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Comment by Maxion | Hacker News Reader

The case last year with the gas pipeline, the Chinese / Russian owned left Kaliningrad, and then while sailing, dropped its anchor before the pipeline and cable, and then dragged it over them, and then raised it. It was apparently accidental, yet both the Chinese and Russians didn't want the crew interviewed, the Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care, and the Estonian energy prices were severly impacted for ~9 months.

IMO very very likely sabotage, and brushed under the rug in fear of Russian escalation.

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The Finnish authorities know exactly who did it, but what are they going to do?

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.

Action does not need to be immediate.

Plan is clear: continue suppporting Ukraine, continue Russian isolation.

> IMO very very likely sabotage, and brushed under the rug in fear of Russian escalation.

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".

Yep, they can and they did:

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.

What goes around comes around - the irony being that russia itself- has very little regarding hightech structure that could be sabotaged.

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.

"Estonian and the Finnish authorities both shrugged and didn't really care"

Is this true?

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 has spread bombs on mail flights. During WW2 the British had a great slogan: /Keep Calm and Carry On/. It actually helps the war effort, unlike public outcry, wild speculation & unrest.

> Russia has blown up NATO ammunition depots

Can you give a link to some information on this please?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

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.

Russia wants the West to react, to stop funding Ukraine and instead fund.. protection for their own homelands I guess. This is a known (theory?), and the game theoretic way to then respond is to, ignore that it happens. Dont stoke any fear or reaction from people or government.

Highly likely ))

* The Chinese / Russian owned what left Kaliningrad?

* Which pipeline?

* Last year (2023), not 2022?

There are very few things which can be described as “setting sail” and can “drop anchor” so I think you can fill the gap easily

Of the big metal things that can "set sail" and "drop anchor" there happens to be a very large set of classifications...

But using your heuristics, that catamarang crew should probably have been interviewed.

I think you tried to be a bit too clever there in choosing one of the "big metal things" that you didn't know how to spell :-)

Generally misspellings like this kind of proves the point...

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.

A ship. The ship is named Newnew Polar Bear.

Reference for those of us unfamiliar with the incident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear#Damage_to_un...

"In August 2024, an internal Chinese investigation indicated that the ship was indeed responsible for the damage, claiming it was an accident due to heavy weather rather than intentional sabotage.[23][24]"

The internal Chinese investigation indicated that was an accident.. LOL

Dropping anchor in a channel is something a container ship (especially one without other mitigations like this Newnew, I mean look at it) might do to increase stability and reduce the risk of drifting out of the channel.

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.

Thank you! Had heard nothing about this one.

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