[HN Gopher] Another undersea cable damaged in Baltic Sea
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Another undersea cable damaged in Baltic Sea
Author : belter
Score : 98 points
Date : 2025-01-26 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.france24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.france24.com)
| lysace wrote:
| From the Swedish Public Prosecutor's Office:
|
| https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/2025/...
|
| > A vessel suspected of carrying out the [suspected] sabotage has
| been seized following a decision by prosecutors.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| 50 meters is way to deep for it to be any kind of accident.
| agilob wrote:
| Thats quite deep for the region. TIL Baltic Sea is 55m deep on
| average, but 80m deep in the region where cable was cut.
|
| That also means that 2nd easiest to acquire PADI qualification
| is enough to dive there by yourself.
| echoangle wrote:
| > That also means that 2nd easiest to acquire PADI
| qualification is enough to dive there by yourself.
|
| How? Open water diver is 18m, advanced Open water diver is
| 30m. With ,,deep diver" specialty, you're at 40m.
|
| I think you need to become an instructor to go deeper, that's
| not the 2nd easiest qualification at all.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I think PADI doesn't even go that far, it is predominantly
| a leisure diving organization. Their technical diving
| courses seem to end at 50m. Not really related to
| instructor courses either, a regular instructor typically
| has no need to go beyond 30m.
|
| Diving to 80m is a serious endeavor on this scale.
| weebull wrote:
| 80m is moderately serious. I've personally done 75m in
| the Atlantic and I wouldn't say I'm superhuman or
| anything (or military).
|
| It requires helium mixes and personally I'd only want to
| do it with a rebreather, not normal "blowing-bubbles"
| type SCUBA gear (too wasteful on the breathing gas).
| 20-30 minutes at the bottom will mean around 90-120
| minutes decompressing. You don't want to be doing
| anything taking too long, or being too laborious.
|
| Could be done from a fishing boat without any problem.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Yes, it's very doable given the right training. But it's
| not really an extension of what a typical "PADI diver"
| might do, is what I meant.
|
| Having had equipment failures no deeper than 30m, I
| decided any dives that require decompression are not for
| me. I'll leave deep dives and sabotage to others :)
| belorn wrote:
| > How? Open water diver is 18m, advanced Open water diver
| is 30m. With ,,deep diver" specialty, you're at 40m.
|
| Correct. Those are the limits of those certifications.
|
| > I think you need to become an instructor to go deeper,
| that's not the 2nd easiest qualification at all.
|
| In order to go down to deeper depths and returning you
| generally need a technical or professional certification.
| Anyone can go to any depth, as long they don't expect a
| reasonable chance to get back to the surface alive.
|
| PADI open circuit technical course go down to 50 but there
| are other agencies for technical diving with a bit better
| reputation, and those generally max out at 100.
|
| Most people who are trained for 80+ depth usually do so on
| a rebreather. Padi do have a 100m course for that. However
| with rebreathers, students mostly look towards specific
| instructors and not agencies. What agency a instructor uses
| is generally much less important than that you trust the
| instructor.
| jakedata wrote:
| Anybody can dive there. Surviving the trip back up is what
| most of the classes are for.
| soared wrote:
| Weird to not mention the country of the ship, since that seems
| relevant in a war scenario. Malta -
| https://maritimeoptima.com/public/vessels/pages/imo:9648879/...
| Luc wrote:
| Flag of convenience:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
| pjc50 wrote:
| The registration is irrelevant; the actual owner and operator
| only matter.
|
| The ship has as much to with Malta as .io domains with British
| Indian Overseas Territory.
| soared wrote:
| Ah well, should've mentioned the owner and operator then to
| avoid laymen like me doing half baked googling!
