Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption
bbc.com
bbc.com
"close to Renault's factory in the town of Cléon", which is now preparing to start manufacturing drones for the French military, in collaboration with Ukrainian military-industrial groups.
https://nos.nl/video/2631081-startkabels-van-spoor-bij-meppe... ("Startkabels van spoor bij Meppel weggehaald")
If one were in a charitable mood, one could think of this as a "just in case" measure of ongoing capability assurance in the event of a broader conflict. In a less charitable mood, one might imagine it as preparation for proactive action. In either case, if you don't do this kind of sub-threshold stuff at least occasionally, you often discover that when a real conflict erupts, the capabilities you thought you had are in fact literally or figuratively rusty. (See the Russian army's logistical debacle early in the Ukraine war for a recent example.)
Most top tier nation states do some version of this; each one has its own style. The Russians are somewhat unusual in that they care less than most who knows or suspects them of this kind of activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
>The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was an act of French state-terrorism carried out on 10 July 1985. The event was described by France as a "covert operation" by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE). During the operation, two operatives (both French citizens) sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland on her way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
Low level sabotage under the guise of hooliganism wasn't invented in Leningrad.
Bet you didn't see the uno reverso false false flag coming
You have both the desired threat, but no concrete biases for an official response.
Also an uncertainty limits action - it might be a random event, it could even be a false flag.
One of the problem's here is narratives are being spun by multiple actors and it depends on who you believe.
Russia throwing journalists out of windows or paining with Novachok - that’s a “it’s us, you can’t do anything about it, don’t fuck with us” power signal that benefits from “plausible” deniability - you can’t prove it was us.
It would honestly be kind of fair game to sabotage production of drones that would be used against you, even if they're made in a country you're not at war with --- if it wasn't for Russia having a lot of responsibility for that war in the first place (to put it mildly).
No one can prove anything, for example, but anyone knows that people that piss Putin off, need to stay away from windows in high places.
It's like if Russia decided to set off a few fires and explosions in the USA on July 4th. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
It started small, just check this or that, little favor there but soon escalated to proper spycraft. Some other folks reported having death threats against family. Its for peanuts, few hundred euros mostly. They just need to find the dumbest and most desperate folks to commit acts of treason.
It's fair to say that if one jumps in the middle of a fight, they should expect to get punched, but it's also fair to say that for now Russia has been avoiding throwing much in the way of punches.
* That actually happened. It was a false flag operation to discredit the Greens (party).
It is really a rather common playbook of stoking fear and even instigating war not for direct outcomes that has been used innumerable times over history. Only it seems that the majority of people are incapable of seeing, accepting, or maybe just internalizing when they are being played, lied to, and manipulated for the benefit of others at their own expense.
One thing that logic would dictate though is that Russia would be extremely low on the list of suspects since they gain nothing by some minor event like this, are negatively affected in every manner possible by being in any way behind such actions, and they could simply just send barrages of missiles to hit actually meaningful targets if they ever become sick and tired of all the CIA/MI6 clowns thinking they can salami slice their way into conquering Russia and once the Germans and Poles have been whipped up to be the battering ram of minced meat again.
It's why we have so many catastrophic and calamitous events in our history because people never ask themselves who may be benefitting from the act that is immediately used to manipulate people through fear. In spite of having been told and explained a long time ago and many times since, you should always ask you who benefits, cui bono. Russia does not benefit from scaring the populace into supporting the murderous and war mongering governments and the maniacal ruling parasites that control them in order to profit from war as they send your children in to the meat grinder.
Or one could choose not to take this in isolation from all the acts of brazen and identified sabotage Russia does, slashing deep-sea cables in international waters with their shadow fleets, organizing psyop campaigns throughout the entire continent that can be traced back right to their government units, and so on :-)
Implying that Russia somehow invented or is the undisputed leader in "psyops" is a popular hallmark of a low-information civilian, a narrative promoted by arch-propagandists like Peter Pomerantsev and Anne Applebaum.
