Undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia suffers damage | Hacker News Reader

Undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia suffers damage

euronews.com

90 pointsaustinallegro102 comments

Follow @auonsson.bsky.social for cutting edge Russian Baltic cable vandalism. Their analysis of AIS trajectories and speeds correlated with cable positions offer great insight: https://bsky.app/profile/auonsson.bsky.social/post/3le754kjl...

Impressive work! I also checked the work about the Russian GPS jamming coming out of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg: https://bsky.app/profile/auonsson.bsky.social/post/3lalrqyyt...

This truly shows how much of a threat Russia became.

The Russians could certainly say the same about the West.

Could they? Do you have any evidence to share with us?

In reference to Russia having security concerns regarding the behavior of the West here are two books to read:

https://www.amazon.com/Flight-MH17-Ukraine-new-Cold/dp/15261...

https://www.amazon.com/Provoked-Washington-Started-Catastrop...

When I asked for concrete evidence that Western actions threatened Russia and I needed to read two whole books, something doesn't add up. You should easily find evidence, like the collective Western countries destroying Russian infrastructure, hacking of Russian organizations, killing of civilians... something.

Especially when one of which highlights Russia shooting down the flight MH17 and killing 300 people, very much like the shooting of the Azerbaijan airplane which Russia denied emergency landing - probably in an attempt to make it crash to destroy the evidence. With the flight MH17, there were pictures taken by Russians proudly on top of the debris, and this time around medals were awarded.

As for Scott Horton's book, he sure knows how to repeat Russian propaganda points, including the "not one inch of NATO expansion" lie, in the classical conspiracy theory fashion, just the description says it all:

"Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.”"

It's funny that a lot of these "Russian mouthpieces" have something in common: only Russia "the victim" and the USA "the aggressor" have agency, and the remaining sovereign countries and their millions of citizens are NPCs, with no will or History of their own.

If you want to have a basic understanding of why Russia pushed countries to join NATO there's this short video that sums it up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWK_euAwrMk

Long story short: Sovereign countries got fed up with Genocide and aggression at the hands of Russians, who now believe that multipolarity is a rightful green card for unchecked coercion of neighboring countries.

If you want a deeper understanding I recommend the work of Stephen Kotkin, an actual Academic and Historian respected in academia and a reference all over the world (funny enough, even in Russia).

Those books can say it better than me.

I too was once like you: pro West, anti-Putin. On the Ukraine affair way back in 2014, I was outraged that Putin took Crimea etc etc.

So what changed my point of view? Russiagate. That nonsense the Democrat Party propagated about Putin interfering in the election to get Trump elected. I also found out that it wasn't Russian operatives shooting at the Maidan protestors from the top of a building. It was neo Nazi Ukrainians. They are small but ruthless so their influence belies their size. But I should've known better because I already knew about the lies the West told to go war in Iraq in 2003. WMD's in Iraq was a big fat lie. And US Officials went on television and told these lies to the whole world. Knowing they were lies.

So my point? The West does Propaganda too. Stephen Kotkin works for the Hoover Institute. The Hoover Institute has an agenda to promote American "free-market" capitalism around the world. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/hoover-institution/

Have a look at Professors Meersheimer and Stephen Cohen. For an alternative view on the Ukrainian situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mciLyG9iexE

Why do you dismiss anyone in the West who is against what the West is doing in Ukraine as "Russian mouthpieces"? But you never question whether Western sources as "American Hegemonic" propaganda? Is it not possible for Westerners to look at what is happening in Ukraine and conclude that it is folly?

Surely, you are aware of PNAC? (Project for a New American Century).

>Sovereign countries got fed up with Genocide and aggression at the hands of Russians, who now believe that multipolarity is a rightful green card for unchecked coercion of neighboring countries. --Gaza? To tell you the truth I'm fed up with American backed Genocide. What has Russia (under Putin) done that is worse than this? Do you not think that what goes on in Gaza is an all time low for the West? Surely you do.

