Posted on 06/09/2024 2:30:26 PM PDT by Chad C. Mulligan
We’re going to be hearing a lot about sabotage in the coming months. Specifically, Russian acts of sabotage against the West. All part of Russia’s hybrid war, because remember: Even if we don’t think we are at war with Russia, Russia is at war with us.
Several Western intelligence agencies have publicized recently that Russia is suspected of carrying out a number of acts of sabotage and warned that these will continue.
Poland has arrested a dozen individuals for their connections to acts of sabotage in that country on behalf of Russian security services. The acts included beatings, arson, and attempted arson.
As I wrote here, Germany recently arrested two individuals who were scouting sites for sabotage, including US military facilities, on behalf of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. Russia is being blamed for jamming GPS signals of civilian airliners and of targeting train signaling systems in Europe. Russia reminds us (again!) they are at war with us
The UK charged a group for carrying out an arson attack on behalf of the GRU on a depot that housed supplies for Ukraine. That company’s Spanish facility was also attacked. One of the individuals arrested in Poland was preparing to pass information on Rzeszow airport in Poland to the GRU. That airport is a main hub for supplying weapons to Ukraine.
A fire at an IKEA store in Lithuania is being investigated for possibly being arson on behalf of Russia, as is a major fire at a shopping mall in Warsaw, Poland. Norway and Finland are concerned, too. Norway’s police warned of acts of sabotage against that country’s arm deliveries to Ukraine, as well as against its oil and gas and power facilities. Finland has been warning of Russian attacks with the aim of weakening Western support for Ukraine.
Increasingly, Russia is relying on individuals with criminal ties to carry out these acts, as many Russian intelligence officers have been kicked out of Europe or arrested. It is organized crime, on behalf of a mafia state.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said such operations show Russia is waging a “shadow war” against the West.
Shadow War, Shadow Fleet
The shadow war doesn’t end with sabotage. Also this week, under cover of night, Russia moved a number of buoys marking the Estonia-Russia border in the Narva River. Some of the buoys that were removed had marked areas Russia has disputed in the past.
Separately, Russia released a draft report to unilaterally change its maritime border in the Baltic Sea. The draft was later deleted after an uproar from the West. It is a typical tactic: Announce your plan, then claim it was a bureaucratic mistake if anyone complains.
"Another Russian hybrid operation is underway, this time attempting to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about their intentions in the Baltic Sea," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said this week. "This is an obvious escalation against NATO and the EU, and must be met with an appropriately firm response."
The head of Sweden’s armed forces also highlighted the danger coming from Russia with these moves. "Putin's goal is to gain control of the Baltic Sea," he told Germany's RND website. "The Baltic Sea must not become Putin's playground where he can strike fear into Nato members."
All eyes are on the Swedish island of Gotland. If Russia were to gain control of this island in the Baltic Sea, it would be a major strategic win for them. Russia’s shadow fleet—vessels that operate outside the official maritime sector and have obscure ownership and non-existent insurance—has been increasingly surveilling the area around Gotland. Many of these vessels are equipped with specialized communications equipment—that is, spy equipment—allowing the vessels to intercept communications (signals intelligence).
It’s likely these vessels are collecting intelligence to support any sabotage operations in the area, be it on undersea cables or energy infrastructure. Plenty of questions still remain about the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines. Was that an act of Russian sabotage?
But what does it all mean?
All this maneuvering points to Moscow setting the stage for its next act: a deeper push into the Baltics, with the anticipation that the West will not respond, a fear I wrote about after my visit to Estonia.
Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper also recently went to Estonia. It’s worth watching his entire segment, which is both informative and funny, but he, too, seemed to have an epiphany about just how serious this issue is for those directly in Putin’s crosshairs. (Here is the link to the full video. Below is a short version.)
Again, it’s worth watching the full video (which includes an interview with George Kline Preston IV, whom I wrote about here).
Let’s All Repeat It Together: Even if we don’t think we are at war with Russia, Russia is at war with us.
If a bully keeps punching you, even if you refuse to punch back, you are still in a fight involving the bully. Eventually, Russian sabotage is going to kill Europeans and/or Americans. Maybe it is time to punch back.
Ukie-Bots entering Phase II of the Ukrainian Payroll Protection Plan (UPPP).
When it’s 12 o’clock,
we climb the stair.
We never knock,
cause there’s nobody there.
Just me and my shadow....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-4uKgXRnpI
Probably not shown at BLM sitdown protests. And not the news scenes of Sammy Davis Jr. hugging Richard Nixon.
Good Lord, the old Reichstag play again.
Older than the old burning bag of dog hsit on the front porch.
"When will they ever learn?"
yeah....a fire breaks out at IKEA and “it’s the Russians!”
Reports here and there from “peeking at military bases in EU” to fires at IKEA, to a whole island being taken over....... oh my.
Yet everything we hear from the UKR contingent is Russia is losing badly, their Navy has been sunk and its soldiers dying by the hundreds of thousands....
You really are worked up Chad. What did you expect with NATO marching eastward right up to Russia’s border, trying to annex the Ukraine which is an integral part of Russia, and allowing the Ukraine to lob American and European missiles and drones in Russia. I am surprised that they have not responded in a far more forceful way. Yet the globohomo Biden Regime keeps digging a deeper hole.
As usual this will all just be a response to the US leading the way in escalating with shadow war actions. The Nordstream sabotage will remain the ultimate example in this conflict of “shadow war” actions.
ping
This Russian stealth program of assassinations and sabotage and cyberwar goes back long before the Nord Stream pipeline bombing. Even before the first Russian invasion of Ukraine. Well documented in Keir Giles' book "Russia's War on Everybody".
"Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism against neoliberal globalist Western hegemony, such as, for instance, provoke “Afro-American racists” to create severe backlash against the rotten political state of affairs in the current present day system of the United States and Canada. Russia should “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics”. Aleksandr Dugin - "Putin's Brain".
You have that right. It is as if the CIA doesn’t go around killing people - destroying things.
What goes around, comes around.
I’m a lot more afraid of the people in DC than I am the Russians.
is that a front hole?
ping
Chad would put you in jail if he could for disagreeing with his neo-con, pro-Biden love affair for the pUkraine.
I believe the article is good. It understands the situation.
I have taken up exercise again and I am doing it together with my son. It helps in more than one way. I myself am too old to be called within the first force because of my age, but I’ll get myself in shape again so I can volunteer.
Russians aren’t going to win this thing.
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