Posted on 12/26/2024 11:52:23 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The country’s prime minister said the incident, the latest in a series of disruptions to undersea infrastructure, underscored the danger of a so-called Russian shadow fleet.
The Finnish police on Thursday boarded an oil tanker that the authorities said they suspected was involved in damaging vital undersea cables. They suggested the tanker was part of a shadow fleet used by Russia to avoid Western sanctions.
The Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia, was cut on Wednesday, Finland’s police said in a statement, the latest in a slew of disruptions to undersea infrastructure that are being investigated as acts of sabotage. The Finnish authorities said Thursday that four other cables carrying data also had been damaged.
A number of other vital undersea cables have been cut in recent months, raising fears that Russia might be waging a shadow campaign against NATO nations that have supported Ukraine in the face of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Last month, two fiber-optic cables were cut in the Baltic Sea in what Germany’s defense minister described as an act of sabotage. One cable connected Finland and Germany; the other ran between Lithuania and Sweden — all members of the NATO alliance.
Russian ships have been reported in the Baltic and North Seas near areas where critical infrastructure lies beneath the waters, and dozens of Russian tankers have begun sailing under different flags to evade sanctions.
The police in Finland called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.” In a statement on Thursday, the police said authorities had seized the Eagle S tanker, which is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. The ship was sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia to Port Said,...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How is that working out for them? Finland knows all too well, having fought 3 wars of independence from them. The first was called a civil war between the communists (Reds) and the non-communists (Whites). The Whites won.
They fought 2 more wars in the 40’s during WW2 against Russia and lost both, although they fought heroically, and lost territory both times.
They learned that, in the end, no one else was coming to save them and they settled on neutrality to appease Russia and not aggravate them. A policy that worked and would have continued to work if left alone.
Bowing to the New World Order masters, they rushed to join NATO knowing what this would cause issues with Russia. Stupidly, Sweden did the same. Now they get to reap what they sowed on themselves.
Sorry but there was a little thing called the Cuban Missile Crisis that occured in the 60s, where we did not like a hostile country to have nuclear missiles on our border. We almost went to war over it.
Hear, Hear!
Finland has been effectively NATO-adjacent since the 1990s at least, and earlier. All their guns were pointing East since maybe the 1960s.
Sweden was similar. For all the neutrality BS their forces structure, deployments and maneuvers were directed vs an “eastward” enemy. Even their logistics (ammo calibers, etc) were NATO-compatible.
Sorry, Russia, in whatever guise, is very good at making its neighbors dislike it. Often intensely. That seems an inevitable psychological characteristic of any Russian regime. It makes it natural for coalitions to form against it. It should realise this is a terrible weakness.
They learned their lesson, and bowing to the proof of Russian intentions by Putin launching the deadliest European War since WWII, Finland and Sweden asked to join the NATO alliance.
An Oil tanker is not fitted for offboard activities, nor with a cable cutting device. This was US PTB.
They should really be looking for small yachts with a crew of five. Everyone knows those are the real undersea sabotage culprits.
“She was a big player in engineering this whole mess. “
No disagreement from me.
That is such BS.
HEAR here. It is the WEF/UN/PTB against every citizen of every nation.
WE, the USA started it, by running a coup in 2014. An insurrection where the legally elected leader and his cabinet had to flee the country. WE DID THAT.... that was the First Strike
More likely KGB’s LoSharik sabotage sub. Putin blew Nordstream II to initiate a force majur to reset Russian gas contracts to higher market rates with the start of its UKR war.
When greater volume is supplied in one area another area must reduce volume to maintain prices. Contracts prevent that. Sabotage does not.
Sorry, but it started when Putin put pressure on Yanukovych to betray his electoral mandate and renege on the Ukaraine-EU agreement, and attempted to bind Ukraine to Russia through the Eurasian Economic Union. The protests were a popular reaction. The agreement had already been approved by the parliament as was support by an overwhelming majority of the population. The protests became violent after Yanukovych set his security forces upon the protesters. Popular opinion turned against him and he fled the country. The democratically elected parliament then declared that he had abandoned his office. This was not a CIA led coup. Enough with the Russian propaganda.
Western Europeans aren’t our allies. They hate the US.
Why aren’t our “wonderful” NATO Allies helping to defend our borders from the brutal invasion of illegal alien criminals?
Where were they when the Hurricanes struck the South? They didn’t donate one dime.
Our NATO “allies” receive our money and protection, yet give absolutely nothing in return.
You need to look up what the alliance is for.
Its 100% plausible Russia could be cutting NATO countries cables. CIA probably doesnt have to do squat here.
Iam concerned about both. But to say we cant focus outward because we have inward problems is using assinine logic.
We got Trump back in and they couldnt cheat enough to let the whore plausibly win. Outline whzt we all need to do before we can talk about the socialists in Russia.
Interesting assessment and could be correct. The Russians were not running the line when it was cut and seem to come out very well with price increases of their subsequent gas contracts.
But their volume dropped from 46 percent of European imports to 16 percent of European imports. Their price increases appear to have been about 20 percent each year. That does not seem to be enough to make up for the lowered volume if these official figures are accurate.
The Swedes quickly put forensic dive teams at the cut locations and gathered quite substantial evidence on what happened. They seem to know exactly how it was done - and who did it, based on what they found.
Their silence on that last part speaks volumes to me. It strongly suggests that it was a British or US team that provided the sabotage equipment with a Ukraine front operation setup to take the credit or blame.
Sweden ended its probe on the grounds that it has no jurisdiction. It said the investigation’s primary purpose was to establish whether Sweden or its citizens somehow were involved. They officially concluded that no Swedish citizens or residents were involved in any way. Swedish officials also said they handed over to Germany “material that can be used as evidence in the German investigation.”
The current story is to blame a Ukraine group for the operation. A certain Volodymyr Zhuravlov, a diving instructor living in the Polish town of Pruszków has been charged along with five other persons. German authorities are the ones requesting arrests and extraditions.
Have you ever stood beside one of those anchor chains for a large ship? Break strength can be as high as 1000 tons (includes the mount / spool, of course.) I doubt any fiber optic cable can withstand even 100 tons.
Non-malicious instances of undersea cable breaks by anchors and even fishing activity are actually not all that rare. Good article from 2016 here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-38146787
Electrical power cables are a different story. They are less likely to be snapped, but, all you have to do is damage the insulation.
I beg to differ. Inexpensive purpose built sea drones can follow any potential troublemaker.
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