So what changed my point of view? Russiagate.

And that's your cardinal error.

To come to an understanding of what's been happening to Ukraine -- you need to focus on Ukraine, and its history, along with the history of the region. Especially in regard to what all of these countries have had to put up with for the past 400 years.

Not the US, and its never-ending internal scandals and naval-gazing shenanigans. The idea that stuff like the Russiagate can begin to matter in comparison to what's actually happening in Ukraine ironically reflects a profound Western-centric bias.

Your secondary error is to adopt as an axiom that "anti-Putin" and "pro-West" are on a common axis, and part of a zero-sum game.

And hence to be anti-Putin is to be "pro-West", and a sucker for its propaganda.

I also found out that it wasn't Russian operatives shooting at the Maidan protestors from the top of a building. It was neo Nazi Ukrainians.

Except you didn't "find this out". Your read it on a blog somewhere, and it never occurred to you to dig behind this assertion and fact-check it.

The West does Propaganda too.

Then just ignore it, and use your brain instead.

It's not that hard, really.

If this is Russia, what are we going to do? It sounds like we (European governments, NATO etc). Need a much larger naval presence in the Baltic. But do we even posess the navy to do that between us?

Edit: I'm afraid it is time for much greater military expansion in Europe

The main issue is that Europeans are starting to become worried and confused about that stance, which we know will translate into anger - understandably so because Russia is threatening those countries' ways of living, completely unprovoked.

The whole detachment from Russians who resigned themselves from any responsibility for their government action doesn't help either, because the narrative that "Russians are just victims of the regime and can't do anything about it" is already fading away.

It might snap if Europeans don't start to see decisive actions to protect their sovereignty and ways of living.

Perhaps there needs to be a blockade in the Baltic.

> the narrative that "Russians are just victims of the regime and can't do anything about it" is already fading away.

It's not a narrative, something you want to present to others in order to convince them or something, it's a sad reality for many Russians.[0] It's difficult to understand for someone who hasn't lived in a totalitarian state which can do whatever they want with your life and the lives of your family without absolutely any onsequences, whether you're rich and powerful like Navalny or just a simple pianist like Pavel Kushnir. It's easy to say "do something" if it's not you that risk quite literally everything.

[0] Yes, not all, I know. The percentage debate, or the lack of verifiable numbers, is another issue.

I think I didn't make myself clear enough, I meant narrative in the sense of what Europeans tell themselves, it just happens to be aligned with a portion of reality.

As you mentioned, it's hard to say to what extent. But from the polling results[0], it seems like many Russians want Ukrainians to become subservient to Russia and don't want them to be a successful independent nation in any way, shape, or form.

This war is being driven mainly by "entrepreneurs" who want to enrich themselves by going into go into Ukraine to kill as many Ukrainians as possible, and according to Russian state media, the average is around 30.000 contracts per month, with a total of 750.000 Russian casualties. These are big numbers, unlike we've seen since WW2.

> It's easy to say "do something" if it's not you that risk quite literally everything.

So in a way, you're agreeing with me that the support for a "Russian victory" is increasing because the illusion that "things will be better" for Russians is tied to the concept of "victory", and "things will be bad" if Russia faces a "defeat".

Because this geopolitical blunder of the Russian regime was a loss already, and there's no way back. They don't even know what "victory" is other than capitulation and genocide of Ukraine, and somehow that will magically improve the destruction of Russia's state, culture, technology development, partnerships, diplomacy, trade...

They don't even know what the upside is, other than Putin gets to stay in power until he dies and they won't see "little Russians" become more prosperous than Russians.

Russia reached a point where War became a means in itself.

[0]https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/russia-tomorr...

Eastern Europe was trying to tell Western Europe what Russia is like. They didn't listen and called us racist. Now there's huge regret.

You're right. The biggest blunder of the XXI Century was allowing Russia to get away with Georgia in 2008 and a second time with Ukraine in 2014.

