian influence and
| covert action behind the scenes, most of which might be
| decades in the making, is kicking into high gear.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| This is my impression, too.
| hackandthink wrote:
| >who support the thugs in Russian gov
|
| You can't defeat them, the NATO strategy has failed.
|
| I sympathize with the Russian opposition, but I think it
| is wrong to interfere in Russian domestic politics.
|
| Apart from that, I have always been suspicious of the
| West's favorite oligarchs.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Calling it "Russian domestic politics" just invalidates
| in my eyes any other argument you make. Because it is so
| plainly not
| holowoodman wrote:
| Half of Germany was, for roughly 4 decades, a soviet
| puppet state. With indoctrination programs, propaganda
| towards the western part, cadre schools, the whole deal.
| And even in West Germany the soviets always had a lot of
| support, especially in the burgeoise (yes, the irony...)
| upper layers of society. Socialism and communism weren't
| just invented here out of thin air and such.
|
| This means that a good part of especially the general
| former East German population as well as the academic and
| cultural upper class are left-leaning (in USian terms:
| deep red communists), soviet/russia-supporting and
| antiamerican by default. This got even stronger the
| farther we got past the 1990s, because the view back on
| the communist times naturally lost the memories of the
| bad parts.
| ponector wrote:
| >> what's left?
|
| Cut trade? But everyone likes Russian dirty money too much
| markvdb wrote:
| NATO filter blockade on Oresund?
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| "We" won't respond because "we" just elected a Russian asset
| and he is going to install more in his cabinet.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| It's already been settled that the trump dossier from 2016
| was a work of fiction.
|
| Why did Putin take crimea under Obama's watch, parts of
| Ukraine under Biden's watch, but then not make any huge
| moves like those while his "asset" was in the white house?
| aguaviva wrote:
| Because he needed all that time (2014-2022) to build up
| his forces and cash reserves.
|
| Also, he needed a green light. Which was provided in the
| form of the chaotic Afghanistan pullout in 2021. Not that
| he was counting on it -- but once it went through, it
| seems very likely that tipped the scales in his mind in
| favor of deciding to actually go through with the full-
| scale invasion in 2022.
| burningChrome wrote:
| Its also been widely reported that when Trump first met
| Putin he said if he invaded Ukraine, he would turn Moscow
| and several other cities into a parking lot. Trump in
| several interviews has said he warned Putin not to do it,
| that he would pay a very, very heavy cost and he would
| see to it that he would.
|
| This is all Trump had to do.
|
| He was able to leverage the media's reporting on him that
| he was reckless, dangerous and prone to rash behavior and
| they were convinced he was going to start WWIII with?
| Yeap, you guessed it, the Russians. Putin believed what
| the media were reporting because Trump himself had
| verbally warned him.
|
| He didn't need forces and cash. He did what OP
| recommended, he threatened Putin with force and Putin
| complied and just waited out Trump. It was a gift that
| Biden was elected in 2020 and if you go through the news
| reports, literally months after Biden was elected, Russia
| started massing troops on the border and readying their
| troops to invade. Its a strange coincidence that they
| didn't invade in the four years Trump was in office. He
| leaves and less than a year later, Russia is preparing to
| invade? C'mon man.
|
| Your timeline is completely wrong.
|
| - Biden's inauguration took place on January 2021.
|
| - The Russians were amassing troops by December of 2021
| (less than a year after he took office).
|
| - The Afghan pullout wasn't until the Summer of 2021
|
| - The Russian officially invaded in February of 2022
|
| The green light wasn't needing forces and cash built up,
| it was Trump leaving office. The Afghan pullout had no
| effect on when they were going to invade since they were
| already massing troops and air support to the border
| regions where they finally launched their invasion from.
| Its not like the Russians decided to invade _during_ the
| Afghan disaster as you insinuated, the invasion plans
| were already established by then.
|
| Again, the tipping point was Trump leaving office.
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| Surely you should be able to provide a source for the
| claim that Trump threatened Putin over Ukraine.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Here's the man himself claiming this in his inimitably
| eloquent style:
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-putin-no-way-
| ukraine-mu...
|
| "No way." "Way."
| aguaviva wrote:
| If all we have to go on is the man himself -- that means
| it's a lie of course, like nearly everything else he
| says.
| dgfitz wrote:
| Least they posted a source. Credit where it is due.
| alecco wrote:
| Not op. But in 2018 Trump did scold live on camera the
| German leaders for buying gas from Russia. "Germany is
| completely controlled by Russia".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JpwkeTBwgs
|
| NOTE: I mostly don't like Trump. But the "Russiagate"
| angle is ridiculous.
| timeon wrote:
| This is moving the goalpost a bit.
| burningChrome wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17852964/donald-trump-
| threaten...
|
| _"They 're all saying oh he's a nuclear power, it's like
| they're afraid of him," Trump said in a recording of the
| phone conversation with Daly. "You know, he was a friend
| of mine, I got along great with him. I say, Vladimir, if
| you do it, we're hitting Moscow. We're going to hit
| Moscow. And he sort of believed me like 5 per cent, 10
| per cent - that's all you need."_
|
| He's also said the same thing in several interview. That
| he told Putin he would make it very difficult to take
| Ukraine and it cost them economically and militarily. You
| can infer that meant could mean several things depending
| on your point of view.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _He said if he invaded Ukraine, he would turn Moscow and
| several other cities into a parking lot._
|
| Which means it's a lie.
|
| This is _extremely_ bellicose language, and completely
| inconsistent with Trump 's statements and general
| deportment towards Putin in all other respects. We have
| video footage of that meeting - you can see both men
| completely at ease with each other, and Putin positively
| _smiling_. That 's not the vibe you get when one of the
| two men had just told (or was about to tell) the other
| that they were considering turning their major cities
| into parking lots.
|
| If he actually said anything at all to Putin about it,
| most likely it was quite different (something on the
| order of "Don't escalate the situation in Ukraine, that
| will have serious negative consequences"). But that's too
| boring for his voting public. So (with no transcript
| available for anyone to fact-check) he pulled a statement
| out his hind quarters ("turn Moscow into a parking lot")
| that he thought his own people would prefer that he said.
|
| Because that's how he rolls.
|
| _The Afghan pullout had no effect on when they were
| going to invade since they were already massing troops
| and air support to the border regions where they finally
| launched their invasion from._
|
| Let's go over the chronology that you yourself just
| provided: The Afghan pullout wasn't
| until the Summer of 2021 The Russians were
| amassing troops by December of 2021
|
| How does this square with your statement above?
|
| Which came first? Which followed the other?
| burningChrome wrote:
| You clearly don't understand the psychology of dictators
| or people who are in positions of extreme power. The only
| language they know is that kind of direct, "bellicose"
| language as you refer to it.
|
| Trump understood this and simply used the same language
| and approach to Putin.
|
| Of course he wouldn't do it. If you know anything about
| Trump, he's the most anti-war president we've ever had.
| He was very outspoken against both Iraq invasions,
| against the Afghan invasions and now that he's be elected
| again, has said he will end the Ukrainian conflict and
| the conflict in Israel. He also pulled out most of our
| military out of the middle east when he was in office.
|
| You would've thought the millions of Liberals who were
| against any wars in the middle east would be ecstatic to
| have him in office. Or have you already forgotten all the
| "No war for oil!!" and "Bush lied, people died!" bumper
| stickers and slogans the media and Liberals continually
| chanted during those years??
|
| But it doesn't count because Trump is a Republican? Now
| there's some pro level hubris.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Trump understood this and simply used the same language
| and approach to Putin._
|
| Except we have no reason to believe that's what he
| actually said.
|
| _But it doesn 't count because Trump is a Republican._
|
| No, because he lies continually and brazenly to everyone
| he comes into contact with. Whether he "needs" to or not.
|
| Not because he's a Republican. That's just happens to be
| the party where he feels most "at home".
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Its also been widely reported that when Trump first met
| Putin he said if he invaded Ukraine, he would turn Moscow
| and several other cities into a parking lot.
|
| Yeah. Trump talks a lot. Like his best friend, Melon.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I am NOT his best friend.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Doubtful. He needed another 8 years after an annexing
| Crimea to build up the Russian army? Why would he need
| cash reserves if he has a toadie in the white house?
|
| Imagine how quickly ukriane would have collapsed if the
| US was not providing support, and the US was preventing
| European nations from providing support. And then imagine
| how well off Russia would be if there were no sanctions
| placed on it by America. All in all your point doesn't
| make sense. You don't get an asset sitting in the oval
| office and then not use them.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Why would he need cash reserves if he has a toadie in
| the white house?_
|
| You may want to think about the chronology again.
|
| And then ask yourself if your statement above still makes
| sense.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You're saying Russia couldn't have invaded Ukraine
| successfully in 2018, if the US and Europe were not
| providing support, and no sanctions were levied on
| Russia?
| aguaviva wrote:
| _You 're saying Russia couldn't have invaded Ukraine
| successfully in 2018_
|
| They didn't invade successfully in 2022, either. Meaning
| they were never able to invade successfully at any year
| before that. The whole war is a gigantic delusion for
| them, remember.
|
| But as for evidence that they needed about 7-8 years to
| build their resources to a point where its regime
| _thought_ they could invade successfully:
|
| One of the pieces of evidence in favor of this view is
| the graph of the CBRF's (that's the Central Bank of
| Russia) holdings of foreign cash reserves, over the past
| 20 years. It shows oscillation or decline up until 2014,
| and then from 2014-2022, steady increases each year,
| resulting in a net increase from about $100b to $300b by
| 2022.
|
| Military analyst say that Russia engaged in similar
| purchasing patterns internally (building up its reserves
| of shells and missile stocks, for example).
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You're ignoring half of what I'm saying. In 2022, they
| had to deal with the US and Europe providing aid and arms
| to Ukraine, and sanctions levied on Russia, because they
| didn't have their stooge in the White House.
|
| If they invaded in 2018, they wouldn't have had to deal
| with any of those things. That is, if Trump actually is a
| Russian agent. So why did they wait until the situation
| was much worse for them in order to invade?
| aguaviva wrote:
| I'm not ignoring it.
|
| I considered it, but I just don't think it adds up to
| what you think it does.
| geoka9 wrote:
| > In 2022, they had to deal with the US and Europe
| providing aid and arms to Ukraine, and sanctions levied
| on Russia
|
| On top of what the GP listed, there was also the post-
| pandemic uncertainty, soaring inflation and increase in
| the support of far-right/isolationist politicians in
| Europe. The Russians probably expected a slow start from
| them and a quick takeover of Kyiv[0], which would likely
| mean game over for a big chunk (if not all) of Ukraine.
| To be fair, they almost succeeded: it came down to the
| single battle that saved Kyiv from a quick occupation[1].
|
| Last (but not least), there was the Putin's isolation
| during the pandemic when he might have read too much of
| Russian fascism philosophers'[2]. To me, the open all-out
| invasion at that time seemed very much out of his style
| as he had always preferred covert probing and sabotage
| before that.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airpor
| t [1]https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-russias-failure-
| to-take-... [2]https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/inside-
| putins-head-paranoid-...
| koiueo wrote:
| In 2019-2021 our president zieliensky - ordered retreat
| from fortified positions - downsized our army - demined
| southern and eastern borders
|
| I'll leave out whether this was intentional or because he
| saw peace in putin's eyes (as he himself claimed).
|
| But yes, russia couldn't successfully invade in 2018.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| > You are dealing with a thug, not a cost/benefit accountant
|
| Spot on.
| Hamuko wrote:
| According to CNN reporting, the US is already keeping track of
| Russian ships near critical submarine infrastructure. Chances
| are that they already have a prime suspect as to what ship or
| ships have been engaged in this.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/06/politics/us-sees-increasi...
