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Comment by H8crilA | Hacker News Reader

Not implying anything at all, but I am worried about potential spetsnaz sabotage operations on the territory of Europe or maybe even the US. Particularly against ammunition factories, storage, or important energy related infrastructure. Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_mystery_fires

I am sure that people responsible for security of such objects are perfectly aware of the risks, but then the same must be true on the Russian side.

Example from the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

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It is said that the CIA sabotaged Russian pipelines back in Reagan’s day, using methods quite similar to their sabotage of Iran’s centrifuges: diddling the controller software.

As I’m sure we all know, we have made the tragic mistake of connecting a lot of our own infrastructure to the internet: water treatment plants, electrical grid, pipelines, and more. All of which are, naturally, now susceptible to over-the-net attack.

The spetsnaz needn’t do anything: Russian hackers can fuck it all up from the safety of their keyboards.

https://www.wired.com/2004/03/soviets-burned-by-cia-hackers/

https://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/135854490/inside-the-united-s...

> The spetsnaz needn’t do anything: Russian hackers can fuck it all up from the safety of their keyboards.

For those who don’t believe it, look up the story of sandworm

Why sabotage in person when there are better options with plausible deniability?

The Colonial Pipeline supply shock was started by criminal hackers in Russia using ransomware as a service. The company halted service to deal with the computer issue. Then traditional media and social media amplified panic buying.

Russia says they arrested the extortionists. This is the country that brags about "patriotic hackers."

I am not.

Because if Russia does that, the west will have to declare war and then this shit is over.

And if you are going to reply anything about nukes, don't. Neither the us or Russia will fire them.

How do you see a match up like that ending?

USA pushes Russia back to pre Crimea seizure borders?

Why stop there? Why not go to the Volga? Ukraine reached almost all the way to the river before WWII. Maybe go all the way to the Caspian? Provide some security for Georgia and incidentally get A LOT of oil.

At what point do you suppose Russia abandons its "no nukes" policy in this hypothetical conflict?

Well.. it'd be a great time to skimp on maintenance and pocket that difference. Then when the inevitable happens, you can just shout "Russians!"

More directly, I find this conspiratorial view hard to believe given the state of monopolization and infrastructure in the US. There is a much more logical explanation that should be eliminated first before this idea is even remotely entertained.

As someone below mentioned.. if "escalation in Ukraine" is a potential outcome, then you should be very certain of what you claim or allow to be claimed.

> Well.. it'd be a great time to skimp on maintenance and pocket that difference. Then when the inevitable happens, you can just shout "Russians!"

except, that's not how natural gas plants work. Shouting "Russians!" doesn't pay the repair bills, nor does it make up for the lost revenue in the meantime.

If you consider the impact on _one_ plant. If the loss of that plant drives prices up for all other plants, than it could easily be worth it.

But then why stage an incident? If your total profits rise when production at one plant stops, why not just shut down the plant—or reduce output across all plants? As far as I know, nobody is forcing them to over produce.

A staged accident by foreign forces is the OP's wild assertion, I've made no such point.

I'm suggesting that a more banal circumstance, lack of maintenance, and then a true accident, is much more likely. My point is that the current political environment makes deflecting blame in this situation a possibility, not that you would stage an accident to intentionally take advantage of it.

How this is a harder idea to accept then "the russians are secretly blowing this up" is amazing to me, particularly on this forum.

Do you have any *any* evidence at all? If so, please share.

I’ll get a bit conspiratorial for a bit - the Russians just know that no sabotage may be allowed to be linked back to them. Otherwise, public support against them would immediately swell and every bad event would be speculated to have been caused by Russia. As such, it’s possible that this was Russia quietly trying to erode US/EU support for the war.

But does any public support for Russia still exist at this point? Do they have anything to lose? What we witness now is a sad farce where half of what they say are lies - there is no war, they are liberating their own citizens, everybody is welcoming them with flowers, etc. The peak of absurdity is when they "caught" some Ukrainian terrorists in Russia with copies of The Sims game instead of SIM cards.[0] At this point, who cares what they say? And, the other way round, why should they say what the public in the West is saying?