As many other comments have said, cui bono?
They are known for actions that negatively affect them and everyone around. That's kinda their whole thing.
Even in a relatively intelligent crowd like this forum, people are gullible and easily guided to hate the Other: red ("communists", Russia, China); brown (immigrants, Muslims, Iran); or green ("far left", environmental and civil rights activists). They hate us for our freedoms!
Be afraid, people, and keep funnelling billions of your tax money into the pockets of the rich who profit from literal conspiracy, mass murder and war crimes. No wonder we have endless conflict and fascism on the rise around the world. There's so much money to be made from war and hate, defrauding the public for generations.
How can we not see it, it's the same playbook again and again. One day we will have to face the true evil, the traitors of humanity, the enemy within.
Fear not! I’m sure the European Commission will promptly ban jumpstart cable ownership without a license.
From what I read, the similarity ends in “both involved trains”. This chain of attacks seems to have used short metal pipes (“Footage published by Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Tuesday showed police carrying what appeared to be metal pipes - about 1.5 metres (5ft) long”) to short a connection, making safety systems signal “there’s a train there”, stopping trains further up the track.
The France incident involved a piece of rails heavy enough to cause derailment (“The rail fragment was estimated to weigh between 250 and 300 kilograms”)
My money is on this being a rogue farmers protest.
Of course more similarity would be a stronger signal, but we shouldn't miss the forest (rail sabotage) for the trees (shorted circuit).
Forcing delays on European trains in special days when a huge number of travelers are expected is the oldest trick in the book. It has been exploited for years and years.
I'm French and I heard nothing of the sort, what makes you think of that?
About rogue farmers protest in France... well, exactly the same problem. They are always agitated by far right agents in special moments, and when people scratch a little, this people always are seen taking selfies and money from people associated with Putin. Farmers still didn't understood that are being used every single time, often again their own interests. See the Yellow Jackets movement for example.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/pair-charged-interferin... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5zw56lnx3o [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-leaning-towards-...
- Extinction Rebellion and other environmental groups always claim the action pretty quickly and openly in NL.
- If you look at the locations of sabotage, it’s all close to the ‘farmer heartland’. Most left-wing and environmental groups would do it in the randstad.
Most likely it’s farmers. They announced very heavy protests today and also burnt hay near highways to create smoke clouds. Possibly nudged by Russian operatives because the like to sow dissent.
But we’ll see.
No, I'm pretty sure this would have been a farmer splinter group. The last time they protested with tractors on the motorways it caused a deadly accident, they won't be getting away with that anymore. So they'll be looking for new ways to protest.
Also, today was Prinsjesdag, similar to the state of the Union in the US. It was a day to expect local protests. Nobody in the Netherlands thinks Russia is behind this.
It's important to note that AFAIK nothing in this direction has been proven. After the attack, some people claiming to be part of Vulkangruppe claimed they did the attack, but it's all just claims.
Also important to note: the Vulkangruppe's letter mentions JD Vance, but spells the name "Vans" - almost like the authors usually write/read about him in Cyrillic texts.
exactly today, a major farmer demonstration was already planned. They way they usually go ahead in the Netherlands is drive with their tractors over the highways towards The Hague, where our government is based. Obviously this leads to massive traffic jams.
A simultaneous disruption of the Dutch railways would add some extra effect to the expected traffic chaos.
44 person injured and a young woman between life and death. Yet when the perpetrators are caught, we'll have journalists and judges relaying the official tune of the EU: "criminals are victims too".
They'll get a slap on the wrist and be able to ruin society again in no time.
When shall the left accept that people putting 300 kilograms of rails to try to kill people has only one solution: shackles and a heavy ball?
Where do you draw the line between "we're all beautiful butterflies" and "some psychos need to be scruffed by the neck and bowed into lifetime submission"?
How many deaths?
It’s near impossible to cause two trains to run into each other (unless you are physically operating one of them), but it is really easy to cause all trains in an area to stop because a cross check or a bit has flipped. In this case, they literally flipped a bit by short circuiting the track circuit.
If done at scale, it is still possible to bypass and run trains safely the old fashioned way. It is less safe, but would probably be the decision if this was happening at multiple locations everyday.
The only way the risk to end in jail by reckless homicide would worth the effort, is that they would had been paid for this work.
And 2) we have a much simpler explanation: Infiltrated leaders organized to direct the masses as sheep.
We had seen this in the Capitol assault (Do you remember the girl trying to sell that laptop stolen in the Capitol to Russian spies?), and in Ceuta (Moroccan police videotaped leading the immigrants), and in Barcelona ("professional rioters" experts on urban warfare coming from Germany for no reason), and every single time this things happen.
And, again, this acts require precise training, skills and moves that normal people never even achieve, but can be found in spades at FSB (or CIA, or Mossad). This farmers seem the only people in the planet so lucky as to arrange everything right at the first attempt. Every tiny detail. Zero mistakes. They should be hired to make software.
I will keep the simpler explanation.
Any random farmer (which is a convenient label for people working in a specific field, and says nothing else of those people's abilities) can plan such sabotages with LLM help.
Furthermore, they do not need to be done by the average farmer; As with any populace, there's variance between individuals.
Do that to the US Navy and you will find yourself the target of a flare too.
> Even the U.S. Navy ships fire warning flares at other vessels when they approach close.
Yes. A helicopter is not a vessel. These kind of monitoring exercises are common amongst both Russians and Americans when operating near each other or their territorial waters.
Russians frequently overfly American and NATO craft. Russia has also been committing acts of sabotage around the world, but more specifically has been cutting undersea communication cables, so they are absolutely worthy of scrutiny.
The Russian Ambassador to Denmark stated that Russia would “thoroughly investigate all the circumstances of the incident”. That's not exactly a hardline statement indicating Russia knows it was in the right.
Denmark shares operational intelligence, reconnaissance data, and positional tracking regarding Russian naval assets. It would be ridiculous stupidity to permit a NATO nation aircraft that explicitly admitted it was performing reconnaissance on your military vessel to come close and obtain target data sent to Ukraine to sink your ship. Esp after it ignored radio warnings.
> Russia has also been committing acts of sabotage around the world, but more specifically has been cutting undersea communication cables
Do note that the later investigations did not establish Russian responsibility and investigators found no evidence of Russian sabotage. Refer to WSJ & Reuters articles on this. Can you point me to a specific incident in which Russian sabotage was established ?
EDIT: I can't find an example for aircraft though - possibly because the US Navy just shoots down aircraft who come close. :). Famous example: Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655, killing all 290 people aboard.
If you add the qualifier of a "neutral" nation, then please note that Denmark is not neutral. Denmark provides extensive, long-term military support, target-intelligence, operative training, weapon supply along with financial support to Ukraine.
Permitting a Danish aircraft that explicitly says it is performing reconnaissance on the Russian ship to come close means that Ukraine will immediately get full target data to sink the ship later.
No, the USN generally does not shoot flares directly at people, but just near them, because i expect them to be professionals and aware of the damage a flare can make when it hits a helicopter and sets it alight...
> he US Navy just shoots down aircraft who come close. :). Famous example: Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655, kill
Ok now im sure that you are a russian troll. You have one (1) example from decades ago. Russia/Iran downed 3 in the last decade alone and a lot more during the cold war...
And the US took responsibility and made improvements to make sure this wouldnt happen again. Russia denied the KAL007 shootdown, Russia still hasnt taken responsibility for MH17 and Iran used bulldozers to bury the evidence of Ukraine Itl Air 752 in 2020 and would have never taken responsibility if it wouldnt have been filmed by hundreds of people...
And Arming Ukraine IS the neutral position because good people support victims of aggression.
Get some critical media literacy and stop listening to NAFO trolls.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-news-police-raid-vehicle-of-su...
German authorities believe a militant climate activist was behind a series of recent sabotage attacks on the country's power grid and are hunting for a 48-year-old suspect.
This suspect is now under arrest as also can be read in the following report by The Local (DE):
https://www.thelocal.de/20260908/german-police-arrest-suspec...
* German police on Tuesday arrested a suspected militant climate activist over a spate of sabotage attacks on the power grid that had apparently aimed to disrupt power from coal-fired plants.
The man, partially named in German media as Daniel V., 48, had spent days on the run since the first attacks last Tuesday in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) states.
Police in the city of Cologne said Tuesday that officers had "apprehended the wanted 48-year-old suspect near the Weisweiler power plant" in NRW state.
"The man was carrying additional explosive devices at the time of his arrest but offered no resistance," they said in a statement.*
Now that I showed these sources - none of them exactly 'Russian-friendly' as you might know, otherwise read a bit more of their reporting on similar subjects - will you agree that this specific case was not directly related to Russia? That these 'climate extremists' do not need to be directed by the FSB or GRU to attack their own country's infrastructure because they have somehow convinced themselves that their 'climate activism' is a good cause?
After you agreed to this can you also agree to the fact that blindly claiming 'Russia Russia Russia' does nobody a favour, least of all those who want to be able to show where Russia is actually responsible for similar attacks? This is quite important because in the end it is not infeasible that Russia and its Soviet Union predecessor are actually responsible for these anti-Western activities through the decades of support - financial, ideological and sometimes practical - they lent to all manners of activism in the west with the goal of undermining western society.
It’s hard to prove these things of course but you have to ask yourself who benefits most from these kind of attacks and sabotage? Who benefits from a weakened and infighting Europe?
Hybrid warfare is by definition hard to attribute
"There is no proof at this stage to link the flying bomb directly to Russia, which denies any role. But as well as the means and the motive, Moscow does have form. The BBC has seen details of the investigation into a plot in 2024 in which Russian-linked proxies in Poland and Lithuania not only handled drones and explosives but also delivered them to Germany."
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025/01/research-e...
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/sabotage-deutschland-bka...
https://nos.nl/liveblog/2631038-nog-steeds-nieuwe-sabotageac... (Use google translate to read)
(I'd assume the BBC reporter to be aware that Prinsjesdag is today, and that they'd mention that fact in this article, but apparently not.)
The day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands addresses a joint session of the States-General of the Netherlands (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) to give the Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede), similar to the annual State of the Union in the United States or the British State Opening of Parliament. This speech sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session.
Russia may have heard about that annual event as well, of course.
If this is XR, would be very dumb and against their message.
Is "troonrede" essentially just the Dutch pronunciation of "Throne read"?
And troon == throne, obviously.
I think it would be of a stretch to actually claim that this specific incident caused loss of life, but it’s possible to see how such wide sabotage, especially conducted over a number of days, could result in compromised emergency services and result in loss of life.
Protests also tend to be more effective if the protesters involved actually make some clear demands about what they want. Simply breaking shit isn’t much of a protest.
If the garbage men started dumping the contents of garbage bags in public places I bet they will not be given a free pass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Birmingham_b...
Meanwhile, trash piles up quickly: https://nltimes.nl/2023/02/07/utrecht-garbage-strike-comes-e...
There have been a number of attacks in Europe of the form "deranged person drives vehicle into crowd". I'm sure the police wouldn't sit back and shrug if that was done with a tractor. The vehicle doesn't have magic properties, the driver has police protection.
And how is the "vehicle driven into crowd" even relevant here? Nobody's using these tractors to kill (intentionally), but they're just many and hard to stop.
I mean, they wouldn't have to, they just need to stop cleaning it up. Such an action likely will be given a free pass, anything other than that is strikebreaking which is either illegal or heavily discouraged depending on jurisdiction.
This is russian sabotage + russian trolls now trying to make it look like it's something else
You are right in the sense that there is likely an underlying meddling causing these farmers to act this way. It does not excuse their actions.