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Why would they use a Russian flagged ship for that?
| XorNot wrote:
| It's harder to get false identification then people on the
| internet think.
|
| But also the Russian MO has never been to do things where
| it's not obvious they did it: the spate of critics of the
| Russian government dying by falling out of windows isn't
| because they lack creativity in assassinating people.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| You don't need false documents, buying and operating a ship
| that has no direct ties to Russia and is registered at an
| other country isn't that hard at all. Of course yeah, if
| suddenly if cables get cut 10x more often that they used to
| it be pretty obvious who is behind it regardless.
|
| > has never been to do things where it's not obvious they
| did
|
| They could still shot them or something like that, the
| window thing still grants them some plausible deniability.
| e.g. the ship that (unclear if intentionally) damaged the
| cables last year was Chinese.
| XorNot wrote:
| > You don't need false documents, buying and operating a
| ship that has no direct ties to Russia and is registered
| at an other country isn't that hard at all
|
| You literally just described a program of falsifying
| documents! If you're buying and operating a ship, then to
| have "no ties to Russia" while using Russian money,
| someone is showing up with forged paperwork or some off-
| the-books bribes to make that happen.
|
| Drawing down those sorts of sums from a country's
| treasury isn't something you can actually just "do" -
| people have to take actions, funds transferred, meetings
| held and operations authorized.
|
| You are describing a system of resources which likely
| does exist, but is by no means easy to use or acquire and
| would not be expended unnecessarily.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| Again, I'm not sure getting a ship registered (or just
| buying one) in a random island country through a shell
| company would be that hard.
|
| > funds transferred, meetings held and operations
| authorized.
|
| It's Russia... I doubt there would be a lot oversight.
| But they might just as well get the money from one of the
| "private" companies run by Putin's cronies with zero
| direct involvement by the Russian government.
|
| Anyway, I still think that acquiring the ship itself is
| still a relatively trivial problem to solve.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's harder to get false identification then people on the
| internet think.
|
| The US can barely enforce its sanctions against Iran.
| Despite the sanctions, they can still move tens of billions
| of oil proceeds. What makes you think any country is going
| to be any more successful at preventing Russia from renting
| a rogue ship?
|
| https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
| economics/2024/10/17/i...
|
| https://archive.is/IN5Aj
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Make them pay dearly every time there's even reasonable
| suspicion that Russia has messed with Western/NATO
| technological infrastructure.
|
| That we still have oligarchs and bratva members walking around
| on NATO soil in the open this far into things is insane.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| There's loads more we can do but the Russian government might
| just collapse if they go too far attacking western assets.
| They know there will be a response "at a time and place of
| our choosing" and cutting the Internet properly will be
| extremely expensive for Russia, they will have no banking
| system at all and we will give Ukraine weapons to attack
| their oil infrastructure.
| loongloong wrote:
| What do you mean "pay dearly" Not more violence I hope...
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/11/afghanistan-papers-
| detai...
|
| Imagine if every bad thing USA did... people want USA to "pay
| dearly"...
| stoperaticless wrote:
| It is not the time to call "but US also did it" card.
|
| When thug attacks, what do you do?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > Imagine if every bad thing USA did... people want USA to
| "pay dearly"...
|
| First off, whataboutism is a logical fallacy.
|
| Second, Afghanistan is nothing if not a bunch of people who
| wanted to make the US "pay dearly", even if to their
| personal and national detriment.
|
| Third, there's a way for the Russians to avoid
| consequences: stop attacking Western digital
| infrastructure.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| Maybe a saildrone, that seems feasible with today's technology.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Supply Ukraine so they can win and finally dissolve Russia.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The Danish straits is European Waters. We fully control
| shipping in and out of the Baltic. International law dictates
| that Denmark cannot prohibit transit passage of foreign vessels
| unless the vessels appear to be violating the international
| rules on marine pollution prevention.
|
| So Denmark can start assuming every vessel (or at least more
| vessels) are in violation. Russia can take that to some
| international court if they so desire. Inspect every ship.
| Question the crews. Take plenty of time doing it. Perishable
| goods on board will perish before reaching St Petersburg and
| Kaliningrad. Tankers will be refused entry, limiting or
| delaying export income for Russia.
| ponector wrote:
| The solution is to refuse passage of the ships to\into Russian
| part of the Baltic. Naval blockade. But it is impossible as so
| many Russian-backed politicians are elected in EU. And all
| other doesn't have a strong will or doesn't care about Russian
| threat. No Churchill\Reagan types are there.
|
| Good times creates weak men.
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Good thing we have strong reality tv hosts.
| Hilift wrote:
| The long term solution is to stop being naive about submarine
| cables. This is a well-known vulnerability, inevitable, and
| ignored. There are better alternatives now, and locally this
| may be temporarily re-routable. But there's no way to protect
| existing cables on par with something like the Hardened
| Intersite Cable System (HICS). I'm surprised it hasn't occurred
| more in the Persian Gulf area. And it could occur in western
| urban areas with relative ease. Most critical cabling intersect
| points in the US are unguarded, although may have cameras or
| other remote monitoring.
| valval wrote:
| Well, since Russia has nothing to gain from such actions, you
| might want to assign surveillance on some other parties in
| case. But yes, I suppose surveillance might act as some form of
| deterrence.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Treat it as the act of war that it is, and confiscate or sink
| the ship involved in it. If it can be done before it reaches a
| harbor, of course also arrest the crew.
|
| If it happens repeatedly, declare the passage of all Russian
| ships (or possibly starting with ships of the type involved in
| the incident, allowing other shipping and giving Russia a
| chance to stop abusing it) "prejudicial to the peace, good
| order or security of the coastal State" and deny passage
| through territorial waters. Extend the territorial waters
| between Finland and Estonia to the full 12 miles without the
| current corridor in between.
|
| Russia understands and responds to strength better than to
| diplomacy and appeasement.
| gruez wrote:
| >Treat it as the act of war that it is, and confiscate or
| sink the ship involved in it. If it can be done before it
| reaches a harbor, of course also arrest the crew.
|
| The ships involved aren't warships. They're ostensibly
| civilian vessels. Also other people mention that accidental
| fiber cuts happen all the time. Are we going to drone strike
| Russian civilian ships on the off chance is malicious?
|
| >Russia understands and responds to strength better than to
| diplomacy and appeasement.
|
| The best way to stop someone committing war crimes is... to
| commit war crimes ourselves?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The ships involved aren't warships.
|
| That has hardly stopped people before.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrio
| r
| gruez wrote:
| Is this supposed to be an argument in favor of sinking
| civilian ships? From the linked article:
|
| >The sinking was a cause of embarrassment to France and
| President Francois Mitterrand. They initially denied
| responsibility, but two French agents were captured by
| New Zealand Police and charged with arson, conspiracy to
| commit arson, willful damage, and murder.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It was embarassing because they got caught, it was
| against Greenpeace, and it was done in an ally's
| territory.
|
| There's unlikely to be anywhere near as much outcry if
| Russian trawlers lurking around undersea cables start
| getting holes in them.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The key word here is "ostentibly".
|
| There seems to be consensus that this was not an accident
| (politicians have stated as such), and treating it
| accordingly would show Russia "no, you can't just pretend
| it was an accident and expect us to do nothing".
|
| On the off chance it actually _is_ an accident at some
| point - that 's the downside (for Russia) of having
| pretend-accidents too many times.
|
| The alternative is ignoring it "because we can't be sure"
| until we get to ignore the "little green men" that totally
| aren't Russian when they come across the border...
| zelon88 wrote:
| It's just practice. Locate the cables, establish a means of
| damaging them, deploy the means as a test and a show of force.
|
| The western economy is almost completely built using off-prem in
| Cloud PaaS environments. It should be pretty fun when WW3 starts
| and not a single hospital, school, laboratory, or factory can
| operate.
| lxgr wrote:
| It also sends two messages: "We can do this to any of your
| cables", and "we're willing to" - with an implied "we could
| easily do it to all of them at the same time".
|
| And the last scenario is the real problem: While there are
| enough cable repair ships to continuously handle a normal rate
| of simultaneous peak failures, fixing multiple cuts can quickly
| exceed their capacity. (There's nothing that says an attacker
| can only cut the same cable in one spot!)
| azeirah wrote:
| [flagged]
| paganel wrote:
| The Russian oligarchs have no say in any of this, they
| never have, people in the West still repeating this mantra
| almost 3 years since the war in Ukraine has started for
| good is a big part of the reason why the same West is close
| to military defeat there, they just refuse to acknowledge
| how Russia really operates.
| lopsidedgrin wrote:
| >acknowledge how Russia really operates.
|
| Enlighten us then. How would suggest Russia should be
| treated?
| paganel wrote:
| Treated by whom?
| aguaviva wrote:
| The "never have" part certainly isn't true.
|
| For a certain period of time, they definitely had
| significant influence.
|
| _They just refuse to acknowledge how Russia really
| operates._
|
| By and large they have, actually, which is why one seldom
| hears the "oligarchs" mantra these days.
|
| In other words -- though you're correct in response to
| the flagged commment, in the bigger-picture sense, you're
| railing against a straw man.
| paganel wrote:
| In military/strategic issues they certainly never had
| anything to say, not even during the dreadful '90s.
| foogazi wrote:
| > a big part of the reason why the same West is close to
| military defeat there
|
| 3 years of stalemate war right next door is not
| impressive at all - how far can Russia really project its
| power ?