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Unfortunately and by industry standard, a ship's owner and
| operator are often obsfuscated under multiple layers.
|
| It's about as easy to figure out who actually owns and is
| operating a ship as tracing an international bank account
| ~1980.
|
| It'll be curious if one outcome of the Russian shadow
| fleets is a stronger worldwide push for verifiable true
| commercial maritime registration. Essentially: mandating
| transparency in shells and KYC reporting, in the same way
| post-9/11 financial reporting was implemented.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Improved transparency is already the direction of travel,
| but pushing back on that is part of "Project 2025" and
| Trump has signalled that's an important objective.
| purrcat259 wrote:
| Its a bit of a national meme that every ship that somehow gets
| into trouble is registered here
| ajuc wrote:
| Require ships entering Baltic to be insured for damage to
| underwater infrastructure. Blockade all the other ships.
|
| Insurers will figure out who is trustworthy enough.
| echoangle wrote:
| Is that something a country is actually allowed to do? Isn't
| that international water?
| armcat wrote:
| Lot of shipping lanes in the baltic are international waters,
| but to get into baltic, you have to pass through Danish
| waters.
| echoangle wrote:
| Looks like they signed the right to inspect ships passing
| the straight away though, if I'm understanding this
| correctly:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Convention_of_1857
| armcat wrote:
| Maritime law is definitely not my forte, but I think the
| convention was related to the tolls imposed to pass
| through these waters (Sweden's Gota Kanal was built to
| bypass this). It's also related to "innocent passage",
| which may not be so innocent in this case. Either way,
| there are probably provisions here for Denmark to close
| this off, as ultimately they are Danish waters.
| belorn wrote:
| There are some wriggle room here. The rights provided by the
| UN do have conditions, like protection of undersea cables. If
| a country do not enforce such protection, they could in
| theory loose the right associated with international waters.
| Insurance requirements could in this theory be used to codify
| compliance with the requirements of the United Nations
| Convention on the Law of the Sea.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Denmark can put some constraints for ships passing the
| straits. They are danish water. So the Baltic is special in
| that you can't reach it on international water. Similar to
| the Black Sea. But these restrictions are codified in
| existing agreements so I don't think Denmark could easily and
| unilaterally change them to include more conditions. But they
| could start enforcing ships following the existing
| requirements for environmental safety and insurance. It would
| make life pretty difficult for those shipping oil past the
| sanctions in rusty single hull tankers.
| eesmith wrote:
| So, renege on the Copenhagen Convention of 1857 and make the
| Danish straits no longer international waters?
| GafsRT wrote:
| If Trump goes through with his Greenland annexation Denmark
| might want to block US vessels.
|
| It is a pity that the EU would have to fight a two front war
| against Russia and the US after the US has started the
| eastern front part (as acknowledged by Trump himself).
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Difference is, Trump's just shooting off his mouth. It's
| not a real threat to the EU. Russia is.
| kergonath wrote:
| Trump is definitely not "just shooting off his mouth" and
| is dead serious. Whether he'll do it is another question,
| but a lot of damage is already done. In the long term,
| the US have a lot of potential to be very damaging as
| well. Europe is between a rock and a hard place and its
| prosperity will depend on the risk assessments that were
| made in the recent past and that are being made now.
| eesmith wrote:
| The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 does not include
| warships.
|
| The Danish Royal Ordinance of 27 Feb 1976, amended in 1999
| by the Ordinance Governing the Admission of Foreign
| Warships and Military Aircraft to Danish Territory in Time
| of Peace, only allows passage during times of peace, and is
| specific that "Other vessels which are owned or used by a
| foreign State and which are not employed exclusively for
| commercial purposes shall be equated with foreign warships
| in the application of the provisions of this Ordinance."
|
| Quoting https://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES
| /PDFFILES...
| bozhark wrote:
| FYI they don't want the hardlines to be able to repeat
| information when the satellites go down
| nradov wrote:
| Russia's ASAT capabilities are still very limited. They can do
| localized jamming from ground stations but haven't developed
| kinetic weapons anywhere close to China's.
| ww520 wrote:
| Looks like they need to have redundant backup networks.
| Starlinks?
