Live data from Hacker News

Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

cnn.com

831–840 of 1001 posts

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#831
post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ships involved aren't warships. That has hardly stopped people before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

Is this supposed to be an argument in favor of sinking civilian ships? From the linked article: >The sinking was a cause of embarrassment to France and President François Mitterrand. They initially denied responsibility, but two French agents were captured by New Zealand Police and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder.

It was embarassing because they got caught, it was against Greenpeace, and it was done in an ally's territory.

There's unlikely to be anywhere near as much outcry if Russian trawlers lurking around undersea cables start getting holes in them.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#832

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.

Quite the opposite. Ukraine has been prevented from joining NATO by the west, especially Germany and France, for fear of angering Russia. This course of action has led to war. The proper course of action in hindsight would have been to have Ukraine join NATO asap back then.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#833
post #635

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…

> deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables Can we not make the cables resistant to this? Like if someone drags an anchor over a cable, it instantly locates the break based on time-of-flight over the cable and instantly dispatches a drone from the nearest shoreline to spray nasty sticky shit all over the ship?

Cables can be buried and ploughed into the sea floor. This is usually done in the shallow last miles when approaching a landing on a coast, because there the risk for damage due to anchors, fishermen and other human activity is far higher. However, sometimes the ground can be unsuitable, and burying is expensive, so this isn't done for the whole length.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#834

I dislike the immediate jumping to “war, sabotage, destruction!” that happened in this article. Cable breakage happens quite often, and sometimes are caused by such menial things as sea debris, or at times, sharks chewing on them [1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2020/07/...

If you look at all the oceans as a whole, sure.

Baltic? A tiiny tiny area of water. Critical infrastructure?

It’s sabotage.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people are thirsty for War, looks like.. Nobody in the West wants any war. The usual tactics of Putin is to do what he wants whether on his or foreign soil, using poisoning etc. in a way that everybody knows it's him but he will politely deny. It's a kind of a silly game, the GRU could just have put a bullet in Lytvynenko's head but they choose a slow death to show off.

I’m not sure that no one wants a war. I can see some groups profiting from it.. I see some politicians being quite blunt about it—some in Germany, for instance, who are well-known lobbyists for the defense industry. Biden’s decision to allow the use of long-range weapons seems like a tactical political move designed to make Trump’s life significantly harder from day one. It feels irresponsible, as it appears that war…

>Biden’s decision to allow the use of long-range weapons seems like a tactical political move designed to make Trump’s life significantly harder from day one.

I have a different take on this, basically parroting Perun on YouTube. The lame duck period is the perfect time for escalatory steps, as the Russians always have the option of waiting until the new administration comes into office rather than responding aggressively. Trump will be free to re-impose whichever restrictions he wants, but he'll be starting from a stronger position. He'll have the "stop UA use of long-range weapons" bargaining chip, _and_ he'll be able to relatively costlessly blame Biden for the "bad decision" of allowing them.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That did not help, did it? I'm sorry, but this is the type of claim of someone who gets news from the Joe Rogan podcast. Ukraine managed to defend its capital from annexation, liberated thousands of miles of territory, and managed to improve its protection of civilians thanks to air defense systems, has lower casualty rates than Russia, and now is starting to create a buffer zone into Russian territory. How isn't t…

I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so. Something that people seem to not realize is that the Minsk Agreements refer to two accords (Minsk I in 2014 and Minsk II in 2015) aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, specifically in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists had declared independence with alleged support from Russ…

> I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so.

I simply stated that's the same level of shallow analysis and severe lack of understanding of what's at play, sprinkled with mystical thinking and conspiracy theories, which is prevalent in the right-wing media and amplified by Russian propaganda. I don't think it's inappropriate, it might just be a coincidence.