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker
| News.
| jjeaff wrote:
| while outages definitely cause big problems in hospitals and
| schools, neither are completely dependent on connectivity in
| the short term. most hospitals are required to be able to
| operate critical services in an outage. even a full power
| outage. Schools will definitely be fine. they just may have a
| serious backlog of entering grades, absences, and payroll once
| things get back online.
| zelon88 wrote:
| > once things get back online.
|
| That would be like trying to cold start a power plant without
| any power.
|
| I think you're missing my point. I'm trying to point out that
| there are 3 "infrastructure providers" that our economy
| CANNOT live without. In a world war situation, these 3
| organizations are going to be the biggest targets. They are
| literally our crown jewels.
|
| They will be under continuous attack from all angles. As we
| know with security, it is a game of time. Even the strongest
| bank safe has a rating in hours that it can resist direct
| tampering. Beyond that time rating the safe offers little to
| no protection. It is the layers of security that keep the
| safe from being tampered with beyond its rating.
|
| What I'm saying is, no target can be secured with 100%
| security guarantee. Even the most secure systems will fail if
| met with a concerted attacker with unlimited resources.
|
| If WW3 starts, we will lose Azure, AWS, and GCP within 5 days
| and it will be more or less completely destroyed within 30
| days. They won't survive concerted attacks from nation state
| actors during war time.
|
| Even if they can't be hacked, they will be physically
| destroyed with kinetic weapons. There is no Bitdefender plan
| that will save them from warheads.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Worry more about the power grid.
| sofixa wrote:
| > If WW3 starts, we will lose Azure, AWS, and GCP within 5
| days and it will be more or less completely destroyed
| within 30 days. They won't survive concerted attacks from
| nation state actors during war time.
|
| The same probably applies to moist mainstream (public)
| datacenters. Only ones that will be safe-ish would be
| something like Scaleway's underground nuclear
| bunker/datacenter.
| Hizonner wrote:
| What a moist data center might look like: https://cdn.mos
| .cms.futurecdn.net/5uvvnrHCuRmzZzyLZUQXNU-970...
|
| Actually seems like a hardish target.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > I'm trying to point out that there are 3 "infrastructure
| providers" that our economy CANNOT live without. In a world
| war situation, these 3 organizations are going to be the
| biggest targets. They are literally our crown jewels.
|
| > If WW3 starts, we will lose Azure, AWS, and GCP within 5
| days and it will be more or less completely destroyed
| within 30 days.
|
| For real? I can't tell if you are writing parady or not.
|
| Neither of those things would operate and neither is any
| concern at all and non-targets.
|
| And why are you worrying about AWS' impact on the economy?
| There would be no economy except maybe trading between
| surviving looters and scavangers.
|
| If there are any states left at all data centres are not a
| concern.
| sofixa wrote:
| > The western economy is almost completely built using off-prem
| in Cloud PaaS environments
|
| US and lesser extent UK. Companies in France, Germany, Spain,
| Italy are much less likely to use public cloud providers,
| especially for critical (customer data, critical for the
| business, etc.) services. Not that it doesn't exist, one of the
| premier health tech startups in Europe, Doctolib, is full AWS;
| but it's rarer and much less prevalent.
|
| Source: I work in a US tech company and cover EMEA, and compare
| notes with American colleagues.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Right but how much of that is cloud shit hosted on a
| different continent?
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > It should be pretty fun when WW3 starts ...
|
| Which may happen as some people just got Biden to authorize
| (honestly I don't think he can do that by himself), without
| congress approval, the use of long range missiles by Ukraine.
|
| Some people are _really_ hard at work trying to start WWIII.
|
| I don't think it's the russian who severed those cables.
|
| Russia knows that if WWIII doesn't start until a few more
| weeks, Trump is probably going to stop the US aiding Ukraine
| and stop the US giving its approval for total nonsense (like
| allowing these long range missiles _weeks_ before handing over
| the presidency).
|
| So why would Russia severe those cable?
|
| I think there's a very high probability the bad actors here are
| the same that used Biden as a puppet to give Ukraine the
| greenlight to fire long range missile on to Russia.
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> honestly I don 't think he can do that by himself_
|
| Why not? They're not restrictions instituted by Congress.
| They were restrictions instituted by this and previous
| Presidents.
| fffffffff4322 wrote:
| I do not support the war, or violence in general.
|
| But EU & NATO ante engaged in a hybrid war with Russia.
|
| - It actively supports a military which is engaged with Russian
| forces
|
| - It has seized Russian financial assets
|
| - I doubt that attacks on Russian infrastructure are perpetuated
| (planned & executed) just buy Ukrainian forces
|
| I do not try to support any side by this statement. My point is
| that by any rational account is a "hybrid involvement". EU & NATO
| are part of an active conflict.
|
| This makes them targets for symmetrical actions -- economic
| warfare by means of sabotage.
| nazgob wrote:
| Russia has been involved in sabotage, shooting down planes with
| Europeans (MH17), killing people they don't like in EU/UK for
| years now. If anything EU is extremely timid and does not
| retaliate.
| fffffffff4322 wrote:
| I am not endorsing Russia.
|
| - shooting down civilians planes is something quite common in
| military operations (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liby
| an_Arab_Airlines_Flight_... ). A bunch of 20 somethings
| handling equipment designed for mass murder. What could
| possibly go wrong?
|
| - extra judicial killings on foreign soil are more common
| than you expect (remember the Saudis ? Or the Indian
| assassinated in Canada recently)
|
| Russia is an authoritarian system by any account it holds
| responsibility for repulsive acts. But the current narrative
| is at best naive.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > "it's obvious this wasn't an accidental anchor drop."
|
| If it's "he who shall not be named", gotta admit, that's a clever
| strategy: ramp up sabotage and see how NATO/EU will feel about
| their "red lines", and how well does that article 5 really work
| in practice. Is it worth more than the paper it's printed on?
| Let's find out!
|
| People have been laughing at the West crossing multiple Russian
| "red lines" and the Russians not doing anything. So the Russians
| can follow a similar route: a cable torn here, a warehouse blows
| up there, maybe a bank website is hacked, water supply or power
| station company blows up "randomly". Is anyone going to launch
| nuclear bombs because of that? That's absurd, of course not, yet
| NATO/EU just looks weak and pathetic in the process.
|
| Ideally, these countries should ramp up similar acts of sabotage
| on the Russian territory if they confirmed that's exactly who it
| is. A dam fails in Siberia, maybe the payment system goes down
| for a week, a submarine catches on fire while in port for
| repairs. Honestly I don't think they have the guts to do that.
|
| Some regimes only speak the language of power. They have to be
| believably threatened; calling them on phone to chat and beg for
| them to behave, is just showing more weakness. Scholz just called
| Putin. Anyone remember Macron talking with Putin for tens of
| hours at the start of the war? A lot of good that did. When they
| see a credible fist in front of their nose, that's the only way
| they'll stop.
| azeirah wrote:
| Weak?
|
| Macron is rallying for major support.
|
| Poland is building an extremely strong army, and is having none
| of Russia's BS.
|
| Rutte is head of NATO now, and he has peace as his nr. 1 goal.
|
| There are so many ads for cybersecurity and military on tv here
| in the Netherlands.
|
| Ukraine received ATACMS (long range missiles) a while ago. This
| is why they are able to invade Russia back.
|
| We are "weak" because Putin has been destabilising our peaceful
| politics over the past 20 years.
|
| Russia isn't a fucking bear, it's a drunk wasteland with plenty
| natural resources, but with fucked up leadership. The Russian
| oligarchy is desperate, and it's showing.
|
| And yes, I _am_ mad. I am 100% going to protect the EU. What we
| have and what we had is beautiful, and my Russian friends and
| my Ukrainian friends deserve better.
|
| I am picking up math, Nix, ML, geopolitics, nature, sports and
| more because of these idiots in Russia. And I'm exactly what
| they fear most. A transgender person.
|
| I'm so, so done with Putin and Lukachenko's BS.
| wqefjwpokef wrote:
| Warmongering 101. Ready to protect the EU and drunken
| wasteland at the same time. The enemy is simultaneously
| pathetic and an existential threat.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Russia isn't a fucking bear, it's a drunk wasteland with
| plenty natural resources, but with fucked up leadership. The
| Russian oligarchy is desperate, and it's showing.
|
| It doesn't matter. It attacked one of the largest countries
| in Europe, captured territory and is still holding it and
| making progress. Right under EU's nose. It can brutally throw
| men in the meat grinder and doesn't worry too much about it.
| Calling Putin like Sholz did or like Macron didn't help.
| Showing him a fist that's ready to strike, only that works.
| Anything else is showing weakness.
|
| > We are "weak" because Putin has been destabilising our
| peaceful politics over the past 20 years.
|
| The weakness is not accidental, they've been weaving in their
| agents all over the place and shaping public opinion. Now
| they are engaged in asymmetrical warfare. Germany has been
| doing deals with the Russians buying gas and oil from them.
| Merkel laughed at the US for being worried about it:
|
| [1] https://www.ft.com/content/aa2afe9f-0b5d-45b7-a647-cc61f6
| d01...
|
| > If we'd known then what we know now, we would of course
| have acted differently
| azeirah wrote:
| > The weakness is not accidental, they've been weaving
| their agents and shaping public opinion. Now they are
| engaged in asymmetrical warfare. Germany has been doing
| deals with the Russians buying gas and oil from them.
| Merkel laughed at the US for being worried about it:
|
| Yep.. When Merkel was German chancellor, I thought she was
| amazing. Not a big fan anymore :(
|
| > It doesn't matter. It attacked one of the largest
| countries in Europe, captured territory and is still
| holding it and making progress. Right under EU's nose. It
| can brutally throw men in the meat grinder and doesn't
| worry too much about it. Calling Putin like Sholz did or
| like Macron didn't help. Showing him a fist that's ready to
| strike, only that works. Anything else is showing weakness.
|
| Yeah. I agree. Putin is not interested in anything but
| power. And he doesn't listen to anything but power. Europe
| is slow and timid, but the impacts of ww2 are still deeply
| embedded in our cultural memory.
| Delk wrote:
| EU as a whole has actually been weak in terms of military
| capability and perhaps also civil defence. The end of the
| Cold War and the long peace had allowed a lot of us to
| believe that there wouldn't be a foreseeable risk of military
| conflict or a need to seriously prepare against aggression.
| Many European countries cut back significantly on their
| military spending and capability. And that seemed like a
| reasonable and popular thing to do given the circumstances.
| (Countries in Eastern Europe were perhaps the exception and
| didn't cut back, at least not so much.)
|
| The problem is that defensive capability cannot be just built
| all of a sudden if it turns out to be needed after all.
|
| Of course the reason that has become a problem is Putin's
| aggression and authoritarian rule.
|
| But Europe has indeed been weak in the sense of not having
| maintained defensive capability. Perhaps that is, both
| fortunately and unfortunately, changing. (Fortunately for
| obvious reasons, unfortunately because it means significant
| spending on something that _should_ not be necessary even
| though it is.)
|
| Hopefully EU societies will remain strong and resilient in
| the sense they've been strong all along: strong civil society
| and democracy.
