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.
Source: have dragged anchors - thankfully never near undersea cables
IMO very very likely sabotage, and brushed under the rug in fear of Russian escalation.
* Which pipeline?
* Last year (2023), not 2022?
But using your heuristics, that catamarang crew should probably have been interviewed.
The comment means nothing, neither mine nor the one I commented on so I won't even bother looking up the spelling.
It's more important to understand why the comment is there.
The GP asked what boat, parent effectively said "a boat" which doesn't answer the question. My comment was one of the least likely options, but hey I could have said sailboat...
Not an excuse either but realistically I on a daily basis speak two languages and often interact with people who can barely speak one of those two so I have some basic understanding of a third... Sometimes I can't remember which one spelling rules come from. Not an excuse, it's easy enough to look it up but just context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear#Damage_to_un...
The internal Chinese investigation indicated that was an accident.. LOL
I don't care to convince folks in this thread one way or another, but yes, there are reason a commercial ship would drop anchor while underway, including bad weather and a narrow / shallow channel. The circumstances from last year had both.
Sanction Russia? Fire a few missiles at Moscow? Write a sternly worded letter?
It's just added to the pile of "shit that Russia does without repercussions" which is opened when (not if) they actually cross the border to Finland and find out what happens when you fuck around with a country who's been preparing for Russian invasion for 100 years.
Plan is clear: continue suppporting Ukraine, continue Russian isolation.
But what can they do? Imagine you are the leader of a small European country like the Netherlands, and one day Russia decides to shot down your passenger plane with 300 people on board. You can do absolutely nothing.
But once a proxy war started, of course the Netherlands are doing their best to make Putin pay for the lives of these innocent people. He basically alienated many countries in this way and then complains of "Russophobia".
https://english.defensie.nl/downloads/publications/2024/09/2...
Or the Netherlands section here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukra...
350+ APCs, 150+ MBTs, Patriot bateries, SPGs, F16s - I'm sure those on the receiving end do think that their Donbas proxies could have been a bit less trigger happy when the loaned them that Buk AA system back in 2014.
Those 298 inoccent victims, 193 of them citizens of Netherlands will be avenged many times over.
No russian starlink sats. No russian fiber lines. No anything. Just backwater countries, slowly bled dry to have that heap of loot called moscow polished.
The heap of pillaged academics with nowhere to go has wandered off towards the west.
All there is, is vandalism and downfall while high on nostalgia. The aggressive train station HasBeenHobo of international politics.
Is this true?
Or
Are we now in a world where we are all living in fear of actual military retribution for speaking out?
Can you give a link to some information on this please?
Whoopsy, well would you ever!
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.
> Swedish-Estonian telecoms cable at 1513 GMT, then over the Russian cable at around 2020 GMT, the [Balticconnector gas pipeline] at 2220 GMT and a Finland-Estonia telecoms line at 2349 GMT.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-telecoms-ca...
(But really, it clearly has “Russia” written all over it)
Russians, yes
Lot of Russian Apologist.
Russia invades Ukraine -> It is Biden's fault, he ordered it.
Russia actually invading and killing -> It was NATO's fault for discussing admission.
Like, Russia is actually 'doing the bad things'.
Yes, Russia is doing bad things.. But do we really need or want a third World War because of it? It’s not Ukraine’s fault that Russia invaded, but Ukraine bears responsibility for having been so corrupt over the past 20 years and for being irresponsible given its proximity to Russia. We still don’t know how much of the aid sent to Ukraine is being lost to corruption... So I am not willing to fight this War.
Military leaders are pragmatic people and this is a pragmatic approach. We have a problem. We see that the problem has grown in time and will grow further if ignored. So it's better to deal with the problem now rather than waste valuable time and face an even larger problem in 5 to 8 years.
Military leaders are politicians. I am in the Military. The official position, is inline with what the political leaders want. Internally, the same Military leaders disagree with the politicians. Internally all say the same: There is no accountability and responsibility in Ukraine. Better is to concentrate our resources where matters: NATO. Ukraine is necessary strategically to consume Russian men, artillery, etc.. That's the military opinion that we hear internally.
That's not the case in countries bordering Russia, starting from Finland and heading south, where military leaders take a lot of pride in being constitutionally independent like supreme court judges. Politicians would very much prefer to hide behind NATO guarantees and pretent that the risk does not exist and that the Americans would come to save us (without specifying any details), whereas military assessments are much more calculated and take into account hard facts like redeployment speed of a brigade or daily ammo expenditure. Assessments from military circles have so far been consistently the closest to how events have actually unfolded.