It's not about Eastern Europe and Western Europe. It's about countries that see Russia as a threat and countries that want normal relations with Russia. Some East European countries are in the latter group.

There are also European countries that don't really care about Russia, because it's weak enough, poor enough, and far away.

> It's about countries that see Russia as a threat and countries that want normal relations with Russia.

It's a bit too simplified. First, I believe everybody would like to have normal relations with Russia and not to deal with the PITA it became. Second, also the two countries you mentioned (Hungary and Slovakia) adopted the servile attitude to Russia because they perceive it as a threat and the current leaders of these countries believe that appeasing Putin is a smarter thing to do; the rest of Europe disagrees based on their experience so far.

”Perhaps there needs to be a blockade in the Baltic.”

Yes. Controlling Kattegat traffic should be feasible which should give policy makers a fair range of options.

Europe will be worried like always is. And nothing will happen. My last job was at large German military contractor. My personal opinion is that this whole industry is made to consume government’s money in most inefficient way instead of building something for government.

” And nothing will happen”

I myself would not call special forces boarding the ship ’nothing’. Let’s see what happens next.

This doesn't read like the English I would expect from someone with German as their mother tongue.

The lack of articles hints that their mother tongue is Slavic. There are a lot of Slavs with German citizenship, if that is even required for the job.

Reads like someone with a slavic native language

Maybe they can propose a subcommittee to discuss the possibility of negotiating a treaty between member states that will enable a proposition to vote on a measure to discuss possible actions. But I’m not hopeful.

Finnish special forces boarded the ship. The ”hold my beer” moment in dealing with Russia using a language they understand and listen to.

One possibility is that the West is already doing something (Russia pipeline, Russians boats recently "sinking", etc...) and the warfare is already in motion.

The two recently sunken tankers sunk because of bad weather and russian negligence and lack of any common sense on safety - they were super old (built in 60s) river tankers, which are narrow but long. So to make them "sea worthy" they need to be shortened so a section in the middle is cut away and two halves are rewelded back [1]. These tankers were never designed for the high seas at all especially during stormy conditions. They had brocken on exactly that weld spilling thousands of tonnes of oil and mazout.

Handling of this ecological trajedy by russian government is nonexistent - while having resources to handle it, there is no will at all in doing that, no care neither about sea life nor about their own people.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/15/two-russian-ta...

They're up to five ships sunk now, and the last one was a relatively new ship that was actually built for the ocean instead of inland waterways.

Probably still all accidents. Probably.

Mail headline:

>Sunk Putin cargo ship was victim of sabotage that sparked three explosions onboard, Russians believe as Ukraine vows more attacks

Sorry about it being the Daily Mail but I think the info is quite likely correct. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14227007/Sunk-Putin...

Though as it says probably Ukraine's doing rather than the EUs.

This is simply sabotage using disposable ships and sacrificeable seamen. The defense against that is not naval presence. In large we already have all the military equipment needed in forms of radar, underwater surveillance, satellites, and detection system in cables. Combined they will say exactly when the sabotage occurred, where and by which ship.

The problem is that of diplomacy. A major cause of the sabotage is to generate political support within Russia. When a ship is being arrested they will generate support around how evil west countries are boarding and stealing Russian ship and arresting innocent Russian citizens.

In term of countering this, the west has a problem of presenting evidence to the public since most of the surveillance is of military nature and thus secret. The historical/current method is to do it discreetly and simply send military ship to the offender and give a stern look that says that we know what you did. Then you send in the diplomats. We might see an escalation now since two ships has gotten boarded in very recent time.

The important evidence is fully public. It’s the funky see-saw the ship did over the cable. Plus missing an anchor afaik.

Russian public is not party to this discussion. They have no influence. All messaging - things said and unsaid - is towards Kremlin.

Boarding ships part of the Russian shadow fleet is a very direct message.

The crew is ”disposable”. But this particular ship carries 60M worth of fuel.

The answer is: nothing. Russian drones and cruise missiles fall on Nato soil already and enter its airspace on a regular basis, though so far unintentionally.

E.g.:

1. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/romania-detects-another...

2. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-army-says-object...

3. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/russian-drone-debris-found-in-r...

Ignoring plausibly accidental transgressions is preferable to war. Article 5 only gets triggered if NATO members want it to be, and even then the nature of their response is left to the member nations to decide for themselves. NATO isn't some sort of automatic deadhand system meant to start WW3 over an accident like in Doctor Strangelove.

Incidentally, Russia is behaving in roughly the same way; they talk a lot of shit about, for instance, western weapons being used against targets in Russian territory, but then when that happens anyway they issue more threats instead of starting WW3 in earnest like they threatened before. They don't really want that war either; if they did they're able to start it anytime they want, but they've got kids too.

Not kids, only personal safety. Russia is burying those male kids in the ukrainian soil in scale incomparable with any prior USSR/russian wars excepting only WW2.

There is a point after which doing nothing makes the war more likely.

I'd argue we crossed it around 2014.

That’s called appeasement, btw.

More like conflict management. That Chinese boat, for example, was apprehended. Responses are being ramped up in a controlled manner.

What do you think appeasement was?

It was trying to be reasonable and avoid/manage conflict with a fundamentally unreasonable ‘partner’.

No, appeasement is something else. Trying to buy peace by giving them free shipments of grain would be appeasement. NATO isn't trying to buy peace, they're trying to bleed Russia to death at a manageable level of conflict intensity.

That is one form, but ignoring acts of violence and escalation (or not responding to them in a way that really discourages them) is another.

They're not being ignored, but neither are they starting a thermonuclear war over it. NATO is walking a knife edge of low intensity conflict, trying to avoid the two disasters of Russia steamrolling eastern Europe and/or total war that probably leads to a nuclear exchange.

You really probably want to read up on what Chamberlain was actually doing before the war.

You really need to get off reddit and get a grip is you think NATO's approach to the Russian threat is comparable to Chamberlain. Thank goodness much smarter and more levelheaded people than you are calling the shots, trying to avoid the sort of cataclysmic disaster you would boldly walk right into.

There's nothing smart about the current approach. The snowball keeps getting larger and larger. What started with "little green men" in Crimea in 2014 has snowballed into a war that has razed entire cities, turned millions into refugees, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and contaminated vast areas for centuries, as Iranian missiles rain on European cities and North Korean slaves kill Europeans in their home - with no end in sight.

The unwillingness to take a stand and make a credible threat of nuclear exchange unless Russians get out of Ukraine has only invited further attacks on Europe. In practical terms, the foolish "escalation management" serves no other purpose than giving the initiative to Russians. By knowing that NATO will try to defuse any dangerous situation, they can safely keep tuning the temperature to their liking. The most level-headed people have warned about this for a long time.

The people calling the shots are the same people who have been dismantling Europes militaries, during a time when Russia has invaded two European countries(Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014).

They are not particularly level headed, unless level headed has changed meaning to "stupid".

They are trying to avoid war. And so, inevitably, war is what they will get.

You've got to look at it in the context of the war in Ukraine where the West has supplied something like $200bn in aid, about half of it military leading to approx 600k dead/wounded Russians. I guess that will go on.

”what are we going to do?”

The response to this event would probably be a good template for a standard policy each time infrastructure is damaged.

Special forces boarded the suspect ship and now it’s held.

What happens next is interesting.

> If this is Russia, what are we going to do?

We have pretty much 10 years of experience to go by here: nothing. At least Europe won't. If anything the most likely outcome is for everybody to hope that Trump somehow ends this conflict and within 10 years everything goes back to where it was, and we're buddy-buddy with our dictatorship neighbors again.

It wouldn't go back to where it was. Russia is like a very large iceberg detaching itself from the civilization. The only issue is where the break-line is going to be.

>At least Europe won't

There are different parts of Europe. While for example Germany is relatively safe and relaxed, Poland is buying, on its own money, 1000 tanks form South Korea (among the best ones), jets, including F-35, etc. as it wants to stay on the civilization side of the break-line.

Don't forget that plenty European countries made business with the USSR too. Also quite a number of EU members are quickly detaching themselves from democracy and a functional state. You don't have to look much farther than Hungary, Slovakia and even Austria to see that the trajectory this whole thing is on, is not a great one.

Many European countries will be happy even with a much degraded Russia for as long as it supplies Gas and other natural resources for cheap.

The USSR had clear separation border between the West and the Eastern Block.

>Many European countries will be happy even with a much degraded Russia

They would be. Only it isn't just good old much degraded Russia like it was even in 2020 (as the Russian opposition calls it "vegetarian times"). It is now a fascist state with a nationalism as its political ideology. By its nature such regime is an aggressively expansive.

> The USSR had clear separation border between the West and the Eastern Block.

And yet, the USSR was a massive energy supplier to Europe. The gas pipelines supplied the west long before the fall of it.

yes, that is the point of good firewall - to allow safe, for whatever each side understand as safe, well defined and controlled flow/exchange. As i said the current issue being decided is where that firewall will be.

Can you elaborate on Austria?

Continuing to starve them as a nation using sanctions is not nothing.

Russian supermarkets seem full and the trains run on time. I doubt anyone east of Moscow even thinks about the war in Ukraine very often. This won’t change until actual sanctions are in place. What we have now is just child’s play.

It’s as good as nothing. It’s a place where suffering is constant, and losing is not acceptable.

> If this is Russia, what are we going to do?

The best option would probably be to travel back in time and not help blow up a Russian natural gas pipeline. [1]

It was a great way to set the precedent that wrecking other countries' undersea infrastructure is a free-for-all.

It's a bit weird how economic terrorism is fine, but only when we are the ones doing it.

----

[1] We could also skip out on peddling the rather embarrassing[2] conspiracy that somehow Russia decided to blow up its own pipeline.

[2] Embarrassing in the sense that so many otherwise intelligent people legitimately believed (and many of them still believe) that farce.

> The best option would probably be to travel back in time

And finish them off in 1945

Or October 1962

Yes, global thermonuclear war in '62 would have certainly made concerns over boat anchors cutting fiber cables academic.

As if threats from Russia and its partners (China, Iran and North Korea) weren't bad enough, Team Trump threaten Greenland and Canada these days. Divisions within NATO is the last thing its members need at the moment.

There is more truth than I previously thought in the phrase “Europeans are vegetarians in a world of carnivores.”

Russia has become nothing more than an terrorist state. Amazing how putin reduced russia in just a few years to a cartoonish villian like state.

I'm just curious, how is this different from sanctions? Cutting the cable hurts the economy, but nobody's killed or wounded, exactly the same way as sanctions are supposed to work. The EU is at an economic war with Russia, this is how it plays out

The difference is as subtle as between "I will not sell you my things because you bully my colleague" vs "I hate you so I will break your things".

Or "you're trying to stop me from killing your friend, so now I'll break your things".

Voiding paid licences and support contracts for software is not that different

Sanction = "we will not do business with you"

This sabotage = "we will prevent you from doing business with others"

A few years? It has been escalating to this state for decades

From the other thread [0], there's some additional context: that the Baltic statics are planning to decouple their power grid from Russia's six weeks from now (Feb. 7).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42509212

From the press briefing: the ship Eagle S was stopped and found to be dragging its anchor.

Or rather the chain; when the chain was raised there anchor was missing.

Coast Guard and Police are on board.

NATO's Emergency Plan for an Orbital Backup Internet

https://spectrum.ieee.org/undersea-internet-cables-nato

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42510311)

For such a concentration of cables, you would think that governments would force a choke point for boats to pass through which they can monitor and oversee, then board anyone who ignores the requirement.

Then again, if it’s in international waters, that might not be enforceable.

The distance from Helsinki to Tallinn is just above 80 km and there is only a narrow sliver of international waters in between the territorial waters. It is quite well monitored by surface and underwater surveillance.

In this particular case there is no need for a choke point, it already is one.

The ship suspected for this sabotage was promptly escorted to Finnish territorial waters and is guarded by coast guard vessels and helicopters.

This time the ship in question is under Cook Island / New Zealand flag, and they are more likely to cooperate than the previous instances where vessels under Hong Kong and Chinese flags. Apprehending a vessel on international waters requires the nation whose flag it's under to approve.

Too many "accidents" lately. Trying hard not to be a conspiracy theorist since cables were being cut prior Ukrainian war but we've been seeing cables being cut off and ships being sunk more frequently than usual (or maybe now they are just being reported more). Will we ever know?

Unlike previously cut cables, which were mostly communication fiber cables, this particular one is a power cable and during the cut it was delivering 650MW at 450kV [1] so almost 1450A of current. If it was cut by accident by an anchor I could imagine achor being damaged due to underwater plasma in the arc. In general this cable should also be of quite some diameter. It should be made of thick copper wires (delivering 1450A over 145km) and plenty of dielectric isolation (to separate high voltage of 450kV), the ship would be slowed down or turned if it was accidentally draging this cable behind.

Edit: P.S. Googling for some more details I found some pictures [2] from the installation of Estlink 2 and it doesn’t look that thick, but still it is solid metal with rigid plastic insulations.

1. https://www.4coffshore.com/news/vital-eastlink-2-energy-link...

2. https://group.merko.ee/en/project/installation-of-estlink-2-...

According to an interview with people from the company that owned this particular cable (from Swedish media SVT) these things happen by accident sometimes, they said a couple of times per decade. They themselves did not think this was an accident.

Who did they think did it?

Well in this time its most likely russia.

> (or maybe now they are just being reported more). Will we ever know?

If you don't have statistics on this then there is no reason reason to assume that there is anything unusual going on (although, obviously, in wartime we probably should check vs. the base rate). Cables fail all the time and the reporting is fairly muted. It is quite hard to break into international news even with a major multi-faceted debacle like the Basslink cable failure back in '16 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis.

My completely unfounded pet conspiracy theory is that China or Russia gained control of the company that owns the fibre repair ship.

Cut fibres one at a time, and the victim will pay you to insert a listening device into their fibre.

If you simply cut the fibre with a submarine, they might get suspicious.

If you’re repairing an “accidental” cut everyone expects the outage. They’ll investigate the cut, not the repair.

Can’t you simply encrypt all traffic across the cable at each end point? I’d be surprised if that wasn’t common practice these days. And if wasn’t common practice when these cables were deployed, seems like it would be possible to retrofit.

This was a power cable...

Similarly, you could insert a device that can instantly sever the cable on command, such as a specific acoustic pattern.

In case of war, simply flood the area with an encoded sonar ping and a bunch of links all get cut at the same time.

Not an accident. A Chinese vessel did this.

The current prime suspect is flagged in Cook Islands and registered owner is in UAE. Currently anchored off Finnish coast with a Coast Guard escort.

True, there was a Chinese ship nearby but its path crossed the cable several minutes earlier.

Would be interesting to know how much the anchor hangs to the back when it cut the cable, and whether it was the chain or the anchor itself.

At this point it seems pretty likely that several of these cable cuts are intentional. Sometimes it's ok to entertain conspiracy theories, a significant number of theorized incidents do turn out to be actual conspiracies.

It's been confirmed for months already. We even know which ship damaged the previous ones (and how they lowered the anchor just before the cables and rised it after damaging the cables).

It's not a conspiracy theory when you have evidence and mainstream consensus.

I wonder who would do something like that.

Likely CIA, as it always has been.

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