| azeirah wrote:
| Exactly!
| mr_toad wrote:
| > Many European countries cut back significantly on their
| military spending and capability.
|
| Not nearly as much as the drop in the Soviet Union /
| Russia. European military spending is significantly larger
| than Russia's.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _yet NATO /EU just looks weak and pathetic in the process_
|
| Really? Russia, with the 6th largest army in the world, had to
| pull in Iran and Pyongyang to not get invaded by the 13th
| largest [1][2].
|
| Moscow is being a nuisance. That doesn't make NATO or Europe
| look weak, it makes Russia look pathetic.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/world/europe/ukraine-
| russ...
| fuoqi wrote:
| 13th largest backed by the whole NATO and other US-aligned
| countries. They send almost everything they can outside of
| nuclear weapons, the most cutting edge military tech, and
| people (well, outside of a limited contingent of "advisors").
| Let's be honest, without this backing the war would've ended
| in the first month as was drafted in Istanbul.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Let 's be honest, without this backing the war would've
| ended in the first month as was drafted in Istanbul_
|
| The West didn't really help Ukraine in the first month [1].
| We thought the Russian army was competent and would ride
| into Ukraine like we did in Iraq. It wasn't until after the
| weakness was made apparent that aid started dripping in.
|
| Ukraine repelled a Russian invasion on its own. Our
| generations-old anti-air systems are downing their latest
| weapons. Meanwhile, our generations-old missiles are taking
| out their state-of-the-art systems.
|
| To the degree Russia has been able to claim any victory,
| it's in not being demolished. That's the standard. Not
| winning. Simply surviving.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_U
| krain...
| fuoqi wrote:
| The West was actively supplying Ukraine since 2014,
| especially after the Debaltsevo embarrassment. Yes, it
| pales in comparison to the post 2022 levels, but it still
| was far from insignificant. Even your Wikipedia link
| lists a lot of pre-2022 aid and I am pretty sure this
| page is far from being comprehensive.
|
| And it's even without mentioning the direct role of Boris
| Johnson in tanking the Istanbul accords.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it still was far from insignificant_
|
| Stil far from closing the gap between the 6th and 13th
| largest armies. Russia invaded an inferior force and got
| stymied. This would be like America's Vietnam being Cuba,
| where we fully committed the U.S. military and economy to
| the task and still continued to fail. The fact that
| Russia has never even established air superiority knocks
| it out of the category of running a modern military.
| fuoqi wrote:
| The Russian military doctrine is quite different from the
| US one. It places far more importance on artillery and
| anti-air forces than on air superiority. The Russian army
| clearly sucks at maneuver warfare and together with the
| unrealistically optimistic views which were prevalent in
| the Russian government (read Putin), it explains
| perfectly well the extremely poor performance in the
| first months. The performance in the recent months shows
| results of a more "comfortable" for the Russian army mode
| of warfare.
|
| Also note that the Russian army was not "fully
| committed", it was not using conscripts (there was a
| small scale deployment of conscripts, but after the
| public scandal they were quickly removed from Ukraine)
| and did not fully pull forces from all its military
| districts.
|
| Meanwhile Ukraine was fighting in the total war mode from
| the first days (they do not pull "recruits" from streets
| in the broad daylight into military buses just for the
| fun of it) with huge external support. And having the
| well trained by the West ideologically charged army
| backbone with 8 years of practical warfare experience has
| helped immensely in the first months.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > Meanwhile Ukraine was fighting in the total war mode
| from the first days (they do not pull "recruits" from
| streets in the broad daylight into military buses just
| for the fun of it) with huge external support
|
| Did they do that during the first few months of the war?
| I recall them having more volunteers than they could use
| in the early days.
| geniusplanmate wrote:
| At the moment, Russia has fully conquered (and integrated
| into their nation) 20% of the largest country in Europe.
| They seem intent on going for about 50% of it.
|
| US cannot claim a single victory in the past 4 decades,
| it's been debacle after debacle.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _US cannot claim a single victory in the past 4
| decades, it 's been debacle after debacle_
|
| Militarily? You've got to be joking. Russia is still
| struggling with the military part of the campaign.
|
| Russia's "top of the line" weapons are routinely being
| potted by decades-old NATO kit. They are a spent force,
| conventionally. The military turned from a fighting force
| into a propaganda tool, aimed at projecting masculinity
| to a domestic audience over maintaining martial
| capability.
|
| The problem in the West is there are a lot of Soviet-era
| talking heads who make money when Russia gets attention.
| There is no money to be made if Russia is a loser. So
| it's in the interest of that foreign policy wing to trump
| up Moscow as if it's a competent military versus the
| dumpster fire that it is without Pyongyang and Tehran.
| chgs wrote:
| Looks to me that Russia is winning the war of attrition.
| Is that view inaccurate?
| nradov wrote:
| Yes, that's basically accurate. Russia has a huge
| advantage in manpower and equipment, and has been using
| that to gradually take more territory. Ukraine will have
| to achieve about an 8:1 casualty ratio in order to
| achieve an outright battlefield victory, which they
| haven't been able to do even with foreign military aid. A
| more realistic goal is basically to inflict enough
| Russian casualties that domestic political and economic
| pressures force a withdrawal from most of the occupied
| territory. That's not impossible but it's kind of a long
| shot.
|
| Another approach which is more likely to work is for NATO
| countries to step up and really hurt Russia through every
| means short of war. That mainly means finding a way to
| reduce their fossil fuels export income.
| threeseed wrote:
| > That mainly means finding a way to reduce their fossil
| fuels export income
|
| Which is happening now.
|
| EU is about to impose sanctions on the shadow fleet of
| Russian tankers.
|
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-
| room/20241111IP...
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Is that view inaccurate?_
|
| Technically no, but a more forthright assessment would
| be: "Russia has been winning the war of attrition, but
| _very slowly_ , and only for the past year. At current
| rates, it would take several decades to reach Kyiv.
| Meanwhile, for the sake of these extremely modest gains,
| it's spending about 10 percent of its GDP."
|
| Context it is everything.
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't remember desert storm being a debacle, but maybe
| I missed it. Certainly arming Iraq in the 80s and
| fighting them in the 90s was problematic, but you know
| things happen.
|
| The 2000s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were pretty
| successful. The holding of Afghanistan and Iraq, not so
| much. Russia doesn't seem to be having nearly the level
| of success in invading Ukraine (although invading Crimea
| seemed to be pretty successful).
| aguaviva wrote:
| _The direct role of Boris Johnson in tanking the Istanbul
| accords._
|
| Which is a myth - oft repeated, but with precisely zero
| substance.
|
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41813032
| fuoqi wrote:
| Zero substance? It was reported by Ukrainska Pravda (and
| Ukraine is far from being famous for its freedom of
| press) not by some Russian propaganda outlet. It's the
| same as saying that WSJ citing "sources" has zero
| substance.
|
| Regardless, you can believe that the West did not provide
| any assurance to Ukraine during the Istanbul talks and
| that Russia has blown its own pipeline. It's your right.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _It was reported by Ukrainska Pravda_
|
| It was speculated as a possibility by that article, but
| then it was looked into by others, quite thoroughly, and
| the narrative fell apart. That happens, you know.
|
| The Foreign Affairs article in the aforementioned thread
| has a pretty good writeup about the whole thing, if you
| are interested.
|
| _You can believe that Russia has blown its own pipeline_
|
| You can change the subject as many times as you want, and
| speculate, falsely, about what you think other people
| believe about random topics, all day long if you want.
|
| But this has absolutely no bearing on what we were just
| talking about.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > supplying Ukraine since 2014
|
| You are moving the goalposts, though. Support between
| 2014 and 2022 wasn't even remotely close to:
|
| > They send almost everything they can outside
|
| Also even now they aren't exactly sending everything they
| can, rather everything they want to.
| libertine wrote:
| > They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear
| weapons
|
| Equipment from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s isn't
| "almost everything they can outside of nuclear weapons."
|
| But you're 100% right, Ukraine should have received more,
| especially because we asked them to surrender their nuclear
| deterrence.
|
| There is still a lot of equipment Ukraine could use, like
| long-range cruise missiles would help them a lot to stop
| from being attacked by Russia long-range cruise missiles.
| GJim wrote:
| > They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear
| weapons
|
| We are doing no such thing. Unfortunately.
| josefresco wrote:
| > They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear
| weapons
|
| Oh come on now, you know this isn't true. The US and it's
| allies have a mountain of military tech they haven't sent
| for a variety of good and bad reasons. Ukraine regularly
| begs for more and better weapons, if they were "sent almost
| everything" would they be begging for more?
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Really?
|
| That's exactly how the Russians perceive the EU. They are
| perceived as weak. There is no way they would have started
| the invasion if they were afraid of them. They are engaging
| in asymmetrical warfare because they are convinced they can
| demonstrate that to the world as well "look what we are doing
| there and well we get is phone calls form Sholz" [1]
|
| > Scholz condemned the war of aggression against Ukraine
|
| > The German leader called on Putin to withdraw Russian
| troops from Ukraine ...
|
| [1] https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-scholz-calls-putin-for-
| first-...
|
| That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it looks
| absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That 's exactly how the Russians perceive the EU. They
| are perceived as weak_
|
| Europe _has_ been weak. The difference is Russia is weak
| while trying its hardest. Europe is weak because it can 't
| bother to try.
|
| > _That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it
| looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin_
|
| Nobody considers condemnations power moves. Also, Putin's
| track record in reading who's too weak to do what doesn't
| look too hot right now.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it
| looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin
|
| Calling and talking with Putin as acting as some kind of
| "power broker" or "decider" (Bush junior's classic). I
| think that's the context there. That's after years of
| hand wringing, should we help, or shouldn't help, maybe
| help, but not too much and so on.
|
| > Europe has been weak. The difference is Russia is weak
| while trying its hardest. Europe is weak because it can't
| bother to try
|
| I agree, and I don't know if now it finally woke up or it
| hasn't yet. It's not over till it's over, as they say.
| Demiurge wrote:
| How is it trying its hardest when it hasn't declared a
| full scale mobilization, hasn't closed its borders, or
| switched to war time economy?
| XorNot wrote:
| Russia is absolutely in a full war time economy at the
| moment. There's nothing left to squeeze out of it and
| they're headed for a meltdown in 2025/2026.
| lucianbr wrote:
| > Russia is absolutely in a full war time economy at the
| moment.
|
| So it would seem.
|
| > There's nothing left to squeeze out of it and they're
| headed for a meltdown in 2025/2026.
|
| Promises, promises. By the time 2026 rolls around, nobody
| will remember this comment to tell you how wrong you
| were.
|
| I mean, you could be right. Who knows. The point is the
| future is uncertain, and using predictions as proof or
| arguments is stupid. Nobody knows what's going to happen
| 2 years out.