> (...) where pro-Russian separatists had declared independence with alleged support from Russia. That said, while Russia claimed that Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk Agreements, this does not justify a military invasion. Diplomatic mechanisms were available to resolve disputes, and both sides bore some responsibility for the lack of progress on Minsk. It can be attributed to challenges and shortcomings on all sides involved

Just to point out two red flags here:

- The separatists didn't have alleged support from Russia, there were Russian troops in both Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. By the way, those regions were at peace until Russia sent "little green men"[0]. The same happened in Georgia by the way, in 2008. Where do you think "separatists" got a Buk 9M38 to shoot down a commercial airliner killing 300 people? [1]

- Russia did not just claim that Ukraine failed to implement UNCONSTITUTIONAL parts of the Minsk agreement, Russia itself failed to comply with the agreement - and they were the ones on sovereign Ukrainian territory, killing Ukrainians. An agreement goes both ways, so the general sense was that Russia never looked to abide by the agreement, just gradually turning Ukraine ungovernable with cancer from within, by subverting the Ukrainian constitution.

From the words of Macron in the talk with Putin before the escalation of 2022:

"They are in front of my eyes! It clearly states that Ukraineʼs proposal should be agreed with representatives of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in a trilateral meeting. This is exactly what we propose to do. So I donʼt know where your lawyer studied law. I just look at these texts and try to apply them! And I donʼt know which lawyer could tell you that in a sovereign state, the texts of laws are made up of separatist groups, not democratically elected authorities."[2]

> With the election of Donald Trump, there may be an increased opportunity to revive diplomatic efforts and achieve meaningful progress

So your idea of a diplomatic effort is to appease a dictator with the subversion of Ukraine, a sovereign country of 40 million people, and target of genocide, that was at peace and posed a threat to no one. To the point of surrendering their nuclear arsenal in exchange for the guarantee of their sovereignty - with the signature of the USA representatives.

> It is irrational to continue pouring taxpayer money into a long-stalemated conflict without a clear path to peace or resolution, particularly when domestic priorities are being neglected in the process.

The only irrational thing is to push the Russian narrative that Ukraine should be left on its own, for the illusion of internal stability that stems mainly from propaganda.

Again, this just confirms the same ill-informed narrative Joe Rogan-type podcasts are pushing around, some of these podcasts being funded by Russia Today operations.[3] I won't claim its deliberate, but as time passes it increasingly looks like so.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrain...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

[2] https://babel.ua/en/news/80618-bloodbath-and-involved-zelens...

[3] https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential...

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#837
post #401

Dumb question but my assumption is fiber optic cables could be “tapped”? But the disruption would be noticeable when monitoring the cable. Could you just tap it when you cut it and when it hooked back up that’s the new baseline with the tap in place? That would seem more of a logical reason then a country just randomly cutting lines to me?

It’s a message and hybrid warfare.

Hybrid warfare - the infrastructure is offline, and the repair resources are consumed. And you gather intel what the resource impact and offline time is.

Message - we can do this. Now think what else we can do.

Of course the message is also pushing EU closer to war footing. But China and Russia don’t see it that way - they think the lack of popular outcry means weakness.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#838

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.

That’s bullshit. I’m sorry, but I’m tired of apologists falling to Russian state lies. Falling over to Russian lies is not independent thinking.

The first rule of kremnology is that Russia always lies without a shame, as lies are usefull and they incur zero cost on the liar.

Russia invaded because they felt Ukraine was showing a bad example of slavic people becoming a democracy.

Also Russia has always had an affinity towards Ukrainian genocide. See Holodomor.

Also there is the narrative of lost colonial honor, Crimea, Catherine the great, and other idiotic pseudo-historical ramblings of a demented autocratic propagnada.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#839
post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Germany’s defense minister says damage to 2 Baltic data cables appears to be sabotage" - https://apnews.com/article/germany-finland-baltic-data-cable...

English isn't my first language, but isn't "appears to be" inconclusive? It is or it isn't, "appears to be" is still too vague for my liking.

Since they likely used the German expression "es scheint", I think your interpretation is correct.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so. Something that people seem to not realize is that the Minsk Agreements refer to two accords (Minsk I in 2014 and Minsk II in 2015) aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, specifically in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where pro-Russian separatists had declared independence with alleged support from Russ…

> I do not get news from Joe Rogan podcasts, and as such, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to claim so. I simply stated that's the same level of shallow analysis and severe lack of understanding of what's at play, sprinkled with mystical thinking and conspiracy theories, which is prevalent in the right-wing media and amplified by Russian propaganda. I don't think it's inappropriate, it might just be a coincidence.…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN