Live data from Hacker News

Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

cnn.com

501–510 of 1001 posts

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#501
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany was told to stop buying Russian gas financing the Russian war machine by the previous Trump administration. They were told to pledge 2% of their GDP for defense, contributing more to NATO. They didn't listen. This is what happened: Ukraine got invaded, the pipeline was blown up to ensure compliance, their defense spending reachd 2% this year, more two years too late in a worse economic climate. Next year, the…

Don't forget how Germany's exports of chips and machinery to places like Kyrgyzstan skyrocketed since the invasion. > Exports of motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts to Kyrgyzstan grew particularly strongly in the first quarter, soaring more than 4,000% from a very small base to over 84 million euros... That came after a six-fold rise in German exports to Kyrgyzstan last year following Russia's February 2022 invasi…

>who support the thugs in Russian gov

You can't defeat them, the NATO strategy has failed.

I sympathize with the Russian opposition, but I think it is wrong to interfere in Russian domestic politics.

Apart from that, I have always been suspicious of the West's favorite oligarchs.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#502
post #484
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you revisit the history of the first days of the invasion, specifically the depth which the ground armored forces reached in the first 2-3 days and what and how they were stopped. The Baltic states "width" is much smaller, and thus there is much less time to organize defense, etc. It is hardly enough time even just for taking the decision to initiate defense. Of course, like in the case with Ukraine, Russia…

> thus there is much less time to organize defense, etc. Russia was concentrating troops alongside the border for months. It started on October 2021, invasion began on February 2022.

The invasion started 2014 with Krim and have been ongoing since then (Lost a remote coworker that year). This was just the next logical step.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the pentagons own assessments say this won’t make much difference.

The Pentagon made a number of flawed assessments, each one upended by Ukraine's determined actions. And let's use some Feynman-style common sense: taking out airfields, ammunition depots, and logistics WILL help Ukraine's defense immensely. I would go further and question which clowns are running the show in the Pentagon, but maybe I should keep my cool over that matter.

> would go further and question which clowns are running the show in the Pentagon, but maybe I should keep my cool over that matter

They’re not incompetent. But they do serve at the pleasure of the President. That makes their public communications political.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#504
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Knowing that 200 undersea cables break every year globally, estimate the probability that 3 cables break in the baltic sea on the same day.” I’m stealing this to use for grad-student mock-interviews—thank you!

Hint: The cables are often very close. If one breaks, the otherone also breaks :-)

Why would cables close to each other break?

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#505
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet NATO/EU just looks weak and pathetic in the process Really? Russia, with the 6th largest army in the world, had to pull in Iran and Pyongyang to not get invaded by the 13th largest [1][2]. Moscow is being a nuisance. That doesn't make NATO or Europe look weak, it makes Russia look pathetic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/world/europe/uk…

13th largest backed by the whole NATO and other US-aligned countries. They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear weapons, the most cutting edge military tech, and people (well, outside of a limited contingent of "advisors"). Let's be honest, without this backing the war would've ended in the first month as was drafted in Istanbul.

> They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear weapons

We are doing no such thing. Unfortunately.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#506
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has engaged in a dozen wars and conflicts as aggressors. A careful examination of the list below suggests that, in terms of your choice of the words "dozen" and "aggressor", the way they are usually meant in English -- you're definitely stretching things, here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations

I know what I said, and I was careful with my words. We have this thing going on in the west where we are the good guys, and every war we start is an anti-terrorist operation. For Russia, the term just now was “special military operation”. It’s hilarious when you realise how the world works. Controlling words means controlling minds. We’ve grown quite good at it. We went to Korea and took any of our allies who wanted…

it is enlighten too see some sober analysis. The cynicism in the western world is in an ATH.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#507
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: The cables are often very close. If one breaks, the otherone also breaks :-)

Why would cables close to each other break?

because if it's an accident and someone is dragging an anchor behind them, if the cables are only meters apart then they are going to cut both

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#508
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they use a Russian flagged ship for that?

It's harder to get false identification then people on the internet think. But also the Russian MO has never been to do things where it's not obvious they did it: the spate of critics of the Russian government dying by falling out of windows isn't because they lack creativity in assassinating people.

You don't need false documents, buying and operating a ship that has no direct ties to Russia and is registered at an other country isn't that hard at all. Of course yeah, if suddenly if cables get cut 10x more often that they used to it be pretty obvious who is behind it regardless.

> has never been to do things where it's not obvious they did

They could still shot them or something like that, the window thing still grants them some plausible deniability. e.g. the ship that (unclear if intentionally) damaged the cables last year was Chinese.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#509
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case last year with the gas pipeline, the Chinese / Russian owned left Kaliningrad, and then while sailing, dropped its anchor before the pipeline and cable, and then dragged it over them, and then raised it. It was apparently accidental, yet both the Chinese and Russians didn't want the crew interviewed, the Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care, and the Estonian energy prices…

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#510

It's worth mentioning that cable breakages happen quite often; globally about 200 times per year [1] and the article itself mentions that just last year, two other cables and a gas pipeline were taken out by an anchor. The Gulf of Finland is evidently quite shallow. From what I understand, cable repair ships are likely to use ROVs for parts of repair jobs but only when the water is shallow so hopefully they can figur…

A 1 in 36 million chance for three breaks in one day. https://mathb.in/80217

One a day is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
Post reply on HN