|
| Did you know ahead of time they would get NK soldiers, NK
| artillery ammo, Iranian drones? What if Putin finds some
| clever ways of compensating for the losses? He's actively
| trying to improve his situation, not just sitting on his
| ass watching, as these predictions imply.
| XorNot wrote:
| And what if an asteroid destroys all the Russian
| forces..then what?
|
| Current Russian interest rates are 21% on cash, 15% on 10
| year bonds[1] and the government is increasing spending
| on the war.[2]
|
| The wheels aren't going to come off immediately, but
| they've been reaching the peak of their ability.
|
| Or to put it another way: you're not clever for going
| "nah uh" and there's no such thing as magic. For the next
| 3 years Russia's economy is being tossed at the war
| entirely, and every dollar which is is coming at the
| expense of everything else.
|
| And this is all based on the heavily massaged Kremlin
| figures: they're not easy to lie about, but they're
| certainly also only ever going to be reported to try and
| shape a message of the type you're now parroting: you
| can't win so don't even try, Kremlin-strong,
| authoritarianism is just plain tougher then you decadent
| westerners.
|
| [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/government-bond-
| yield
|
| [2] https://cepa.org/article/russia-budgets-for-its-
| forever-war/
| malaya_zemlya wrote:
| 40% of Russian budget is allocated to defense, that's
| roughly the same level as US during Vietnam war.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| That Russian ideology is stuck in 19th century / WWI-era
| imperial mentality is their own problem. How they
| "perceive" Europe is their own concern.
|
| Europe mostly learned its lessons after WWII and is more
| interested in commerce and trade, not in battling over
| colonial possessions and ethnic partitioning. The games
| that the US (in Iraq, Syria etc.) and the Russians are
| playing have had nothing but negative effects on the world.
| US poked the hornets nest in Iraq/Syria and now Europe has
| had a refugee crisis for 10+ years. Russia butchering
| Ukraine the same.
| tmnvix wrote:
| It looks more like they are just winning their war by the
| most effective means they have at their disposal.
|
| To say that Russia is just being a nuisance.... They have
| just won a war. That is clear as day now.
|
| Trump's election is the nail in the coffin. Immediately we
| saw Schultz call Putin and Zelensky declare that the war will
| be over early next year - implying a negotiated settlement.
|
| It's done. The Russians won. Exactly what they won is all
| that is to be decided.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Won the war? Putin lost his political goals the first
| month. Everything since then has just been a very slow (and
| literal) death animation.
|
| Putin has destroyed Russia's population pyramid and driven
| away all sensible educated people. Their society is screwed
| for a generation.
|
| Trump is a wildcard and may try to pressure Putin if he
| thinks it will get him the Nobel Peace prize he so
| desperately desires. But even the most conciliatory Trump
| cannot save Russia now.
| sekai wrote:
| > They have just won a war. That is clear as day now.
|
| Ukraine still holds a part of Kursk region after months of
| Russia failing to take it back, is that what winning looks
| like?
| tmnvix wrote:
| Ask yourself, when was the last time a nation officially
| declared war?
|
| It doesn't happen anymore for legal reasons.
|
| NATO will 100% not be the first to declare war despite even
| very serious provocations. Maybe they'll take a leaf out of
| Russia or Israel's book and declare a 'special' or 'limited'
| operation though...
| throw310822 wrote:
| > Maybe they'll take a leaf out of Russia or Israel's book
|
| As you yourself just pointed out a few lines line above this,
| there's no need to take a leaf out of anybody else's book:
| all the US' and NATO wars of the past decades have been
| presented as "special operations": e.g. the war against
| Serbia, the war against Iraq, the war against Afghanistan,
| etc.
| geniusplanmate wrote:
| Great successes by the way!
| fractallyte wrote:
| NATO's operation in Serbia actually prevented an imminent
| genocide in Kosovo. Serbs were emboldened by their
| "successes" in Croatia and Bosnia, and it took that long
| for the EU and NATO to finally summon up enough courage
| to do something proactive.
|
| Comparing Russia to Serbia, the cliff of inaction seems
| almost insurmountable.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > NATO will 100% not be the first to declare war despite even
| very serious provocations.
|
| But if it doesn't declare war, it now looks weak. That
| article 5 isn't worth very much all of the sudden. At the
| same time it's stupid to start WW3 over a village in the
| Baltics, a town in Romania, a cut cable or a few blown up
| warehouses. The Russians took the same "red line" idea and
| are playing it against the NATO and the EU. I can't interpret
| as any other way. And on one level, it sort of works.
|
| > Maybe they'll take a leaf out of Russia or Israel's book
| and declare a 'special' or 'limited' operation though...
|
| I'd like to believe. But remembering how much hand wringing
| was needed to send a few tanks to Ukraine and some F-16.
| Somehow, I doubt they'll be able to do anything as bold as a
| "special" military operation against Russia. Heck, they can't
| even provide air defense for Ukraine's skies. (As in use
| NATO's own defense systems to stop the Russians destroying
| apartment buildings). That's the point the Russians are
| providing. They are destroying NATO's reputation without even
| trying to too much, and I posit, so far it works.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| _> But if it doesn 't declare war, it now looks weak._
|
| Turns out looks and optics are much less important than
| money and munitions.
| toast0 wrote:
| If you want to, I think you can invade Russia without
| declaring war, because the Korean war is still unresolved,
| and North Korea's military is active in Russia.
|
| Just claim your advisors to South Korea are taking care of
| extra-territorial combatants from that war. No reason to
| declare a war on Russia when it's clearly part of the
| existing conflict.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Restraint is not weak and pathetic.
|
| If you accidentally pick a fight with a BJJ fighter, hope they
| are a black belt instead of a purple.
|
| Or to paraphrase Vladimir Kara-Murza, democracy _will_ come to
| Russia. So far the west has been better off letting Putin tie
| his own noose.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Or to paraphrase Vladimir Kara-Murza, democracy will come
| to Russia. So far the west has been better off letting Putin
| tie his own noose.
|
| Unfortunately the noose is a tie and it's soaked in Ukrainian
| blood so far.
|
| Of course Ukrainians should be grateful for the help they
| got, and no doubt they are. But they should also be worried
| about how little they got and based on that rate where this
| war will eventually end. I am afraid it will end with
| bleeding all of Ukraine. I wish Western leaders, especially
| West European leaders were more bold. Where are the Margaret
| Thatchers, Francois Mitterrands, and Helmut Kohls of
| yesteryear. We got milquetoast Sholzs and Macrons instead.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| First thing out of that russian "opposition" mouth after
| exchange was "Ukraine please stop resisting" and "Please stop
| the sanctions".
|
| There is nobody in russia to make democracy happen. Their
| "opposition" is just different shades of putinism.
| YZF wrote:
| Putin would not be where he is without the support of China.
| And China has plenty of levers that the west can press without
| needing to do sabotage or war. 15% of China's exports go the
| US. EU another 15% or so.
|
| The west won the cold war without firing a shot or blowing any
| bridges or sinking any ships.
|
| I do agree Putin will change course if he feels he can lose
| power but it's not clear how pressure on Russia leads to that.
| He holds the country in his iron fist. He's not going to care
| about losing some ships or bridges as long as he thinks that he
| can come up ahead in the long run. He'll just use that as
| motivation to send even more soldiers to Ukraine and ramp up
| arms productions.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Despite all the shifts in China and in Chinese-Western
| relations in the last 10 years it remains the fact that the
| thing China cares about the most is commerce. If the spice
| stops flowing because of international warfare, China will
| not be happy.
|
| Which is why I think it's insane that both US political
| parties have made "trade war with China" a major policy
| plank. I think the CCP is as awful as the next person, but
| cutting trade now means cutting leverage later.
| fuoqi wrote:
| Looks like a pretty transparent hint on how response to the
| recent US/UK/France permission to use long-range missiles against
| the Russian territory could look like. The Nord Stream sabotage
| has opened Pandora's box almost exactly how it was predicted in
| Cryptonomicon.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| _> The Nord Stream sabotage has opened Pandora 's box almost
| exactly how it was predicted in Cryptonomicon._
|
| Can you elaborate?
| sho wrote:
| "This is the new balance of power, Randy."
|
| "You can't seriously be telling me that governments are
| threatening to--"
|
| "The Chinese have already done it. They cut an older cable--
| first-generation optical fiber--joining Korea to Nippon. The
| cable wasn't that important--they only did it as a warning
| shot. And what's the rule of thumb about governments cutting
| submarine cables?"
|
| "That it's like nuclear war," Randy says. "Easy to start.
| Devastating in its results. So no one does it."
|
| "But if the Chinese have cut a cable, then other governments
| with a vested interest in throttling information flow can
| say, 'Hey, the Chinese did it, we need to show that we can
| retaliate in kind.' "
|
| "Is that actually happening?"
|
| "No, no, no!" Avi says. They've stopped in front of the
| largest display of needlenose pliers Randy has ever seen.
| "It's all posturing. It's not aimed at other governments so
| much as at the entrepreneurs who own and operate the new
| cables."
| maayank wrote:
| Wow, good catch. Forgot about this part!
| sevnin wrote:
| It didn't open a pandoras box, Russians are very creative in
| the escalation warfare. It was known for quite a bit of time
| that Russians were mapping these cables out. They are probably,
| like always, just testing to see the response (rather lack of
| it).
| fuoqi wrote:
| It's like 3rd or 4th submission of this news today? One of the
| previous discussions:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42175676
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! We've merged that thread hither.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42172565
| dang wrote:
| Merged hither. Thanks!
| gweinberg wrote:
| I'm surprised there's such a cable in the first place, it seems
| it would be easier to go on land through Denmark and Sweden. Is
| it for some reason easier to have an undersea cable than a land
| one?
| graeme wrote:
| You can see an undersea cable map here. I don't know about
| cables specifically but:
|
| 1. Anything sea based tends to be cheaper than land based, both
| in terms of sea transport and also lack of other interfering
| infrastructure, homes etc along the way
|
| 2. Shorter distance means lower latency
|
| 3. There surely is a land cable too. There's a lot of redunancy
| in the system
|
| https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
| V__ wrote:
| Just a note: The map doesn't even show all the cables. There
| are some missing, there are a lot of these cables lying
| around.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's much easier to lay a cable on the bottom of the sea.
| There's nothing interfering there, you don't have to dig, you
| don't have to put up poles. If you give it some thought, you'll
| realize how much easier it is to have an undersea cable.
| firebaze wrote:
| Nord Stream Part II
| usr1106 wrote:
| No. Nord Stream seem more and more having been an Ukrainian
| action. Maybe not official government, but obviously more in
| Ukrainian interest than in Russian.
