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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

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Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#761

Post by petre »

johnisgood wrote: post #172
petre wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best course of action at this time would be to properly arm Ukraine.

Which happened and kept happening for a long time now, including the US sending billions of dollars and weapons (among other things). That did not help, did it?

Billions of dollars worth of Gulf War era weapons some of which they need to replenish anyway. It actually did help a lot but it's apparently still not enough to win this war. I beleieve that the US strategy is to slowly grind the Russians, supplying Ukraine with just enough weapons so that both sides are fighting a positional warfare. The trouble is this strategy is not working and Russia has already escalated by involving DPRK troops.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#762

Post by aguaviva »

dotancohen wrote: post #618
esarbe wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easy; nations that attack other nations unprovoked are "evil" (at fault). Ukraine has never infringed on Russia's sovereignty or territorial integrity before it was attacked. Therefor this war is entirely Russia's fault. The world is mostly shades of gray. But this case it black and white.

[flagged]

Are you aware that NATO expansion into Ukraine seemed very likely at the time of Russia's invasion?

Actually it was effectively impossible, as NATO's bylaws prevent the admission of states with active border conflicts. This is most likely (a large part of) why Putin invaded both Georgia and Ukraine -- to create permanent border conflicts, to prevent them from becoming NATO states.

So in fact there was no imminent possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO state at the time of the 2022 invasion. Which makes perfect sense, as it was never the reason Putin chose to launch the full-scale invasion, anyway.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#763

Post by gruez »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #732
euroderf wrote: post #73

So what's the solution ? Assign a surveillance UAV to every Russian ship parked "without a good reason" over a cable ? It would be expensive, but doable, and create a reserve of vehicles for wartime use.

Treat it as the act of war that it is, and confiscate or sink the ship involved in it. If it can be done before it reaches a harbor, of course also arrest the crew. If it happens repeatedly, declare the passage of all Russian ships (or possibly starting with ships of the type involved in the incident, allowing other shipping and giving Russia a chance to stop abusing it) "prejudicial to the peace, good order or secur…

>Treat it as the act of war that it is, and confiscate or sink the ship involved in it. If it can be done before it reaches a harbor, of course also arrest the crew.

The ships involved aren't warships. They're ostensibly civilian vessels. Also other people mention that accidental fiber cuts happen all the time. Are we going to drone strike Russian civilian ships on the off chance is malicious?

>Russia understands and responds to strength better than to diplomacy and appeasement.

The best way to stop someone committing war crimes is... to commit war crimes ourselves?

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#764

Post by s800 »

amelius wrote: post #644
MasterYoda wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time it happened, the Russian ship had also been seen unnaturally going back and forth over the cable where the damage occurred. These damages do not happen by themselves. Considering the current international situation and the fact that it happened in a short time in several places unnaturally in a limited region, the Baltic Sea, you have to be very naive if you do not see this as probable sabotage.

Do we have some kind of time-of-flight system that can find out exactly where a cable damage occurred, the instant that it occurs?

yes, OTDR

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#765

Post by holoduke »

coretx wrote: post #643
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care" Is this true? Or Are we now in a world where we are all living in fear of actual military retribution for speaking out?

NATO countries don't or barely respond because subversion requires a response. Russia is constantly pulling low hanging fruit hoping for as much commotion, fear, etc. It's party of their destabilization and subversion tactics. This is why authorities are not loud, but calm & stoic. And it works, very few people around me are aware of the fact that Russia has blown up NATO ammunition depots, liquidated politicians and…

For the non westerns the west is constantly bribing and threatening other nations to comply with their economic expansion drift. In the end we are all tribal nations. And even the west isntva tiny bit better than others. Unfortunately propoganda at all sides make people sticking to one side, condemning the other.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#766

Post by dragonwriter »

trhway wrote: post #424
carabiner wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A disruption in communications can mean only one thing: invasion.

yes. What Russia does currently is probing and testing - what it takes to disrupt all the necessary cables simultaneously to create communication breakdown and a lot of chaos, what resources and time it takes to repair (and thus planning the options on blocking those repair resources, etc.) It takes tanks half-a-day to cross the Baltic states to reach the sea. That is the time Russia wants to buy. Once Russian forces…

> Once Russian forces are already in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnus, the NATO will have a decision to make on whether to bomb the Russian forces already placed by that time among the Baltic states population.