Last that I checked, Dutch farmers are in an existential struggle with the government. I wonder how Russia disinforms them.
One has to be an idiot to assume otherwise at this point
> Geray spent several months creating a fictional online persona. Using the alias Katya, she presented herself as a pro-Russian influencer, trying to build a following organically and establish contacts on social media.
> “Katya” posted videos of herself posing in a striped Russian sailor shirt, professing her admiration for Putin, and walking around the Bundestag with a Russian flag. Before long, agents contacted her and offered her unspecified assignments and sent her payment in Bitcoin.
> Geray and other RTL journalists were able to observe the recruitment process firsthand. New agents were initially given simple tasks — taking a photo, picking up a package, or obtaining a SIM card. They were later drawn into more serious operations, though these “disposable agents” knew only their own roles and did not understand the overall plan.
> Jović invited “Katya” to meet. During their meeting, he spoke about his pro-Russian activities and hinted at the involvement of Russian intelligence agencies. Asked directly whether intelligence agencies in Moscow were directing his social media activity, he said, “Nobody knows. Well, I don’t know — in theory. In practice, I do know.” Later, when Geray approached him under her real name as a reporter, he denied taking part in a pro-Russian campaign.
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2026/09/14/an-undercover-german...
Europe is not yet at war with Russia but it will be in time.
We've been dependent on the US for this but this was also by the US' own design. They didn't want many countries to have nukes. So the whole 'Europe is not doing its bit' is not really justified.
We don't need more tanks and soldiers because if we go at Russia like Ukraine does, so many people will die that it doesn't matter who wins. We just need to be able to destroy Russia so thoroughly that they won't think about attacking us, just like they don't attack the US. Mutually assured destruction has kept the world safe for almost a century but now with the US no longer committed to NATO we just need to build our own.
Europe already has a nuclear deterrent.
And Europa has some deterrent but nothing compared to the Russian one. We have a major 'missile gap' right now.
This is not true. UK and FR have them (probably not enough though). UK/FR definitely wouldn't retaliate if Berlin or Warsaw were to be hit by a RU nuke.
On the Russian side however they are carrying out brazen attacks in EU member states and crossing air and maritime boundaries.
Whether the EU should respond in kind is a whole other question.
Yet again.
We should assume by default now that every single act of sabotage is linked to Russia, before any investigation even. Then if evidence points elsewhere, we can update the suspect for that single event.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/germany-leipzig-airport-explosive...
Nobody wakes up some day saying I know exactly how to stop a train without being caught. Or: I know exactly were to cut to enter in this restricted area that normal people never had heard about it just to steal a few copper cable here and there (or worse, fiber optic cable)
Random actions are truly random. This acts aren't random. They need instead planning, precise knowledge that is not available to most people, and direction to coordinate them in several locations at the same time
Each time Russia is suffering troubles in the war, this events happen; and they happen in clusters. A few models are recycled again and again and adapted to each country. Sabotage to railways and wildfires "caused by climate change" are two of the most popular. Another is sending people to protest and cause trouble in the streets with any excuse, supported by campaigns of disinformation online from some IP in Russian soil. Another was Russia caught cutting marine internet cables. We even may suspect that the lone wolf driving over people or backstabbing people in the streets is another.
Just last week, Ukraine killed two more Russian generals and a colonel. Losing 13 major generals, admirals and lieutenants and more than 42 colonels [1] is not a minor issue in any war. Ukraine also hit again a big refinery to the point of Trump asking Zelensky "stop doing that to refineries". "You are making my friend cry" is implicit. Ukraine is also slowly pushing back Russians in some front lines
Putin can keep doing chest thumping and faking strength in public, but the facts point to that Russia is not doing as well in the war as he would wish.
You may have noticed the huge increase in Russian provocations to NATO lately. Putin risk to be assassinated by his own generals increases with each general killed. He needs to redirect the angry towards an external target, and is desperate for a NATO move that would justify him (legally and in the eyes of Russians people) to start a major mobilization soon after the Russian elections that start in two days.