|
| I can't see any Ukrainian interest an cutting internet between
| two of their supporters. Whether the support has been
| sufficient can be debated, but both are supporters. Germany
| among the top in absolute terms, Finland among the top relative
| to their own size. Yes among, there are stronger supporters in
| both categories.
| fractallyte wrote:
| It could be argued that it was more in US interests than
| Ukrainian... And, of course, the US was better resourced to
| carry out such an operation.
| keskival wrote:
| And also the cable between Lithuania and Sweden:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/18/telecoms-cable...
| threeseed wrote:
| And also Ireland escorted a Russian spy ship away from their
| cables:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-sh...
| carabiner wrote:
| A disruption in communications can mean only one thing:
| invasion.
| trhway wrote:
| yes. What Russia does currently is probing and testing -
| what it takes to disrupt all the necessary cables
| simultaneously to create communication breakdown and a lot
| of chaos, what resources and time it takes to repair (and
| thus planning the options on blocking those repair
| resources, etc.) It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the
| Baltic states to reach the sea. That is the time Russia
| wants to buy. Once Russian forces are already in Riga,
| Tallinn, Vilnus, the NATO will have a decision to make on
| whether to bomb the Russian forces already placed by that
| time among the Baltic states population.
| chgs wrote:
| Still waiting for Russian forces to occupy Kyiv
| trhway wrote:
| I suggest you revisit the history of the first days of
| the invasion, specifically the depth which the ground
| armored forces reached in the first 2-3 days and what and
| how they were stopped. The Baltic states "width" is much
| smaller, and thus there is much less time to organize
| defense, etc. It is hardly enough time even just for
| taking the decision to initiate defense. Of course, like
| in the case with Ukraine, Russia wouldn't succeed if the
| quick invasion turns instead into a face-to-face war
| midway. That is why they are looking for a way to create
| blackout and chaos.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I'm sure they have a plan to deal with this and loads of
| NATO troops there armed to the teeth and air superiority
| so it will be shooting fish in a barrel. We don't know
| what will happen but I'm not sure cutting the internet
| won't affect Russia pretty badly too - certainly China
| will not be a fan of the huge disruption it will cause
| them too.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| We had plenty of warning they were going to invade. The
| units didn't just pop out of nowhere.
|
| Any build up on those borders is now going to be
| interpreted in that way and you'll have a likely reaction
| from NATO all across the eastern front.
|
| I doubt they would get very far.
| xenospn wrote:
| Never underestimate the European ability to discuss
| matters and do absolutely nothing while their beds are
| burning.
| sekai wrote:
| > thus there is much less time to organize defense, etc.
|
| Russia was concentrating troops alongside the border for
| months. It started on October 2021, invasion began on
| February 2022.
| Moru wrote:
| The invasion started 2014 with Krim and have been ongoing
| since then (Lost a remote coworker that year). This was
| just the next logical step.
| fractallyte wrote:
| Conversely, I have no doubt that Lithuania's armed forces
| have learned from Ukraine's experience: those Russian
| tanks would _all_ be destroyed within the first few
| kilometers.
|
| ...and that assumes Russia still has enough tanks to even
| mount an offensive, in sufficient numbers to capture
| several capital cities, belonging to nations with a
| fearsome grudge against them.
|
| (Three years ago, I would have fully agreed with your
| assessment!)
| trhway wrote:
| yes. That is why Russia hasn't yet moved, and still
| looking for a way to do it. Russia is deliberately stuck
| in the past where for example the "War scare of 1927"
| laid ground and provided the excuse for the
| militarization of and repressions in USSR and ultimately
| to the USSR starting WWII together with and as ally of
| Hitler. And the first thing USSR did back then in 1939
| was the "solution" of the perceived issues of the 1927
| (the issues which there for the last several centuries) -
| Finland, Poland and the Baltic states. If you look at the
| current Russian TV, chats, etc. - their thinking and
| perception are the same as back then. For them it isn't
| an issue of whether to do it, it is an issue of how to do
| it. It took 12 years from 1927 to 1939 during which the
| country got prepared for the war, at least how they
| perceived the necessary preparations - in particular it
| was industrialized and the society was militarized and
| put completely under dictatorship, and i think we see
| that today too.
| hackandthink wrote:
| The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The
| next invasion from the west happened 1941.
|
| And I guess there is still some paranoia in Russia. The
| NATO Neocons are busy feeding it.
| trhway wrote:
| >The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The
| next invasion from the west happened 1941.
|
| Not really. The USSR was scared about what they perceived
| as Anglo-led forces and so united with Germany against
| them and attacked them first. The invasion of 1941 came
| from Germany who was still an ally even just the night
| before the invasion - Hitler even fed Stalin (and Stalin
| went for it!) the fake that the German forces got
| accumulated on the USSR border to mislead Britain into
| thinking that Germany plans to attack USSR while instead
| Germany was supposedly preparing to invade Britain.
|
| >And I guess there is still some paranoia in Russia. The
| NATO Neocons are busy feeding it.
|
| The Russian paranoia hasn't changed much since Ivan The
| Terrible, long before neocons.
| hackandthink wrote:
| I think "Blood and Ruins" by Richard Overy is a great
| piece of work and a good account of the confusing history
| of the 1930s.
|
| Munich was an "alliance" of Great Britain und Germany
| (and sort of Poland).
|
| Then Germany and the Soviet Union allied against Poland.
|
| Then Great Britain and The Soviet Union allied.
|
| >The Russian paranoia hasn't changed much since Ivan The
| Terrible, long before neocons.
|
| Prisoners of Geography is pop science but I like the
| chapter about Russia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_Geography
|
| https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/106335/blood-and-ruins-
| by-ov...
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _The Soviet Union was right to be scared back then. The
| next invasion from the west happened 1941._
|
| And everyone next to the Soviet Union was right to be
| scared since Soviet Union invaded Finland and Poland in
| 1939.
| axpvms wrote:
| >the next invasion from the west
|
| The invasion from Nazi Germany, the USSR's ally in the
| invasion of Poland, and the one it signed extensive trade
| agreements with and helped to avoid sanctions.
| avh02 wrote:
| Oh no, if only radio/emergency broadcast
| television/satellite/alternative cable routes/contingency
| plans had been invented!
| trhway wrote:
| We can look at October 7th in Israel how long, with all
| the communications and infrastructure working, it took to
| organize defense in a very technologically developed
| country which basically had been living in the state of
| war readiness. Now add broken significant communications,
| chaos of non-working banks/ATMs, power shut-offs, clogged
| highways, etc. (don't get me wrong - i'm not saying that
| Russia can do all that, i'm saying that Russia is
| actively working on those capabilities, and whether they
| achieve it to the needed extent is the key to how the
| events would go in the near future)
| cryptoegorophy wrote:
| I still don't get how Oct 7 was not an inside job. With
| mossad crabs everywhere how do you miss such a major plot
| to attack with so many actors involved?
| stoperaticless wrote:
| These broke cables have not affected daily lives
| (possibly ISPs had extra work though)
| nopakos wrote:
| Hey! I woke up at 06:00 to check what was wrong with a
| service. It turned out, a server in Germany could not
| reach a server in Finland in the 20" timeout I had set.
| toast0 wrote:
| You set your timeout in inches? I thought you were all
| metric over tehre, except for socket drivers which are
| universally imperial :P
| nopakos wrote:
| Yes, although miles would be more appropriate!
| https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html
| aerzen wrote:
| How did you reach the conclusion it was not an inside
| job? Or an intentional israeli delay so the response was
| "justified"?
|
| I'm not being snarky, but from what I gather, Isreal
| could have prevented that.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| What?
| avh02 wrote:
| You're right, but I think there were a lot of other
| factors involved there unrelated to basic infrastructure.
| Not to get too in to politics but i think there was a lot
| of underestimation, dismissal of warning signals (focus
| was elsewhere, as you can see with how precise
| intelligence seems to be in Lebanon), and just bad timing
| for them. I don't think anyone living in Russia's shadow,
| seeing what is actively happening, will be that
| unprepared.
| sekai wrote:
| > It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the Baltic states to
| reach the sea
|
| And how long does it take for the F35 to fly across all
| Baltic States? 30 minutes at max speed. Without air
| supremacy, Russia would be dead in the water.
|
| > That is the time Russia wants to buy. Once Russian
| forces are already in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnus, the NATO
| will have a decision to make on whether to bomb the
| Russian forces already placed by that time among the
| Baltic states population.
|
| If you think Poland and Finland would sit on their hands
| and do nothing, you're being naive.
| oneshtein wrote:
| RF has no air supremacy in Ukraine, so they have high
| loses, but they advance anyway. Small or large losses
| will not stop an empire, except Imperial Japan maybe.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Ukraines Air Force is tiny and poorly equipped. Compare
| it to just the Nordics for example who are soon on
| hundreds of F-35 and Gripen. Staging any mass movements
| against that kind of air support will be challenging.
|
| Besides NATO already has a large land based army as well.
| US, Turkey, Poland , Finland all have large ground forces
| nkrisc wrote:
| This would be more concerning if Russia had any tanks
| left.
|
| Are you suggesting Russia has a full invasion force
| they're _not_ using in Ukraine? Or to liberate their own
| occupied territory?
| v0lta wrote:
| Today: no In 5-10 years: probably
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| No, they literally make barely any tanks. What they do is
| refurbish and modernize post-soviet stock.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Maybe, but that's assuming their war economy lasts for
| that long, that they still have people to run those
| things, etc. Besides, Europe was caught with its
| proverbial pants down; in 5-10 years, they will (should)
| have their military up to speed again, with fresher,
| better equipped and better trained people than Russia
| has. The border countries have all upgraded their
| defenses already, and if they invade a NATO country they
| suddenly have all of Europe and - if still applicable at
| the time - the US on their back.
|
| There are no scenarios in which Russia can have any
| significant victories. The only thing they maybe have is
| nukes, but nobody wins if those are deployed.
| holoduke wrote:
| You forgot one thing. Nato has zero combat experience.
| Its entire economy is not suitable for warfare. Will take
| a lot longer than 5 years.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Nato has zero combat experience._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations
| holoduke wrote:
| Not a single serious war. A war against Russia will be
| similar to ww1 and ww2. meaning men from all age groups
| will die in large masses. Or you believe a war will be
| similar to sandal terrorists.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Not a single serious war_
|
| And you're both changing the goalposts, and setting a
| ridiculous standard (WWI/WWII) for the minimum standard
| of what constitutes a "serious" war.
| trhway wrote:
| Baltic states have 30K military total combined - Russia
| loses 20-30K/month in Ukraine. So, with all the respect
| to the Baltic states military - with them being
| responsible for the defense of about 700km long strip of
| land, it isn't about full invasion force, it is about
| having NATO not responding long enough.
| nkrisc wrote:
| And Russia can't expel a Ukrainian force smaller than
| that from less area of their own territory.
| trhway wrote:
| You're comparing frontal assault on battle hardened
| troops vs. potentially highly maneuvering invasion. It is
| somewhat like comparing Harkiv operation in the Fall 2022
| vs. counteroffensive in the South in the Summer 2023.
|
| In Kursk Russian forces can't maneuver much, they have to
| directly push on Ukrainians. The density of Russian and
| Ukrainian forces in this war - like ~500K each on the
| 1000km of the battle lines - is order of magnitude higher
| than that of the Baltic states militaries. Potential
| invasion in the low density situation of the Baltic
| states would make sense by cutting through un/low-
| defended areas with encircling/etc. of the more fortified
| areas without direct assault of them, at least initially.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I can't imagine a scenario where the Baltics are invaded
| without Poland getting involved. And maybe even Germany,
| Sweden, Finland.
|
| And that is not a fight I think Russia can win and they
| know that.
| dh2022 wrote:
| I would imagine at least US Air Force getting involved.
| And that would mean Russia will be pushed out of Baltics
| fairly quickly (assuming the conflict remains a
| conventional conflict and does not escalate into nuclear
| conflict).