| worldsayshi wrote:
| My guess on why they do this: It's a cheap way to distract us
| from focusing our investments into Ukraine. If we think they they
| could strike anywhere we're less likely to focus our efforts.
|
| It probably has the long term cost of making us more willing to
| invest in defence though.
| weebull wrote:
| It's electronic signals warfare. Depriving your opposition of
| power or communications destabilises command structures.
|
| Now you might say "...but these cables are so low value", but
| these are easy targets that reduce the resilience of the Baltic
| states. Any more conventional attack would now be more
| effective because they've taken the backups out first.
| Hamuko wrote:
| There's only about two weeks before it's up again though.
| WillyWonkaJr wrote:
| Undersea cables carry trillions of dollars in transactions
| daily. Their value cannot be overstated.
| jagrsw wrote:
| The ones under the Baltic (with the exception of some
| islands) are not 'critical', as in they're used for reasons
| (cost, latency, directness), but those reasons are not b/c
| there's no other way to connect to the Internet.
|
| So, annoyance at most.
| nradov wrote:
| No one is really going to invest (financially) in Ukraine while
| there's a shooting war going on. These Russian attacks on
| European infrastructure targets (including other means like
| arson) are more intended to discourage foreign aid and
| political support for Ukraine. Essentially Russia is signaling
| that they can make the conflict more expensive for everyone.
| Hopefully it won't work.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I meant. Invest as in investing in
| Ukraine's ability to defend itself so that we don't need to
| invest as much on our own defence.
|
| Investing in Ukraine's ability to deal with Russia is clearly
| the most economical way to deal with Russia for everyone
| else. Hence they want to distract us from that.
| sandy_coyote wrote:
| Yes, it's garnered a ton of attention on the shadow fleet
| carting oil around. It's counterproductive for Russia to fund
| this kind of guerilla vandalism.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| This is a good overview of these sorts of things:
|
| "What is hybrid warfare? - Kilcullen's theory about liminal
| maneuver" by "Anders Puck Nielsen, an officer and military
| analyst at the Danish Defence Academy, specializes in Russia,
| Ukraine, and maritime operations."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVj-AbXIUZc
| Animats wrote:
| We're headed into a bigger war.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| Not a single deescalating signal in sight. Power dynamics has
| evolved a lot in recent two years with many aggressors. America
| turned into dynastic oligarchy like Russia 20 years ago, Russia
| turned into Mongol Empire. Yup.
| 127 wrote:
| Putin threw the dice a bit too many times, got too brazen,
| and is now locked in a situation he can't get out of. End the
| war, and Russia will collapse as there's no war to employ
| people, or give everyone a foreign bogeyman. Don't end the
| war, the economy might still collapse but at least it will
| take longer and you might not live long enough to see it.
| hkpack wrote:
| The war is going their way and they don't want to stop it,
| they are winning.
|
| Economy will not collapse while China (and other "neutral"
| countries) supports it.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| It'll be a pyrrhic victory at best. They'll take control
| of a devastated area of a poor country that was worse off
| than them in every economically relevant sense before the
| war. Any oil or gas they might get control of, Europe
| will be less interested in buying. Their military will be
| so degraded that they might face a series of rebellions
| in their border regions in the next decade -- and will be
| unable to stop. Their loss of male manpower especially is
| a slow but sure death-blow to their economy over the next
| couple of decades.
|
| Even if they rolled through Kiev with tanks _tomorrow_ ,
| the future for the typical Russian looks bleak.
|
| (My prediction is that just like other countries with bad
| demographics, Russia will require mass-immigration in the
| near future to avoid collapse. This will dilute their
| national identity, weaken central control, cause internal
| strife, etc... Also, if you're a poor Asian worker
| looking for a country to move to, would you rather choose
| South Korea or rural Russia?)
| hkpack wrote:
| Because you don't understand what is at stakes.
|
| It is not that they are winning territory, they gain
| power over EU.
|
| If they win, EU politically will be destroyed as half of
| Europe will seek protection by agreeing to whoever
| promise it, while US withdrawing from all its
| obligations.