NATO has forward deployed forces to assure that to take Riga, Tallin, and Vilnius, Russia will have to attack and defeat armed forces of the UK, Canada, and Germany respectively. More than that, really, those are just the lead nations in the NATO forward-deployed battlegroups in those countries. There are also five other forward-deployed battlegroups, four of which — as well as reinforcement of the original four in the Baltics + Poland – were deployed in response to the 2022 Russian escalation in Ukraine.

Cutting undersea cables is not going to prevent (or even meaningfully slow) a response given that.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#767

Post by gruez »

XorNot wrote: post #407
Wytwwww wrote: post #311

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.

>It's harder to get false identification then people on the internet think.

The US can barely enforce its sanctions against Iran. Despite the sanctions, they can still move tens of billions of oil proceeds. What makes you think any country is going to be any more successful at preventing Russia from renting a rogue ship?

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/10/17/i...

https://archive.is/IN5Aj

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#768

Post by holoduke »

oneshtein wrote: post #705
nbman102 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very abbreviated history. There are two pipelines, NS-1 and NS-2, both of which have two pipes each. NS-1 was operational until a turbine had to be repaired in Canada. The bureaucratic process to allow the repair was arduous, but finally it got done and chancellor Scholz did a photo-op in front of the repaired turbine. Then the Russians played coy and came up with counter-bureaucratic reasons why the repair…

Russia had $20 billion reasons to blow up their gas pipelines and blame Ukraine for that.

You mean vice versa i assume.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#769

Post by dragonwriter »

oneshtein wrote: post #708
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might occupy some area, sure, but if they invade a EU or NATO country they'll get that full force on top of them. And they have a lot of aircraft to deploy too; tanks have zero chance against an airstrike.

NATO cannot stop Russia in Ukraine, even with help of 1 million Ukrainian army. NATO have no enough tanks, shells, soldiers to stop 2 million army in few first weeks, even if Russians will just march with their AK-s in hands. The only thing that will stop Russia for sure is a nuclear strike. Planes are good for strikes, but ground must be captured and hold by soldiers.

> NATO cannot stop Russia in Ukraine, even with help of 1 million Ukrainian army.

I mean, they are doing pretty good for a total NATO deployment of 0 combat forces. Funny to describe the only country with troops involved as “helping” and treating the nonexistent NATO presence as the primary force.

> NATO have no enough tanks, shells, soldiers to stop 2 million army in few first weeks, even if Russians will just march with their AK-s in hands.

In the event of a Russian invasion of Eastern flank NATO members and the NATO forward-deployed battlegroups in those countries, NATO policy, unlike in Ukraine, would not restrict the use of long range weapons against command and control, logistics, and combat aviation facilities in Russia, nor would NATO forces be short on their own combat aviation to use against the invasion itself.

Ukraine isn’t NATO, and while impressive for their conditions, what Ukraine can do is not a model for what NATO can do.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#770

Post by holoduke »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #688
v0lta wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today: no In 5-10 years: probably

Maybe, but that's assuming their war economy lasts for that long, that they still have people to run those things, etc. Besides, Europe was caught with its proverbial pants down; in 5-10 years, they will (should) have their military up to speed again, with fresher, better equipped and better trained people than Russia has. The border countries have all upgraded their defenses already, and if they invade a NATO countr…

You forgot one thing. Nato has zero combat experience. Its entire economy is not suitable for warfare. Will take a lot longer than 5 years.
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