So expect more events like those in Europe in the next days, and maybe some dumb move of Trump to destroy another good thing in US, with the clock ticking before he turns into a burnt out asset.
-----------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_generals_kille...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Leipzig_Airport_drone_att...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Elisa_data_cable_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_railway_sabotage_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Undersea_Cable_System...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Estlink_2_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_sabotage_operations_in...
No idea when it would start but there are only two outcomes I can see:
* Russia doesn't use nukes and get flattened. They don't have the troops, material or finances to deploy on even half the frontline.
* Russia use nukes and get flattened (and so does a chunk of EU). French doctrine when it come to nuclear warfare is quite agressive. Not idea how london would react, but major russian cities and/or ressource hubs would see retalations on kind.
I don't know how much support or opposition from the population such actions would have, but people are getting fed up with external threat burning so much of our governments time and attention on external issues (brexit, babysitting trump, russian threat) that internal issues get further pushed to the future.
I would add 'Western-' to that. The Eastern Europeans are keenly aware, have been for years.
- Dutch person.
They have a whole political doctrine about it. It's crazy identity politics.
Part of Putin's war on Ukraine is that he doesn't want them to think of themselves as European either (although they obviously are).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia#Russian_geopolitical_i...
Russians been messing with your elections, blowing up factories, inducing illegal immigration, destroying infrastructure and openly threatening to turn Europe into a radioactive dust. Meanwhile people: "hopefully investigators find out".
Seriously, this is ridiculous
We’re under constant attacks from Russia… drones, sabotage, cyberattacks, propaganda campaigns derailing our elections…
I’m sick of it.
And if this is supposed to be war, then by European standards it is incredibly mild.
Edit: some context as I'm looking like a Russian shill now, which I understand. Today is the day that the budget gets announced, and the farmer terrorist organization (farmer defence force) have announced actions - and have disrupted highways by setting bales of hay on fire, and all the disruptions happened where farmer concentrations are high.
Regardless, the situation is dire, and probably either the tankies or terror farmers are being helped by Russian destabilizing forces, it's too early to call this disruption an action from the FSB.
I don't know enough about dutch politics but in my country if the blue collar anti-regulation people wanted to annoy the white collar pro-regulation people without annoying other blue collar people stopping the trains would accomplish that pretty handily.
>and definitely not in a way that could result in deaths.
They laid pipes and jumper cables across the tracks causing the signals to be red.
We in NL need to be more concerned about domestic terrorism than the Russians at the moment. Though I'm sure Russian money and bots are involved in some way.
Some of them already dumped asbestos on highways, which to me is beyond what any reasonable person would do.
Russia started with the hybrid war psyops shit, they don't get to complain about false accusations.
For context: it's "Prinsjesdag" in the Netherlands which is when the budget is announced, and there are major changes to agriculture subsidies.
Could it be Russia? Obviously. But in my opinion the odds are less than a coin flip.
Why derail trains though, especially in regards to the latter? Given it's one of the most environmental ways for transportation. Besides, groups like that tend to want to take responsibility, the whole point is to get attention to their groups.
This case is more plausible than that one was, but not by much. How could the benefit from derailing a few trains possibly justify the risk of A) more sanctions, and B) triggering NATO's Article V? The benefit of these operations is what, slowing trains down by one day? The 2022 sanctions on Russia have lowered their GDP by 6% by some estimates, which is the equivalent of turning the entire Russian economy off for three weeks of the year, every year. The notion that Russia would risk war and/or crippling sanctions to mildly inconvenience a tiny share of rail customers in The Netherlands is simply absurd. Putin makes plenty of mistakes, but he remains a shrewd adversary, and he is certainly not stupid.
Things are going badly for Russia. The war has lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany and Ukraine is actually taking back territory. Over half a million Russians are dead and probably a million wounded. The economy is imploding due to the enormous expenditures (30% or more of GDP is spent on the war). Just like in WWI Russia is running out of men to continue the fight. It either has to give up or escalate.