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I think you're imagining a world without Trump in the
| presidency.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Trump was the one arming Ukraine, not Obama. Obama sent
| helmets, MREs, and blankets. Trump sent Javelins.
|
| Trump also got out of the Intermediate Missile treaty -
| which was beneficial for Russia (and Western Europe) and
| a non-issue for Americans.
|
| Trump is not the Putin-puppet Hillary made him to be.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Nice try. Almost like the "perfect phone call" never
| happened. Except it did.
|
| Apparently you haven't seen the map going around with
| Trump's proposed solution. Ukraine gives up all of what
| Russia is occupying right now, and doesn't keep Kursk.
| Ukraine can't join NATO for "20 years" (aka never).
| "European" troops are supposed to sit on a "DMZ" (which
| they will never agreed to).
|
| Aka Ukraine surrenders, and Russia will just organize a
| hybrid-warfare coup to get a Lukashenko-style puppet
| gov't back in in Ukraine. Or come back in with troops in
| a few years.
|
| Basically it's crappy bargaining, from a weak president.
| If you were Putin, and you saw that map... why stop now?
| You'd be laughing. No consequences.
|
| Trump is a puppet not so much of Putin, but of the oil
| and gas sector. And Russia is an energy superpower. They
| both speak on behalf of the same global financial
| interests. They are very tired of this conflict and care
| little about Ukraine.
|
| I cannot see Trump playing along with an Article 5
| reaction to Russian aggression. And Putin is not stupid
| enough to use direct conventional warfare against a NATO
| state anyways. It's just more and more hybrid
| provocations, to wear down western solidarity, to topple
| gov'ts or undermine response, and all excused by useful
| idiots in the west.
| dh2022 wrote:
| You are kind of all over the place...
|
| The Trump - Zelensky call was about discrediting Biden
| not about appeasing Putin. OK, moving on...
|
| Trump is not longer Putin's puppet but the puppet "of the
| oil and gas sector". OK, moving on...
|
| This thread is about about Russian military invasion in
| the Baltics and you reply with "And Putin is not stupid
| enough to use conventional warfare against NATO".OK,
| moving on....
|
| "topple govt's" - Putin cannot even topple Ukraine...
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Apparently you haven 't seen the map going around with
| Trump's proposed solution._
|
| Because apparently there isn't one. It seems some
| Republican "strategist" put out a map, but it has since
| been disavowed by the incoming administration.
| "Bryan Lanza was a contractor for the campaign," said the
| spokesperson, who declined to be named. "He does not work
| for President Trump and does not speak for him."
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I hope to hell you're right and this wasn't just a
| selective leak.
| dh2022 wrote:
| If fighting starts in the Baltics (or Poland) Russia will
| face the greatest air force in the world fairly quickly.
| The conventional conflict will be over in a few months.
| Hopefully it will not escalate into nuclear conflict.
| oneshtein wrote:
| RF refurbishes about 1300 tanks a year. It's more than
| enough to conquer part of Europe and then exchange it for
| Ukraine.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| They probably do, but they send them immediately to the
| frontlines. There are people who track RU storage and
| refurbishment sites.
|
| https://x.com/Jonpy99/status/1856776568057565284/photo/1
|
| There's no secret real russian army just waiting to
| invade some another country, or just chilling in Urals.
| If russia did not have nuclear weapons, road to moscow
| would be open.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| They might occupy some area, sure, but if they invade a
| EU or NATO country they'll get that full force on top of
| them. And they have a lot of aircraft to deploy too;
| tanks have zero chance against an airstrike.
| oneshtein wrote:
| NATO cannot stop Russia in Ukraine, even with help of 1
| million Ukrainian army. NATO have no enough tanks,
| shells, soldiers to stop 2 million army in few first
| weeks, even if Russians will just march with their AK-s
| in hands. The only thing that will stop Russia for sure
| is a nuclear strike. Planes are good for strikes, but
| ground must be captured and hold by soldiers.
| rurp wrote:
| Eh, western militaries are holding a _lot_ of weaponry
| back from Ukraine; like the vast majority of it. They
| have run low in a few areas that have been key in this
| war, like artillery shells, but that 's in part because
| these countries haven't prioritized that production in
| recent history in favor of other systems.
|
| I actually do think that the US and Europe should be
| moving faster to increase their military manufacturing
| capacity, especially Europe given the situation they are
| now facing. But to say that NATO countries have been
| throwing everything they have to Ukraine is wildly off
| the mark.
| dh2022 wrote:
| None of the western air forces are involved. In the Iraq
| war most of the Iraqi casualties were due to air force,
| not ground forces (like Iraq' Highway of Death for
| example). If US Air Force ever gets involved in this
| conflict it will be a turkey shot.
| oneshtein wrote:
| F-16 are already in Ukraine. They fail to demonstrate
| great results, because of Russian air defense. Both RF
| and Ukraine can launch glide bombs at enemy.
| dh2022 wrote:
| You mean the 6 Ukrainian manned F-16s? Well, 5 now since
| Ukrainians downed one of their own in friendly fire..
|
| Meanwhile US AirForce has about 900 F-16s... and a whole
| bunch of F35s. This it not a serious comparison....
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > NATO cannot stop Russia in Ukraine, even with help of 1
| million Ukrainian army.
|
| I mean, they are doing pretty good for a total NATO
| deployment of 0 combat forces. Funny to describe the
| _only_ country with troops involved as "helping" and
| treating the nonexistent NATO presence as the primary
| force.
|
| > NATO have no enough tanks, shells, soldiers to stop 2
| million army in few first weeks, even if Russians will
| just march with their AK-s in hands.
|
| In the event of a Russian invasion of Eastern flank NATO
| members and the NATO forward-deployed battlegroups in
| those countries, NATO policy, unlike in Ukraine, would
| not restrict the use of long range weapons against
| command and control, logistics, and combat aviation
| facilities in Russia, nor would NATO forces be short on
| their own combat aviation to use against the invasion
| itself.
|
| Ukraine isn't NATO, and while impressive for their
| conditions, what Ukraine can do is not a model for what
| NATO can do.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Russia is at war with NATO. Ukraine is invaded because
| Ukraine wants to join NATO, to make NATO weaker. Same for
| Georgia. If Ukraine will fall, Russia will win, NATO will
| lose.
|
| Long range weapons will hit hard for sure, but millions
| of soldiers still must be defeated in close combat to
| take ground. Ukraine has western tech, it good, but it
| not good enough when Ukrainians are outnumbered. To win
| the war, Ukraine must dominate in the war, but western
| allies fail to deliver anything that will dominate over
| Russia.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Have a look at what Israel did to Irans S-300s last
| month. Ukraine has still only received scraps from NATO
| nkrisc wrote:
| What non-NATO European country are they going to invade
| (and hold!) as a bargaining chip?
|
| Any how many of those tanks go straight to Ukraine? Do
| you think Russia can afford to stockpile tanks (and
| everything else necessary) for several years for an
| invasion of Europe while simultaneously engaged in the
| their current war in Ukraine?
| oneshtein wrote:
| Slovakia or Hungary, for example.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| They are both in NATO
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| >It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the Baltic states to
| reach the sea.
|
| And what happens if they actually go for that distance?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Voznesensk
| trhway wrote:
| yes, due to geography, success at Voznesensk basically
| saved Odessa and the rest of the unoccupied South. That
| is the point - if Russia took Odessa back then it would
| basically be game-over. I don't see such strategic points
| like Voznesensk in the Baltic states though.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| There is vast difference between just driving somewhere
| and actually controlling it. Russia learned that in first
| month of the invasion. If they weren't stopped at
| Voznesensk, they would be stopped somewhere else - there
| was singular BTG driving somewhere deep into hostile
| territory.
|
| Another example of BTG driving deep and getting
| decimated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g68MmLrGvM
| trhway wrote:
| >There is vast difference between just driving somewhere
| and actually controlling it. Russia learned that in first
| month of the invasion.
|
| I made such comment here in the first hours of the
| invasion :)
|
| >If they weren't stopped at Voznesensk, they would be
| stopped somewhere else
|
| if they were able to take the bridge at Voznesensk, that
| BTG would keep it, and more forces would come that way.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| I don't believe they'd be able to keep and reinforce it,
| given that they were only able to bypass Mykolaiv due to
| the early day chaos. And Mykolaiv was giving rest of
| russian forces there enough problems.
|
| However, at this point it's only speculation, probably
| not worth getting deeper into it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's plenty of alternative communications systems in
| place and I presume the military does not depend
| exclusively on one, two, or even three systems, least of
| all the relatively vulnerable internet cables. NATO,
| borders, and the Russian invasion response playbooks
| predate the internet by decades, too.
|
| While theoretically it's possible that Russia would
| simultaneously dismantle or jam the internet, mobile
| phones, radio, sattelite, and runners in fast cars, if
| that does happen it's already red alert everywhere.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Once Russian forces are already in Riga, Tallinn,
| Vilnus, the NATO will have a decision to make on whether
| to bomb the Russian forces already placed by that time
| among the Baltic states population.
|
| NATO has forward deployed forces to assure that to take
| Riga, Tallin, and Vilnius, Russia will have to attack and
| defeat armed forces of the UK, Canada, and Germany
| respectively. More than that, really, those are just the
| lead nations in the NATO forward-deployed battlegroups in
| those countries. There are also five other forward-
| deployed battlegroups, four of which -- as well as
| reinforcement of the original four in the Baltics +
| Poland - were deployed in response to the 2022 Russian
| escalation in Ukraine.
|
| Cutting undersea cables is not going to prevent (or even
| meaningfully slow) a response given that.