They case they are presenting is a no-brainer. It is by all measures significantly cheaper - by orders of magnitude - to support Ukraine in halting Russians in Eastern Ukraine than to fight invaders on our home turf.
Even if you don't care one bit about Ukraine, it's still a really smart thing to do for our own sake.
"USSR, why bother pushing back, not my problem, can't I just go to the mall and hang out?"
During the Cold War, the US and Russia were not 'At War'. But US did financial support a ton of countries, with a lot of money.
So why not do that now? Still fighting Russia. Still not 'head to head', but with Proxies.
This seems like arguing to stop supporting our Proxy and let Russia take them. But there is still an argument to not give up.
Lets say Russia wins, and re-integrates Ukraine.
Now what does the world look like in 20 years when Russia is eye-balling Poland?
It won't happen. If you think so then, you are not well informed about this topic. Russia has no manpower to "re-integrate" the whole Ukraine. Ukraine will always exist, but for the next years, maybe not as big as in 2014. Ukraine can still prepare itself to take the lost area back in the future. That's up to Ukraine, not to Europe.
Said that, one possibility, for now, which is part of the negotiations is Russia keep the conquered land, Ukraine joins EU/NATO. Realistically, it would be Ukraine joins EU and US won't block Ukraine applying to NATO.
> Now what does the world look like in 20 years when Russia is eye-balling Poland?
Poland, other than Ukraine, isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the World, and did their home-work. Beside it, other than Ukraine, Poland is NATO.
Which parts of those are "good" in your opinion? Do you believe Russia's "denazification" claim?
There are no international laws that legitimized Russia's invasion of Ukraine. If Ukraine was in violation of something, there's procedures in place to declare war legitimately - but before that there's the nonviolent approach, which Russia skipped.
And yet you are commenting. Ignorance and a lack of curiosity are not compelling arguments.
Maybe it's time to grow up and start paying attention.
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.
War and killings turn up the contrast, converting shades of gray to black and white, people to friends and enemies.
I rather would live in peacetime, where it’s less obvious who is good and who is bad.
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 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.
Of course, Russians used false flag as usual, to blame Ukraine, but Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on Russian infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right to defend itself.
Are you saying it was actually Russia that did it? They blew up own pipeline?
Russia is a probable candidate.
German investigations found that the Andromeda trail leads to Russia[0].
[0] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/internationales/nord-stream-spur...
Germany has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukranian national [2] who along with two accomplices was on board the yacht Andromeda, which was located at the blast site days before the blast and on which traces of the same explosive was found as used on the pipelines, as well as DNA evidence.
I suppose it's not "actual evidence Ukraine did it", but it's more than enough evidence to make a Ukranian national that since fled back to Ukraine a suspect.
[0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2478770-vs-waarschuwde-oekraine-nord-... [1] https://nos-nl.translate.goog/artikel/2478770-vs-waarschuwde... [2] https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-explosions-germany-issues-...
:-/
So, one diver moved and installed 500kg of explosives in 4 places in front of a married couple?
Are you taking the married couples' claims at face value? The article mentions two divers, not one.
https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-explosions-germany-issues-...
Yup, they did it. The question that is being investigated is if any other Country helped them or not.
Then the Russians played coy and came up with counter-bureaucratic reasons why the repaired turbine could not be installed. Presumably to put pressure on Germany, which was afraid of the 2022/2023 winter at the time.
Then two pipes of NS-1 and one pipe of NS-2 were blown up. Since no gas was flowing at the time, Russia had no reason to blow up its bargaining chip. Ukraine or the U.S. did have a reason.
Russia also delivered gas to Austria through a pipeline that goes through Ukraine and for which Ukraine collected transit fees until this year. Russia didn't shut down or blow up that pipeline.
From the point of view of the U.S. and Ukraine it does not make sense to blow up the Austrian pipeline because Austria is neutral anyway, so just let Ukraine collect the transit fees.
Germany of course must be pressured to be the second largest financial and weapons supporter for Ukraine, so hey, let's blow up the pipeline of our "ally".
Apart from Hersh's "the U.S. did it" theory, the Wall Street Journal recently blamed it on Zalushny. No other theories have emerged, but rest assured that if there were a credible Russia theory the Western press would shout it from the rooftops.