I believe Zelensky made a big mistake insulting Putin when things were going stellar at the front a couple months ago. By making it personal Putin is doubling down until he defeats Ukraine or Russia is destroyed in a war with NATO.
I was like hmmmm what timeline am I in now?
Some local context: Today is "prinsjesdag" when the budget is announced. Protests are common, particularly when sensitive decisions are made. There are multiple organized protest movements in the country that have used physical force in the past and some of them had announced protests for today.
Could it be Russia? Yes. But local protests seem significantly more likely. Moreover, if I were Putin I wouldn't expose my foreign agents this physically. I would use them in much more insidious ways such as actually starting or supporting these protest movements. In a similar vein: Could any shooting in the US be caused by foreign agents? Maybe. But usually there is a much simpler explanation; guns and bitterness.
It makes more sense that this is a continent wide action taken by Russia, considering the similar event in France just a few days ago.
You are jumping to the assumption that foreign agents wouldn't be exposed, but any willing idiot can be bought to conduct such activity. Recent research in Denmark showed that sabotage comes, most likely, from locals, persuaded by foreign actors.
So two things could be true at once. A local 'protestor', disengaged through some issue (whether climate, farming or anything else), persuaded to join some 'resistance' by anyone.
I don't expect this to be supported by local protesting groups, like FDF or XR, either. Way too risky, media-wise.
https://www.rtvslo.si/crna-kronika/na-zelezniski-progi-iz-ce...
similar thing happened next to a minority area where they put railroad ties (the big wooden things, usually supporting the tracks) on the tracks themselves, and well, that even got politicized for the location reasons.
It seems as if one ambiguates the other.
Interestingly this mechanism contributed a lot to Brexit in my opinion, whenever there was legislation the politicians wanted to enact but knew would be unpopular with the voters they'd blame the EU and wring their hands saying there was nothing to be done, while in the background gold-plating the legislation far beyond what the EU was even asking for. This also made it easy for populists to point to many absurd examples of the EU being comically bureaucratic, when a lot of the more nonsensical ones were literally domestic additions. When the referendum happened, the consequences were obvious to everyone.
While no Brexiteer myself, I personally would want to see the European Parliament get a lot more powers and influence before I threw my wholehearted support behind rejoining. Half the problem with the EU is that it's seen as not particularly democratic as a place for legislation to originate, and giving the elected organ more power (including the power to propose legislation in its own right, and dismiss legislation proposed by the Commission with much more prejudice) would go a long way to addressing that I think. The Parliament needs to be more, well, parliamentary in how it functions.
https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-wedding-b...
Solovyov propaganda is pure nuclear revenge fantasy: https://youtu.be/dA4RP3uID6Q?is=ApmFQtgZvY7mWajP
It’s so much more likely to be the farmers, but it's easier to blame Putin and do nothing about it than it is to stop ruining the farmers and risk angering the cosmopolitan politicians whose votes in the parliament you need.
I really have no clue what this is supposed to refer to. LLMs with arms and legs, armed with pipes?
Humans are useful, easily manipulated operatives in the medium AIs are conversant in and we already have evidence of agents doing exactly this in arguing for PR requests (likely with prompting by an operator but still).
Anyway, I am surprised the BBC blogger didn't add north koreans and some linked it to porn on the internet.
Basically, the current system works by injecting a small current signal on one rail and trying to sense it on the other rail. A train's axle shorts the rails together, so sensing it means a train is present. Or, in this instance of sabotage, a jumper wire.
ERTMS L2, which is being installed over the next decade or two, primarily uses axle counters and train position reporting, so a jumper won't do a thing. You can still fool an axle counter, but that's rather easy to fix: just drive a known-good train over the section.
What one can do is provide accurate information on the one hand, and maybe flag the topic on the other.
Netherlands is one of the countries that are furthest away from Russia!
And then, there are countries that take much more active stance against Russia - Germany for example. Should Russia send a message it will probably be to the countries that stir shit.