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Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

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Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#471
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because being too blatant will galvanize the public and create support for open war. The goal is to ensure all reasonable people know, while keeping enough deniability that Russian-funded right-wing groups can sow doubt about attribution and response policy’s They don’t care whether it can be proven in court or by people paying close attention. They care whether it can’t be denied even by their aligned agents in west…

Maybe it depends on the country, but here the public automatically assumes everything like this done by Russia and these increase support for open war. I don't think Russia wants deeper European involvement in the war, so I'm having trouble understanding why Russia would be doing this. They're already having difficulties in Ukraine, how would angering the European public and increasing the support for further involve…

Indeed, maybe it depends on the country.

In many countries, russia’s psyop tactics do work frighteningly well, and we see this resulting in a renaissance of the far-right, who are explicitly against supporting Ukraine, and explicitly seek the rehabilitation of russia.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because otherwise it would be an act of war. At which point they might as well have just fired a rocket into the country.

finish the thought: this means you need to retaliate. You either step up and hit back, or look weak and invite further problems. random vandals -- that's just local scumbags being scumbags. These things happens, no need to start WWIII

> You either step up and hit back, or look weak and invite further problems.

The latter is exactly what the western world did in 2014, and its why we have this much larger war now.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define Europeans - us Poles absolutely understand the danger. In fact I'd say we're already at war with Russia, the way they attack our democracy, our institutions and politics daily. But someone in Portugal might not see it the same way we do.

Russians are Europeans.

Many Russians think of themselves not as European but as Eurasian, as if that's something different and special.

They have a whole political doctrine about it. It's crazy identity politics.

Part of Putin's war on Ukraine is that he doesn't want them to think of themselves as European either (although they obviously are).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia#Russian_geopolitical_i...

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warehouse containing kit to build the drones, refineries producing fuel to fuel the tanks

and people who could do those things. Sure. That was a line which was crossed, and everyone knew that - including Ukraine, which is why they didn't do it until two years into the war after getting explicit permission from the governments supplying them with weapons. But that leaves us back where we started doesn't it? If it's fair game to attack civilian infrastructure which was used or could be used to make the weap…

Thousands of the first Shahed drones fired by russia at civilians in Ukraine were made in Iran.

Ukraine has not attacked Iran.

So you might be “pretty sure”, but to me it looks like you’re just wrong.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we had seen the same old tricks a thousand times before. Nobody wakes up some day saying I know exactly how to stop a train without being caught. Or: I know exactly were to cut to enter in this restricted area that normal people never had heard about it just to steal a few copper cable here and there (or worse, fiber optic cable) Random actions are truly random. This acts aren't random. They need instead plan…

Do you have evidence that Russia did this ?

At this point, a p-value is more than enough.

Each time Russia is suffering troubles in the war, this events happen; and they happen in clusters. A few models are recycled again and again and adapted to each country. Sabotage to railways and wildfires "caused by climate change" are two of the most popular. Another is sending people to protest and cause trouble in the streets with any excuse, supported by campaigns of disinformation online from some IP in Russian soil. Another was Russia caught cutting marine internet cables. We even may suspect that the lone wolf driving over people or backstabbing people in the streets is another.

Just last week, Ukraine killed two more Russian generals and a colonel. Losing 13 major generals, admirals and lieutenants and more than 42 colonels [1] is not a minor issue in any war. Ukraine also hit again a big refinery to the point of Trump asking Zelensky "stop doing that to refineries". "You are making my friend cry" is implicit. Ukraine is also slowly pushing back Russians in some front lines

Putin can keep doing chest thumping and faking strength in public, but the facts point to that Russia is not doing as well in the war as he would wish.

You may have noticed the huge increase in Russian provocations to NATO lately. Putin risk to be assassinated by his own generals increases with each general killed. He needs to redirect the angry towards an external target, and is desperate for a NATO move that would justify him (legally and in the eyes of Russians people) to start a major mobilization soon after the Russian elections that start in two days.

So expect more events like those in Europe in the next days, and maybe some dumb move of Trump to destroy another good thing in US, with the clock ticking before he turns into a burnt out asset.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_generals_kille...

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they look similar, the synchronicity notwithstanding. The sabotage in France was a 250–300 kg rail fragment (per your link). The objects in the Netherlands look much smaller, and look like they're intended to short-circuit two rails to trigger a signal fault. In one place they found car jumper cables with clamps attached to both rails, https://nos.nl/video/2631081-startkabels-van-spoor-bij-meppe... ( "S…

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.

It occurred on Prinsjesdag, which is a particularly popular time of year for the Dutch to protest. If it was Russia trying to make a point, it was a wasted effort as they did it on a day where it is lost in the noise.

It's like if Russia decided to set off a few fires and explosions in the USA on July 4th. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#477

Earlier 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. Or one could choose not to take this in isolation from all the acts of brazen and identified sabotage Russia does, slashing deep-sea cables in international waters with their shadow fleets, organi…

Keep on believing those lies like a good Fox News level cog

Said the guy repeating Russia Today verbatim

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#478

Earlier 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. Or one could choose not to take this in isolation from all the acts of brazen and identified sabotage Russia does, slashing deep-sea cables in international waters with their shadow fleets, organi…

"brazen and identified" is doing a lot of work here. IIRC the cable thing was an anchor accident, and everyone is doing psyop campaigns (Western psyops being far more advanced and sophisticated than their enemies). Nord Stream was definitely not an accident and we know who did that. Implying that Russia somehow invented or is the undisputed leader in "psyops" is a popular hallmark of a low-information civilian, a nar…

> Nord Stream was definitely not an accident and we know who did that

Lol who claimed it was an "accident"? Most likely it was disgruntled Ukrainians with just enough resources and skill. And they did great work.

Anne Applebaum is a historian not a "propagandist" lol

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why dont you remigrate back to Moscow if you are so proud of your motherland? edit: remigrate, not emigrate

> remigrate Found the German. As the Italians put it: "non c'e due senza tre", it seems like you guys are dead-bent on doing it for a third time. Morgenthau was 100% correct on his plan, too bad things didn't go his way. Btw, two of my grand-grand-dads got land allotments after WW1 on account of putting their lives on the line for my country against you, Germans, so I'm talking from shared family experience.

Sad thing Stalin had to confiscate your family land allotments into a kolkhoz. Despite being allied with Germany for first few years of ww2. Imagine all these Eastern European partisans of ww2 thinking they're fighting for freedom, only to replace german occupation with a russian occupation in result.

Re: Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the article in Germany about the incident: https://www.rtl.de/news/russische-spionage-rtl-reporter-unde...

I'm not saying such claims are not being published, I'm saying they're likely false because they make about as much sense as a country blowing up its own pipeline. Espionage outside of war is an extremely sensitive issue, and were any country trivially baitable, they'd end up getting played hard. Not only would it eliminate deniability, but you also open up the door to major counter-intel operations and getting more…

> I'm saying they're likely false because they make about as much sense as a country blowing up its own pipeline

That is still bizarre to me, how it was the media mainstream.

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