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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

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Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Russia is at war with NATO. Ukraine is invaded because Ukraine wants to join NATO, to make NATO weaker. Same for Georgia. If Ukraine will fall, Russia will win, NATO will lose.

Long range weapons will hit hard for sure, but millions of soldiers still must be defeated in close combat to take ground. Ukraine has western tech, it good, but it not good enough when Ukrainians are outnumbered. To win the war, Ukraine must dominate in the war, but western allies fail to deliver anything that will dominate over Russia.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#822
post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RF refurbishes about 1300 tanks a year. It's more than enough to conquer part of Europe and then exchange it for Ukraine.

What non-NATO European country are they going to invade (and hold!) as a bargaining chip? Any how many of those tanks go straight to Ukraine? Do you think Russia can afford to stockpile tanks (and everything else necessary) for several years for an invasion of Europe while simultaneously engaged in the their current war in Ukraine?

Slovakia or Hungary, for example.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#823
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except it's nothing of the sort. It's just a bunch of random talking points (e.g. "Ukrainian neo-nazis killing people in Donbas") they read or heard somewhere, without making any effort to discern whether there was any validity at all to what had just been served to them.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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 pos…

The war started in 2014. There was even less imminent possibility of Ukraine becoming a NATO member back then, when Putin first sent unmarked military units to attack Ukraine.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Appears to be", in English, generally means "on first look/glance." It runs very close to "I believe such and such." If I asked you for an answer to a math question, then you showed me the answer with how you got there, on a very quick glance I might say: "That appears to be correct." It could mean they've seen more evidence to make that assessment, or are basing that assessment on the same evidence we have. Regardl…

This is right. But I'd add that the fact that the speaker is the German defense minister adds an additional layer of meaning. Ordinarily such a person would not be expected to give such an initial assessment without careful consideration.

Correct. To add context from a German source (https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/ostsee-datenkabel-p...):

> Bundesverteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius vermutet im Fall von zwei in der Ostsee beschädigten Kabeln zur Datenübertragung eine vorsätzliche Aktion durch Dritte. Man müsse davon ausgehen, dass es sich um Sabotage handle, sagte er am Rande eines Treffens mit seinen EU-Amtskollegen in Brüssel. Beweise dafür gebe es bislang aber nicht. Er betonte: "Niemand glaubt, dass diese Kabel aus Versehen durchtrennt worden sind."

> Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius assumes the case of to damaged baltic sea data cables to be the intentional action of a third party. One should assume it to be sabotage, he said while at a meeting with EU colleagues in Brusseles. Proof, however, is not available yet. He emphasized: "Nobody believes that those cables were cut by accident."

So while carefully not saying anything definitive and firm, he very strongly hints in the direction of sabotage.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a misleading framing. The two cables last year were not taken out by an anchor as an accident, it was literally a ship putting down its anchor just before the cable and then dragging it over the cable. In other words, sabotage. There's no point in trying to color any of this with rose tinted glasses when it's clear who's done it and why.

> it was literally a ship putting down its anchor just before the cable and then dragging it over the cable I don't understand. That's how I'd expect most accidents to happen. Someone decides to anchor too close to an undersea cable, the anchor fails to hold and the drifting ship drags the anchor over the cable damaging it. I'm not saying it wasn't sabotage, but there needs to be something a bit more than that. Sourc…

>I don't understand. That's how I'd expect most accidents to happen. Someone decides to anchor too close to an undersea cable, the anchor fails to hold and the drifting ship drags the anchor over the cable damaging it.

In most of these cases, it's Russian ships dropping their anchors in areas where the cables are known to be and then driving around in circles until they snag and break it. It's not even slightly plausible that they'd be doing it accidentally.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-starting" this war. And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do so so that Russia can more quickly get around to torturing and repressing the population a moral right.

[flagged]

It's not like a line in the sand, admitted as such by both sides, was broken, one with explicit promises that it wouldn't be.

Indeed it's not, because that's an extremely distorted and misleading narrative. For example, on multiple occasions (notably 1994 and 1997) Russia signed treaties validating NATO expansion long after this supposed "explicit promise" (which also wasn't quite what you seem to think). We also have statements from the two most important players on the Soviet side (Gorbachev and Shevardnadze) thoroughly discounting this version of events.

Whatever source you got that narrative from is simply misinformed, or worse.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#828
post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-starting" this war. And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do so so that Russia can more quickly get around to torturing and repressing the population a moral right.

Russia is responsible but not alone. This war could have been prevented by not pushing Ukraine into NATO. It's THE reason for the war.

Compare: "The serial-killer is responsible but not alone, this second stabbing could have been prevented by not trying to protect yourself from being stabbed again by the same serial-killer!"

That may be true in the most narrow and mechanical sense, but the way it presents blame is very wrong.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#830
post #748
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no actual evidence that Ukraine did it, lest alone solid proof. Russia is a probable candidate.

Why is "solid proof" required for the claim that Ukrainian nationals did it, but "probable candidate" suffices for Russia?

To attribute culpability, you need solid proof. I'm not saying that Russia did it - simply that there's enough evidence that Russia had means, motive and opportunity - which makes it a probable candidate.
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