[HN Gopher] Italy Railways Sabotaged
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Italy Railways Sabotaged
Author : vedantnair
Score : 55 points
Date : 2026-02-07 21:43 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| thefounder wrote:
| Why would someone do this?
| polotics wrote:
| hybrid warfare: inflict costs with deniability
| varjag wrote:
| If you do a somewhat bad thing with no pushback it becomes
| possible to do a somewhat worse thing with no pushback.
| Gradually you end up doing really bad things with total
| impunity.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Devil's advocate: you should still have a reason to do the
| bad thing in the first place. I'm not a good enough
| politician to understand how this benefits anyone's interests
| (don't get me wrong, I do suspect Russia to be behind this,
| but still don't get the objective - but then again I don't
| get the objective of their special bullshit operation either)
| toyg wrote:
| Russia is desperate for leverage. Apart from China, they
| are severely isolated from rich markets. Targeted violence
| is an attempt at generating leverage, in the same way some
| racketeers would hit shops that refuse to pay "protection"
| money.
| varjag wrote:
| Indeed many people who subscribe to Rational Actor theory
| of politics are stupefied by this. However the thing about
| personalistic dictatorships is their foreign policy and
| aggression are all subject to the whims of one person, even
| though media still refers to them as if they are real
| collective entities. And they indeed may be acting
| rationally just not in the axiomatic framework any sane
| person would even consider.
|
| Say some dictator lived through a trauma that he projects
| onto some group of people. Or that he considers himself a
| spiritual successor (perhaps even the reincarnation) of
| Ivan the Great, the Collector or Lands. Once you ease
| yourself into this mindset you see the logic.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Russia has been involved in covert sabotage operations in Europe
| for more than a decade [1][2]. You can learn more about this from
| investigative journalist Christo Grozev [3].
|
| What are the chances that the high-speed rail crash that occurred
| in Spain a few weeks ago was also caused by them? [4]
|
| [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-
| wes...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155
|
| [3] https://m.youtube.com/@thechristofiles/videos
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Adamuz_train_derailments
| throw10920 wrote:
| Russia is _a_ candidate, but it 's far from the _only_
| candidate, and it 's not clear how this advances their
| interests. Why not China, for instance? Or a random terrorist
| group? Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make
| statements grounded in reality.
| colejhudson wrote:
| No, Russia is the prime (if not only) candidate.
|
| Why? They've been developing a system of "single-use agents"
| to overwhelm European governments and keep them on their back
| foot.
|
| This is likely a test run.
|
| A lovely article on this was recently published in The New
| Yorker that you may enjoy:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/02/09/to-build-a-
| fir....
| Telemakhos wrote:
| I'd suggest that radical left-wing elements indigenous to
| Italy, such as those behind the Turin protests that left
| 100 police officers wounded a few days ago, are a perfectly
| plausible candidate; not every attack comes from without.
| There was another protest against the Olympics in Milan
| itself last night by left-wing elements who believe the
| games are economically and socially unsustainable [0]
|
| [0] https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/07/europe/italy-protests-
| rail-da...
| runjake wrote:
| _> Why not China, for instance?_
|
| A couple reasons:
|
| 1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of
| activity this far from their mainland.
|
| 2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to
| fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President
| Trump's irrational behavior.
|
| _> Or a random terrorist group?_
|
| Plausible.
|
| _> Speculation is fun but it 's important to actually make
| statements grounded in reality._
|
| I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See
| "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink
| of war with Europe.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155#Activities
| throw10920 wrote:
| Ok, this is actually substantial - much more so than GP's
| speculation. I think you've convinced me.
| alephnerd wrote:
| In this specific case, becuase China has historically had
| significant FDI _within_ Italy 's infrastructure sector.
|
| China has significant issues with the EU and is aligned with
| Russia, but it isn't in China's incentive to conduct violent
| actions outside of the Chinese diaspora within Europe (which
| is a separate sticking point).