| thephyber wrote:
| Calm down with the fanfic.
|
| RU spent months gathering forces on the UA in Jan, Feb
| 2022. All the while, the US was publicly telling UA the
| odds of invasion were high.
|
| Moving atoms at that scale doesn't happen without lots of
| visible signs. The border nations already know what to
| look for.
|
| And some border states have already built barriers at the
| border with RU, notably Poland.
| lolinder wrote:
| It can also mean that Russia is posturing and retaliating
| for the US's announcement that Ukraine can strike inside
| Russia with US missiles. This feels more like the same kind
| of exercise that North Korea does with their missile tests
| than it does an actual invasion.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I never really liked the whole sabotage is just
| "posturing" opinion.
|
| Like there's real physical stuff destroyed (or in most
| circumstances digital stuff). How hard is it to impound
| ships that break stuff and etc so that the ones
| responsible are actually punished?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Probably no harder than impounding illegal unsafe
| unregistered oil shipping transports making their way
| through the Baltic->Black sea right now, evading
| sanctions.
|
| Not hard. Not done. Because we're cowards.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Russia does not have the manpower or logistics to invade
| anywhere (else). They have spent 2 years tossing meat-waves
| against Ukraine to grind them down, take a few km a week,
| and cause demoralization until their stooge could get into
| the Whitehouse and give it all to them for free.
|
| Invading the Baltics or Poland or Sweden... not on the
| table.
|
| "Hybrid" warfare, yes. But that's been going on for two
| decades.
|
| Thing is: cutting people's fiber optic lines isn't going to
| get them out of this sanction regime.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| This isn't Reddit...
| croes wrote:
| That's one of the cables mentioned in the CNN article.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > Joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of Finland and Germany
| on the severed undersea cable in the Baltic Sea
|
| > We are deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable
| connecting Finland and Germany in the Baltic Sea. The fact that
| such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional
| damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times. A
| thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not
| only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against
| Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.
| Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our
| security and the resilience of our societies.
|
| https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/-/2685132
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/c-lion1 for
| reference
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| This would be an excellent time for Germany to announce that it
| is tripling munitions production, and that they're going to do
| whatever they have to do to protect the territorial integrity of
| Europe. But they won't.
| shkurski_ wrote:
| As risky as it may sound, they will triple the depth of
| concerns.
| bamboozled wrote:
| The Taurus
| looperhacks wrote:
| Our governing coalition just split and there will be early
| elections (most likely) in February. Nobody has a majority
| right now, any anmouncement is currently unlikely. In fact our
| lovely head of the Government just reaffirmed that we won't
| send taurus to the ukraine.
| blub wrote:
| These long-range missiles are a short-time tactic designed to
| merely hurt the Russians or prevent them from doing certain
| actions under threat of pain and not a real strategy. Ukraine
| hasn't had any battlefield successes since the Kursk Hail
| Mary which failed early and is now only maintained with the
| hope of improving their negotiating position when the time
| comes.
|
| The approval of long-range strikes by the US & co likely
| means that Ukraine's position was getting even worse than
| expected.
|
| Furthermore, it became clear from the leak of German military
| communications that it would be German soldiers who would
| have to operate the weapons.
|
| All in all this seems like a case of Scholz knowing Germany's
| capabilities and risks and the public overestimating the
| former while dismissing the latter.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Increasing armament manufacturing capacity is critical for
| Germany and European self-defense regardless of whether
| those shells go to Ukraine or just get stockpiled. Does
| anyone seriously think that Europe is going to avoid future
| warfare in a world where Russia achieves its military goals
| in this conflict? It's madness.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Regardless of your other points, I think approval of long
| range strikes has more to do with Biden doing what he can
| before leaving office. And leaving a calculus for Trump:
| keep with the policy and irk Putin and his other patrons,
| or cancel it and look weak and anti-Ukraine.
|
| This decision might have been made earlier if the election
| hadn't been in the way.
| blub wrote:
| Meanwhile, in the real world Germany is de-industrializing
| because of the high energy prices and competition from China
| and US.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The entire west has been deindustrializing for the last 30
| years.
| bl4ck1e wrote:
| Just a little unnerving
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Probably yet another case of fish trawlers or some dumbass
| freighter captain not reading the sea charts before dropping
| their anchor.
|
| I'm all for finally showing the Russians a response for their
| covert warfare... but this is not the right opportunity. This
| kind of situation happens many times every year (and the causes
| are almost always the same, with a few cases of submarine
| landslides or seismic events).
| valval wrote:
| Seems like the Biden administration and Ukraine are growing
| desperate.
| speransky wrote:
| Root cause is known and obvious; Minuteman III is a solution, to
| moderate bully you need 10x response
| ct520 wrote:
| Dumb question but my assumption is fiber optic cables could be
| "tapped"? But the disruption would be noticeable when monitoring
| the cable. Could you just tap it when you cut it and when it
| hooked back up that's the new baseline with the tap in place?
| That would seem more of a logical reason then a country just
| randomly cutting lines to me?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Most/all of the traffic would be encrypted.
| donalhunt wrote:
| That wasn't the case in the past. Events over the past 15
| years have resulted in most companies encrypting all traffic
| between datacenters (due to the perceived risk). TLS between
| consumers and companies is probably at an all time high
| though due to a push for end-to-end encryption.
| metachris wrote:
| TLS doesn't help here, because state actors (including
| China, Russia) own trusted root certificates, which allow
| them to TLS-terminate for _any_ website they choose and
| silently decrypt/MITM the traffic.
| lolc wrote:
| TLS offers quite good protection actually: Anytime they
| create fraudulent certificates they risk burning their
| CA. Attacks need to be very targeted to keep risk of
| detection low. Due to Certificate Transparency, hiding
| attacks got even harder. And for sites that use cert
| pinning, the attack doesn't even work in the first place.
|
| And eavesdrop is one thing but I'm not clear how you
| could MITM an undersea cable without the operators
| noticing.
| gruez wrote:
| >and silently decrypt/MITM the traffic.
|
| Except it's not silent because you need to expose your
| misissued certificate every time. Sure, the average joe
| won't spot it, but all it takes is one security
| researcher to expose the whole thing. AFAIK there are
| also projects by google and the EFF to monitor
| certificates, so the chances of you getting caught are
| really high. Combined with the fact that no such attacks
| has been discovered, makes me think that it probably
| doesn't occur in practice, or at least is only used
| against high value targets rather than for dragnet
| surveillance.
| picohik wrote:
| These things get encrypted at a lower layer, macsec. At the
| transport layer it's all transparent. No need for TLS
| between your servers, that's just wasted overhead.
|
| You typically encrypt anyway because you just lease the
| line and buy the b/w. It's operated by a different company
| and you share the wire with other customers.
| gloflo wrote:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/th...
|
| NSA's OAKSTAR, STORMBREW, BLARNEY and FAIRVIEW
| fsloth wrote:
| It's a message and hybrid warfare.
|
| Hybrid warfare - the infrastructure is offline, and the repair
| resources are consumed. And you gather intel what the resource
| impact and offline time is.
|
| Message - we can do this. Now think what else we can do.
|
| Of course the message is also pushing EU closer to war footing.
| But China and Russia don't see it that way - they think the
| lack of popular outcry means weakness.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| So blowing up North Stream was fun, but this somewhy isn't. I'm
| very often puzzled by the logic and morale in the West.
| gspr wrote:
| > So blowing up North Stream was fun, but this somewhy isn't.
| I'm very often puzzled by the logic and morale in the West.
|
| North Stream was blown up by the desperate defender in a war of
| aggression.
|
| These undersea cables were (likely) severed by the aggressor in
| the same war.
|
| Are you less puzzled now?
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| All media coverage after Nord Stream was blown did say that
| Russia did it (just because it's evil, no real reasoning was
| presented). So, was it really Russia that destroyed German
| infrastructure? Or was it someone else?
| coretx wrote:
| North Stream was a existential threat to the EU, especially
| the Baltic states and Poland have no interest in being
| sandwiched between Russia and Germany again. Many German
| politicians are directly or indirectly bought by Russia,
| the most notable example being:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der As
| Germany was so stupid to close down their nuclear
| installations and coal mines at more or less at the same
| time without investing in enough backbone and LNG
| installations; rising parties such as the AFD would rather
| side with Russia and get cheap gas instead of helping
| Ukraine and the rest of Europe. This is why more or less
| everyone could have done it. I would have done it myself if
| i was living in eastern Europe. Matter of survival.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| So I'm sure these Internet cables were also an
| existential threat to an unknown country. There are a lot
| of countries who would have done that. Case solved,
| everything's fine.
| coretx wrote:
| Low hanging fruit. Part of a game involving the adversary
| to weaponize the stupidity of the crowd. That's us. Easy
| targets. We only see and know the tip of the iceberg if
| lucky. Those cables however, that's critical
| infrastructure. So there is professionals working on it.
| They don't need our "help". We don't need to worry, so
| yes - everything is fine.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Looks like Russia preparing another warcrime invasion
| aurelien wrote:
| It is really a bad plan to attack that type of infrastructure in
| the way they are waking up hardcore gamers and other sleeping
| techies!
| yapyap wrote:
| if they attacked successfully, the techies and/or gamers
| wouldn't be awoken
| pelasaco wrote:
| Sharks love undersea cables, except the fact that AFAIK there are
| no sharks in the baltic Sea
| https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/shark-attacks-threaten-...
| aurelien wrote:
| We can put atomic mines every yard along the cable ... or explode
| completely this planet.
|
| At the time there will be no more Earth, they will be no more
| problem with human.
| protomolecule wrote:
| "Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war
| of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by
| malicious actors."
|
| Is it the same malicious actors who blew up Nord Stream?
| tokai wrote:
| Time for Biden to write a bunch of letters of marque, and get
| Russian ships out of our seas.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6869
| ethanholt1 wrote:
| I dislike the immediate jumping to "war, sabotage, destruction!"
| that happened in this article. Cable breakage happens quite
| often, and sometimes are caused by such menial things as sea
| debris, or at times, sharks chewing on them [1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2020/07/...
| fsloth wrote:
| If you look at all the oceans as a whole, sure.
|
| Baltic? A tiiny tiny area of water. Critical infrastructure?
|
| It's sabotage.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Sounds very similar to what happened to Nord Stream oil
| pipelines.
| UltraSane wrote:
| I wonder how expensive it would be to bury undersea fiber cables
| deeper under the seabed to protect them from anchors cutting
| them. It might be cheaper to just install a second cable far
| enough away that they are unlikely to be cut at the same time.
| shmerl wrote:
| It will end up in the need to destroy Russian saboteur boats on
| sight. Putin is a moron if he thinks piracy methods will help
| him.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It's not about "winning" it's about flooding the information
| space with doubt and crazy and fear.
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