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Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

bbc.com

291–300 of 526 posts

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd that you would jump to "Russian op" and hedging by _not_ asserting that it is "definitely" one; but it very well could also be and arguably even is far more likely an act by someone who would benefit form scaring the public and manipulating the affected governments. I'm not going to assert at all, one way or another who it may be because it could be several actors with interests in producing outcomes of fear…

The ruling class in Europe needs this war for economic reasons. They're orchestrating and selling it to the public by constant fear mongering and provoking conflict. Even in a relatively intelligent crowd like this forum, people are gullible and easily guided to hate the Other: red ("communists", Russia, China); brown (immigrants, Muslims, Iran); or green ("far left", environmental and civil rights activists). They h…

The last thing ‘the ruling class in Europe needs’ is a pan European war! Stability and the system that stability enables is what has put them into positions of power and prosperity in the first place. They actively don’t want outright war and Russia knows this, which is why Russia continually provokes and gets away with acts of sabotage.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest way to hide the incompetence of local european politics, be it expensive diesel or the upcoming economic prices is to blame it all on russia. Volkswagen is laying off 100k of workers, because they can't make cars people can afford anymore... blame russia! Germans fed up with merz and vote afd? Russia! Macron doesn't even have 20% of support in polls anymore? Russia! Stub your pinky on the corner of the be…

Explosive-equipped drone attack on airport - Russia! Numerous arson attacks on businesses supplying Ukraine - Russia! Country invaded, cities destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians killed, raped, tortured - Russia.

Don't forget the 2014 Vrbětice explosions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to keep it deniable? What's the point in this sort of sabotage if nobody knows you did it?

The ideal scenario is everyone suspects it's you but can't prove it. You have both the desired threat, but no concrete biases for an official response. Also an uncertainty limits action - it might be a random event, it could even be a false flag. One of the problem's here is narratives are being spun by multiple actors and it depends on who you believe.

You don't need a real basis for a response. There's nobody here enforcing any rules.

If you wanted you could claim you have evidence, without having any. Doesn't matter.

"This better stop or there will be sanctions, and if its not within your power to stop it, tough luck" is a valid response.

Whether that's wise is another question.

Here's a recent example where Germany so far claimed that it tied the attack to Russia, but whether that's actually true is anyone guess (since there's little publicly verifiable information released so far): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Leipzig_Airport_drone_att...

It wouldn't be terribly surprising if Russia was behind it, but on the other hand it wouldn't be the first false flag incident of this war either.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#294
post #3

Just days after a similar (criminal) incident causing a train to derail in France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/09/12/french-p... "close to Renault's factory in the town of Cléon", which is now preparing to start manufacturing drones for the French military, in collaboration with Ukrainian military-industrial groups.

> Just days after a similar (criminal) incident causing a train to derail in France From what I read, the similarity ends in “both involved trains”. This chain of attacks seems to have used short metal pipes (“Footage published by Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Tuesday showed police carrying what appeared to be metal pipes - about 1.5 metres (5ft) long”) to short a connection, making safety systems signal “there’s a…

The similarity is also timing and geopolitical context. It doesn't have to be an identical method to merit the comparison as the means for sabotage can be variable.

Of course more similarity would be a stronger signal, but we shouldn't miss the forest (rail sabotage) for the trees (shorted circuit).

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely they would let any political divisions or legitimate grievances go unexploited. It is their cultural core competency for centuries. That does not mean the greivances being exploited aren't valid, or that the parties themselves don't aid in the fracture so they don't have to worry about competition with parties whose ideology is too close to theirs. Edit: This is reductive, Russia has tons of culture…

But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries. People want higher wages, less taxes, affordable housing, more recently cheaper gas/diesel, and in the last decade (or more in some places), less foreign migrants. If no other political party will do anything about that, people are forced to vote for Alternatives (intentionally capitalized). Especially after all the anti-russian p…

The way I see it, both things are true - European politicians and major parties have stirred anger by their incompetence, AND Russia has exploited this anger for their own purposes.

EU has huge flaws, but it's still better than Russia. Germans, French and the British may not understand it, but us unfortunate enough to live next to Russia do. There is a reason why Poland, Baltic countries and now even Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Russia is ruled by evil, murderous tyrants (as is always has been), while EU elite is merely lazy, greedy and incompetent.

I'll choose pro-EU parties over pro-Russian parties as long as EU is not bombing children's hospitals and massacring civilians. I can only hope citizens of other countries do the same, or otherwise there's a pretty good possibility my country will face what Ukraine has suffered.

It's unfortunate that so many alternatives to mainstream parties in big EU countries are also more or less pro-Russian. One should be able to vote against the flaws of European Union without voting for closer ties with Putin.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely they would let any political divisions or legitimate grievances go unexploited. It is their cultural core competency for centuries. That does not mean the greivances being exploited aren't valid, or that the parties themselves don't aid in the fracture so they don't have to worry about competition with parties whose ideology is too close to theirs. Edit: This is reductive, Russia has tons of culture…

But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries. People want higher wages, less taxes, affordable housing, more recently cheaper gas/diesel, and in the last decade (or more in some places), less foreign migrants. If no other political party will do anything about that, people are forced to vote for Alternatives (intentionally capitalized). Especially after all the anti-russian p…

> But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries.

Do you claim that Russia doesn't invest in disinformation campaigns against the West?

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems unlikely they would let any political divisions or legitimate grievances go unexploited. It is their cultural core competency for centuries. That does not mean the greivances being exploited aren't valid, or that the parties themselves don't aid in the fracture so they don't have to worry about competition with parties whose ideology is too close to theirs. Edit: This is reductive, Russia has tons of culture…

But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries. People want higher wages, less taxes, affordable housing, more recently cheaper gas/diesel, and in the last decade (or more in some places), less foreign migrants. If no other political party will do anything about that, people are forced to vote for Alternatives (intentionally capitalized). Especially after all the anti-russian p…

This is a completely all over the place gish gallop. Both can be true: there's real reporting on acts of sabotage that aren't made up, and there are domestic tensions happening independently of that. The skill is keeping both things in your mind at the same time.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#299
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this, and also they are trying to keep some deniability here, so variations are good.

Why would you want to keep it deniable? What's the point in this sort of sabotage if nobody knows you did it?

This isn’t a show of power. Sabotage works best when your target doesn’t even realize it was sabotage. Similarly it’s best if you misattribute blame because then you’re fighting the wrong party and looking for ghosts.

Russia throwing journalists out of windows or paining with Novachok - that’s a “it’s us, you can’t do anything about it, don’t fuck with us” power signal that benefits from “plausible” deniability - you can’t prove it was us.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to keep it deniable? What's the point in this sort of sabotage if nobody knows you did it?

They seem to be very good at "mob tactics." No one can prove anything, for example, but anyone knows that people that piss Putin off, need to stay away from windows in high places.

That’s because the distinction between the Russian mob and the government is nonexistent
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