Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the Kremlin wants europe to take an overt action to justify mobilization. There are many better assymetric ways for europe to retaliate.
I think it's to slowly increase offenses _that won't lead to military response_. The response to each individual incident, worse than the one before, kinetic action can be delayed because "this was only a little worse than the last one". This compounds because NATO needs to act collectively to effectively act militarily (maybe Poland could go it alone).
Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
381–390 of 527 posts
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Russia is ruled by evil, murderous tyrants Yes, and Stalin was Georgian, Kaganowitch was Ukrainian (and orchestrated the Ukrainian Holodomor), Breshnev was Ukrainian and so on. The alternative parties are not pro-Russia. They want to trade with a totalitarian regime just like we trade with Saudi Arabia. And they'll break their election promises anyway just like Meloni and Trump broke theirs.
Was Ukrainian really what was listed as nationality on the propiska?
Born in Ukraine, first Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev
Born on current Ukraine territory (unless you wish to argue that it should belong to Russia).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev#Early_life_and...
"Brezhnev's ethnicity was given as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, and Russian in others."
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The ideal scenario is everyone suspects it's you but can't prove it. Why? EU countries have shown time and time again they won't do anything. I mean for God's sake, Russia was caught sending THREE remote controlled flying bomb on a German airfield, with another one found by a passerby before it was launched. They contained professionally made Russian explosives. There is no doubt who did it. This was not the first,…
I mean they are. That is the reason they haven’t sent balistic missiles to the same airfield. They could have sent the same agents who placed those drones to the fence of the airport with a shoulder mounted missile and shot down the planes as they were departing. Or even shoot them down on the ground.
Or similarly they could send a submarine and disrupt the railway services of the Netherlands with missiles from that.
Those would be clearly attributable actions which trigger an immediate military response. That is the reason why they don’t do them.
You look at the actions they take and conclude that they don’t have any restraint or worries. But you should also be looking at the actions they could have but did not take to see that they are in fact restrained and probably quite a bit worried. If they werent they would play the game differently.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this deference is largely inspired by the police not knowing how to deal with these huge tractors.
Rubbish. They don't want to. The tractors have license plates, allowing them to be pursued after the fact, and the NL police have firearms if they want to get spicy. There have been a number of attacks in Europe of the form "deranged person drives vehicle into crowd". I'm sure the police wouldn't sit back and shrug if that was done with a tractor. The vehicle doesn't have magic properties, the driver has police prote…
And how is the "vehicle driven into crowd" even relevant here? Nobody's using these tractors to kill (intentionally), but they're just many and hard to stop.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#385Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
\One thing that logic would dictate though is that Russia would be extremely low on the list of suspects since they gain nothing and are negatively affected in every manner possible by being in any way behind such actions. They are known for actions that negatively affect them and everyone around. That's kinda their whole thing.
[flagged]
Hmm.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#387Earlier 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?
Because otherwise it would be an act of war. At which point they might as well have just fired a rocket into the country.
random vandals -- that's just local scumbags being scumbags. These things happens, no need to start WWIII
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not asserting this is definitely a Russian op (given the amount of simultaneous farmers' protests and all in NL today), but their modus operandi for foreign operations of this kind involves paying random thugs a few hundred to a couple thousand euros to carry out acts of sabotage using whatever items they have on hand. The items don't need to match, the people involved don't need to know each other.
[flagged]
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#389Might be related to today's yearly 'Prinsjesdag' in the Netherlands: The day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the States-General of the Netherlands (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) to give the Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede), similar to the annual State of the Union in the United States or the British State Opening of Parliament. This s…
>Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede) Is "troonrede" essentially just the Dutch pronunciation of "Throne read"?
And troon == throne, obviously.
Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
#390Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.