Putin has offered multiple times to either open the remaining pipe of NS-2 or to route gas via Turkey:
https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-nord-s...
> Nobody had incentive to blow up empty pipes except Russia.
I disagree: Russian gas was the one leverage Russia had over Germany. Blowing the pipeline ensured that Germany wouldn't be able to get out of the conflict quietly - "Germany still receiving Russian gas" would not receive as much condemnation as "Germany repairs Russian gas pipeline".
> Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on Russian infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right to defend itself.
True, but Ukraine doesn't have a legal right to sabotage the infrastructure of its allies. I live in Germany and I can tell you: that first winter was pretty bad for everyone, with plenty headlines about people who could no longer afford their heating costs. If it had been known that it was Ukraine's doing, popular support for the war would have sunk a lot.
Maybe, $20 billion is pocket money for you, but it's big money for Russia. A false flag operation is much much cheaper.
[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-countries-demand-us-...
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/energies/article/2023/03/12/french...
What about the U.S., which is always holier than thou?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/climate/enriched-uranium-...
The U.S. banned it this year, 2 years after Nordstream was blown up, to the amusement and applause from Nuland etc.
Nonsense. Biden had a great deal of incentive to destroy that pipeline.
But far too many more obvious counterincentives.
Unlike the Ukrainians, NATO/US were smart enough to see that blowing up NS2 would be hugely stupid, providing precisely zero strategic advantage while simply provoking Russia to respond assymetrically (in exactly the same way as it is apparently doing right now). In addition to the huge methane release.
So if anything, the standpoint of "incentives" points squarely in the opposite direction (that is, against the idea that the US/NATO must have done it).
>Unlike the Ukrainians, NATO/US were smart enough
I do not concur with this glib assessment one bit.
Or even implying that sentiment.
This is completely wrong. It involved German/Russian infrastructure, and if confirmed, it would rank as the worst terrorist act in the history of the FRG (Germany) since the Munich Olympic Games. In fact, it could, should, or would lead to the activation of Article 5, as one of NATO's members was attacked.
BTW from the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
" In June 2024 German authorities issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of the sabotage.[13] "
This (in German) shed even more lights on that https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ukraine/roman-tscherwins...
Is this supposed to imply the story is implausible because the couple wasn't in on the plot and would rat the third guy out? If so, all 3 are suspects and presumably are in on the plot, so this argument falls flat on its face.
>The two other suspects, a married couple who do not have warrants issued in their names, have denied knowing Z. and said that they were on vacation in Bulgaria when the attack took place.
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/nord-stre...
zdf is the german news broadcast.
Haven't reported anything.
Declined requests to explain themselves.
Sorry but it's bullshit.
Is it though? From my understanding it's clearly sabotage, but who's responsible is open to some debate. Compare to NordStream, it's still not officially determined who's responsible.
Becuase they are afraid to figure out the truth. It might not fit the propaganda narrative.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/chinese-ship-investigat...
1) Russia hastily retaliated, which is out of character. You can accuse Russia of many things, but not of retaliating instantly (against the West, in Ukraine they probably do).
2) False flag in order to drum up pro-war sentiment in the West.
If Biden escalates in the last weeks of his presidency, presumably to make it more difficult for Trump to negotiate, why would Russia take the bait and escalate? It does not make any sense.
If anything artificial limits have been placed on Ukraine that are not placed on other nations (or in some cases proscribed terrorist organisations) purchasing or being "gifted" weapons. Whether those weapons are from the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Russia, RoK, whoever.
As for what Russia may do, they've been told publicly and privately by multiple nations: from the U.S., UK, and France, even China and India to wind their necks in with regard any nuclear escalation. However, they are very adept at asymmetric responses, and Putin has already said he would consider arming groups with anti-"western" sympathies - he probably already has.
It is now up to Russia on how to respond. And as you noted, one scenario being talked about, at least in social media, is some groups houthis, hezbollah or others getting Russian missiles and those being fired at western targets, ships or others. And I assume it would be Russian military who would control the targetting in that case depending on the missiles used. Or the Russians don't go for direct escalation with the intent of not jeopardizing the chances of Trump ending support to Ukraine in few months from now.
But either way Russia's deterrence against Nato has been challenged yet again, and the chances of escalations and counter-escalations going out of hand remains a more nearer scary possibility in the unfolding scenario in process.