[0] https://nypost.com/2022/04/25/russia-appears-to-confuse-the-...

The note claimed to be found at these "terrorists'" place in the bottom photo of the link you posted goes: dedicated to blah-blah, kill to live and live to kill, signature not legible.

That is, the actual words "signature not legible" instead of what an FSB higher-up probably wanted to be an inscrutable scrawl masquerading as the signature. Some of these FSB guys come straight from a Monty Python sketch.

It's allegedly a nom de plume of some neo-nazi in Russia: https://sensaciy.net/divanniye-eksperti-razoblachili-silovik...

On youtube there's an American guy called Hinkle dishing out pro Russian viewpoint, I mean even Trump was a Putin apologist and under the veneer he's probably still got a grudge against Zelensky for his 2nd impeachment so I expect a lot of his believers hold similar twisted views... I mean even if on the surface people agree Putler is evil, many probably view the inflation of oil prices and their diminishing buying power (and their economy...whatever that means) as being caused by the said WAR rather than too much money being printed in 2020-21 to prop up all those poor airlines etc etc

Trump wasn't an apologist. He was a realist. Trump was berating Europe for making themselves dependent on Russian gas. He specifically called out the hypocrisy of having the U.S. maintain a massive military presence in Europe, costing us billions of dollars, to defend them against Russia, while they were paying billions of dollars to Russia for energy.

Meanwhile, during VP Biden family was getting rich off of Ukrainian natural gas with Hunter Biden placed strategically on the board of directors at Burisma. And our DoD and intelligence agencies spent 8 years propping up Ukraine military build up. This is a proxy war and as ill-conceived as any other countless proxy wars U.S. has been dumb enough to get dragged into.

You know why it happened? Because the truth was too scary, too dark to believe. We (Europeans) really believed we did everything not to make WWII break out again. There were many bumps on the way, but we really believed we are evolving, and a war in Europe is unthinkable. So when 2014 came, we preferred to close our eyes. We preferred to believe this is just a minor conflict, and that Ukraine must be partly responsible. And that Putin is a sensible player who will not risk breaking so many connections with the West. We hoped that mutual trade is a kind of guarantee he won't start a war. We were wrong. Everybody was wrong. People who saw it coming were, as you say, realists. But it would be difficult to find such a politician in Europe at that time. Even before 24 February most people were sure it's just a bluff to push for opening Nord Stream 2 faster.

Dude, I Want To Believe™ just as much as you, but citing the NYPost does not constitute “truth” at all. We all know that we are subject to propaganda, all know how Cambridge Analysis manipulated public opinion and political agendas. Robert Murdoch [spit] and his disinformation newspapers. NYPost is barely a step up from the Weekly World News and their Bat Boy.

The story is hilarious. It is plausibly true: the Russian frontline has a lot of folk from remote, impoverished provinces: poorly educated, subsistence-farming, expendable farm boys.

One notes that you phrasing reads opposite to the story. It claims Russian troops posing as Ukr terrorists left behind absurd “evidence” based on misunderstanding their commander’s orders.

> Dude, I Want To Believe™ just as much as you, but citing the NYPost does not constitute “truth” at all.

Well, in this case there is not much to believe. Straight from the horse's mouth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjF3-4IcvoA

Note this is not the official channel of Ria Novosti, I believe they have been banned, but their ridiculous video is out there in numerous copies. It doesn't matter if it's FSB or some rank-and file soldiers, someone had to approve this ridiculous material to air it worldwide. I know the target is their internal audience, but still.

On the other hand, I have to say I wasn't that surprised. The level of their sophistication at all levels is quite consistent.

Putin will remember another explosion well, happening in his early Soviet days. Search for:

  Siberia pipeline explosion Thomas C. Reed 1982

yeah, I suspect anything that disrputs the flow of LNG to Europe is a pretty high priority for russian agents in the US

IF Russian spies are blowing up mainland US infrastructure, you can expect a massive escalation in Ukraine.

I am worried that guardian was a newspaper.

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