|
| It is really may be a new order when everyone is on
| themselves.
| wiseowise wrote:
| All of this is irrelevant. Putin needs domestic victory
| and if he can save his face in the end, then it was all
| worth it. Whether their military still stands is
| irrelevant too, because they have nukes.
| fullstackwife wrote:
| Western Europe and Germany in particular are like Smeagol
| thinking about cheap Russian gas, and they dreamed about
| ending the war ASAP since 2022, because without cheap gas
| leverage their economy will sink. Also a political crisis
| in EU is inevitable: similar change as it happened in the
| US now, but a lot more violent (as usual in Europe
| history).
|
| Extending the war seems to be the current plan for Putin.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I wrote this sentiment several years ago, but it was downvoted
| into oblivion with no chance for discourse.
|
| All of the signs, and US & ally weaknesses that allow for a
| lead-up, were out in plain sight.
| maelito wrote:
| Who are US's allies ?
| Oarch wrote:
| For the sake of balance:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/01/19/russia-balti...
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| This article is complete nonsense. It claims unnamed people
| involved in the investigation think it's accidents, yet many
| people involved in the investigation and willing to be named
| claim it was definitely intentional.
| kergonath wrote:
| You'd need to provide more information regarding why you think
| balance is needed, and why you think an oligarch's mouthpiece
| is more balanced than a public service.
| twHasg wrote:
| The oligarch angle might be relevant in other matters, but in
| national security matters the WaPo has been regularly accused
| of being too close to the CIA. From a leftist website:
|
| https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/18/the-cia-and-the-
| wash...
|
| So, if anything you can point to the date (one day before the
| inauguration) and conclude that the CIA wants this to be
| published, just like the lab leak.
| vollbrecht wrote:
| How much value is a vessel itself + the cargo its carrying
| overall? And how much is that relative to the the cost of
| repairing all the physical damage alone(Not including other
| damage). Would it be useful measure to seizure the vessel and use
| its value to compensate for its damage done, making it a
| deterrence?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| A better deterrence would be Russia's cables being cut too.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I don't think we'll want to be in a war of escalating
| service-denial with a country full of people used to not
| having indoor plumbing. Seems like we'd suffer more.
| nradov wrote:
| A better deterrence would be for Europe to actually stop
| buying fossil fuel from Russia (including indirectly via
| neutral countries) instead of goofing around with price caps
| or other marginally effective sanctions.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Since these cables are repaired within days or up to 2 weeks it
| seems, it can't cost a fortune. A reasonably sized ship sounds
| like it would pay for it easily.
|
| Especially as authorities seem to have trouble finding those
| responsible. Tracing the owner of the ship leads to some hotel
| in Dubai or similar (previous incident). Just keep the ship
| until the owners call. If there seems to be no owner interested
| in taking responsibility, sell it.
|
| And we should start enforcing the requirement for insurance and
| environmental compliance for any passing the danish straits
| to/from Russian ports. Any ship that isn't up to standard can
| turn back to the Atlantic.
| reboot81 wrote:
| It's just a Special Connectivity Operation.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| After all the news on how NATO is deploying military ships to
| guard the cables Russia proves that it was all words.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I doubt you can prevent it with warships. But perhaps you can
| deter it by making the cost greater than the benefit.
|
| What else are you going to do? Stop each and every commercial
| ship going over any bit of cable? It's not practical.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| One cable cut, one russian ship sunked.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| It seems like it's now one cable cut, one russian ship
| seized.
|
| I prefer this, not only is it better for environmental
| reasons, you can also sell the seized ship and cargo to
| help cover repair costs.
| shmerl wrote:
| Looks like they arrested the pirate ship already.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| Another useful analysis of this:
|
| "MV Vezhen Siezed by Swedish Coast Guard For Suspected Cable
| Break in the Baltic Sea"
|
| Sal Mercogliano / What's Going on With Shipping?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrT1Pl3pR6Y
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