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| After 6 weeks in Taiwan, one thing became very evident,
| mainland China can take the island in 3 days without firing a
| single shot. While I was there mainland China told the people
| of Taiwan to shut their mouths and nobody said a word about
| China after.
|
| The reason mainland China hadn't taken Taiwan is because they
| don't have to and more important they gain nothing.
|
| I do not like the government of China, however, they are
| building infrastructure around the world especially in
| Africa, Asia, and South America. They are not destroying
| things like Russia does every single day.
|
| For the same reason, China isn't commit terrorist attacks on
| other countries. However, Russia is committing terrorist
| attacks on other countries so it easy to believe that they
| are responsible for terrorist attacks.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| France had the same kind of sabotages during the JO. It was
| later confirmed to have been sponsored by Russia.
| AmbroseBierce wrote:
| Europe should stop tolerating these sabotages and go to war
| with Russia and take advantage of their weakened military due
| to their war with Ukraine
| AJRF wrote:
| So that is Poland, Spain, England and now Italy in the past few
| months?
|
| Have I missed any - very brazen!
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Probably Germany
| mseepgood wrote:
| Our railways don't need sabotage - trains fail to run anyway.
| tpm wrote:
| Yeah but what about that electricity sabotage in Berlin,
| drones over airports etc.
| haunter wrote:
| Article about Russia on HN > green letter brand new throwaway
| accounts appear instantly in comments
| syeare wrote:
| At least on this Materialistic app available on F-Droid, all
| those comments are flagged and unable to be seen
|
| Its absolutely senseless to take on a position on something
| when not knowing what's coming from both sides
|
| I'd presume this place to be frequented by those who would also
| find it similarly foolhardy to be taking a stance on an issue
| when not all parties are privy to the same
| objectivity/impartiality (in terms of information and the
| different sides of the story)
| paganel wrote:
| Of course they were, and of course that the Russians are to
| blame. Any mention of Mussolini and the fascists just yet? Seeing
| as we're talking about trains in Italy.
|
| Absolute cinema.
|
| Later edit: And something constructive, for a change, and to
| ignore the bs propaganda coming from the government-paid BBC
| ghouls, just read the comments in there, made by actual Italians,
| on the FB page of one of the most important newspapers in Italy.
| Like I said, absolute clowns, but it's pretty interesting that
| they're still trying to sell this bs, they must be thinking they
| we're still back in early 2022.
|
| [1]
| https://www.facebook.com/corrieredellasera/posts/pfbid026M73...
| runjake wrote:
| I know nothing about railways, but is there any sort of Time
| Domain Reflectometry (TDM) technology that railways use to detect
| issues with the rails?
|
| I suppose with the distances we're talking about and the
| resistance of steel this isn't visible without a whole bunch of
| signal generators?
|
| _Edit: Be sure to read jiggawatts ' reply below._
| jiggawatts wrote:
| They use "test" cars that have bright lights or xenon flashes
| pointing down. They take thousands of pictures of the track
| every night and store the images in a database that can match
| them up precisely so you can see cracks growing over time like
| a movie.
|
| I also remember reading about an application of fibre optics
| where a long strand is placed directly under each rail. Pulses
| of light through the fibre are reflected at the points where
| axles press down on the rail and compress the fibre. Similar
| techniques can be used to detect accidents and (completely)
| broken tracks.
| runjake wrote:
| Excellent! Thank you. Both these processes make more sense
| than the TDR scheme I was referring to.
|
| With the fiber scheme they are using optical TDR.
| throwup238 wrote:
| TDM won't work in practice for a few reasons.
|
| The rails act like very noisy transmission lines where the
| return path is partly the other rail, partly ground, and it
| changes with ballast moisture and geometry. Every joint, weld,
| switch, crossing, impedance bond, and termination creates
| reflections. The bigger problem though is the gap often left
| between tracks for thermal expansion.
|
| There are ways to lay down other signal lines along the track
| that can measure things but they tend to be expensive unless
| they use a telecom line laid along the track.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| This fits the pattern of sabotage all across Europe. The obvious
| candidate is Russia who are using hybrid warfare against
| Europe/UK for a long time. Why does this post have so many...
| strange comments, mostly from new accounts? More hybrid warfare?
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Russia is openly attacking Europe. This is the second time
| railways have been bombed right at the start of the olympics!
|
| Fuck me, what will it take before we do something?
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(page generated 2026-02-07 23:00 UTC)