Russia, a Chinese cargo ship and the sabotage of subsea cables in the Baltic Sea

The Strategist ^ | October 31, 2023 | Mercedes Page

[Timber Rattler]

Earlier this month, as the world’s attention was focused on the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza, it was easy to miss the news that two subsea telecommunications cables and a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea had been damaged.

On the night of 7 October, the 77-kilometre Balticconnector gas pipeline and a separate but close-by subsea telecommunications cable stretching between Finland and Estonia were damaged in the Gulf of Finland. A week later, it emerged that, on the same night, another subsea telecommunications cable—connecting Estonia and Sweden—had also been damaged.

(snip)

This case, however, appears to have been no accident.

Finland, Estonia and Sweden soon announced that the gas pipeline and cables had likely been deliberately damaged and were being investigated as related incidents.

At the centre of the investigation was a Russian state-owned nuclear-powered cargo ship, the Sevmorput. Russia has long posed a threat to vital subsea cables in the region, particularly since the start of the Ukraine war.

(snip)

However, another vessel was also reported to be under investigation—a Hong Kong–registered cargo ship, the NewNew Polar Bear, that had been travelling with the Russian vessel.

Open-source tracking showed that both the Russian and Chinese vessels had been in the exact location at the exact time when each of three lines—the two subsea telecoms cables and the gas pipeline—was damaged.

This is where the mystery starts to get stranger.

[Timber Rattler]

So the Muscovites and ChiComs have teamed up to cut communications cables and gas pipelines in the Baltic?

Might be time to either capture or sink those vessels.

[JonPreston]

In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”

Since the start of the invasion, Ukraine has refused to release official counts of dead and wounded. But according to U.S. and European estimates, the toll has long surpassed 100,000 on each side of the war. It has eroded the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces so badly that draft offices have been forced to call up ever older personnel, raising the average age of a soldier in Ukraine to around 43 years.

Now recruitment is way down. As conscription efforts have intensified around the country, stories are spreading on social media of draft officers pulling men off trains and buses and sending them to the front. Those with means sometimes bribe their way out of service, often by paying for a medical exemption. Such episodes of corruption within the recruitment system became so widespread by the end of the summer that on Aug. 11 Zelensky fired the heads of the draft offices in every region of the country.

‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

TIME
10/30/23
Simon Shuster

[Timber Rattler]

Reports of Putin’s death might not be greatly exaggerated

Is Russian President Vladimir Putin dead? According to a mysterious Russian Telegram channel called “General SVR” and Valery Solovey, a prominent Russian political analyst, the answer is yes. In fact, the Russian president supposedly breathed his last on Thursday, Oct. 26. The Putin we see now is thus actually his double, who, Solovey claims, has been filling in for the sickly real Putin for several months.

Few Russian or Western analysts believe General SVR and Solovey (who some say are one and the same person). After all, they have no concrete evidence supporting their sensational claims. They do provide remarkably detailed accounts of Putin’s supposed death that enhance their verisimilitude, but imaginative crackpots and secret police provocateurs would be expected to do the same.

The problem is that Solovey strikes one as anything but a crackpot or a dupe of the Federal Security Service. He has a biting sense of humor, speaks well, argues logically and generally comes across as the kind of professor every student would want. Other than his claims regarding Putin’s death and the supposed exile of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the deceased head of the mercenary Wagner Group, to an island off the coast of Venezuela, his analyses of Russia’s internal politics are invariably smart and incisive.

[JonPreston]

Everything you have said about Zelensky and Putin has been either wrong or the product of rank propaganda. Putin is alive and Zelensky is a thief who destroyed his country and an entire generation of young men. This is all coming to light, and I’ll be here every day to remind you of what you and others have helped to do.

[Timber Rattler]

And I’ll be here to remind you how evil and vicious the Muscovites are in general, and Putin is (or was) in particular.

[SoConPubbie]

More CIA Propaganda!

[kabar]

Payback for the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. Actions have consequences. This is how wars escalate and take on a momentum of its own. These are dangerous times.

[canuck_conservative]

more proof that Russia continues to be a genuine menace to every country in Europe

we were certainly right about that, Comrade!

[bert]

I would suggest that retaliation be made against Russia, serious retaliation. Giving massive support to Ukraine outweighs going afteer the vessels

[FLT-bird]

Yeah I imagine the Russians would say the same about their pipeline being blown up.

[silverleaf]

Already followon reports the damage was caused by a ship dragging anchor ( prob the Chinese ship);because the telecomm engineer or contractor failed to sufficiently overlay the line with material to prevent this.

Which is why except for here…the story disappeared as did the fierce barking of the Baltics demanding WAR.

I’m sure snakeman will find it and post updates.

[silverleaf]

But just in case
Pro ukr source

Visegrád 24
@visegrad24

Oct 24
“The Chinese ship Newnew Polar Bear has been seen in the Port of Arkhangelsk with its anchor missing.

Finnish investigators suspects it lost the anchor by dragging it into the Balticconnector, causing damages to the Finnish-Estonian gas pipeline that will take 6 months to repair”

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1716851463765262739

“In October 2023, Newnew Polar Bear became one of the ships suspected by Finnish police of possible involvement in damage to the Balticconnector natural gas pipeline and telecommunication cables that occurred in the Gulf of Finland on 7 October. Another ship was the Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship Sevmorput. Both ships are also suspected of possible involvement in damage to EE-S1, a submarine communications cable between Sweden and Estonia.

After sailing out of the Baltic Sea, Newnew Polar Bear was photographed arriving in the port of Arkhangelsk with the port side anchor seemingly missing on 22 October. On 24 October, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation announced that they had retrieved an anchor embedded in the seabed next to the damaged pipeline in co-operation with the Finnish Navy and Finnish Border Guard, and that Newnew Polar Bear was the prime suspect for the incident.“

“Captain Mikko Heikkilä, who believes that the anchor theory may be true, also pointed to the pictures. If the anchor had fallen accidentally and hit the gas pipe, it could have seriously damaged the pipe. On the other hand, if the intention was to damage the pipe deliberately, it would have taken time to do so.”

“At the level of speculation, I would say that if I were to do it on purpose, I would first stop the ship and then drop the anchor. It would take time, but if you do this rashly there are many risks involved,” Heikkilä said.

The daily Helsingin Sanomat wrote on Monday that the Newnew Polar Bear came to a halt shortly before crossing the underwater gas pipeline.

According to the publication, the ship stopped 1.4 nautical miles, or about 2.6 kilometers, from the gas pipeline running along the seabed, and subsequently crossed the pipeline about eight minutes after stopping, at 1:20 a.m. At the same time, the Norwegian research institute NORSAR recorded seismological changes near the pipeline.

One theory about the damage to the gas pipe is that the anchor may have dragged and eventually damaged the pipe. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) reported that they found a heavy object in the sea. Theoretically, this object could be an anchor“
https://twitter.com/pmsyyz/status/1717164538221498470

[Does so]

“more proof that Russia continues to be a genuine menace to every country in Europe”.

Especially the smaller countries...

[JohnBovenmyer]

>Russian state-owned nuclear-powered cargo ship, the Sevmorput

We don’t want THAT ship going down, at least not unless circumstances are precisely controlled. If, instead, the ChiCom ship went down the risks would only involve politics, not physics.

[dforest]

The Zeepers always lie and obfuscate because they are neocons itching for all out war funded by the American taxpayer.

They want another US stream of money to redistribute to the crooks in Ukraine and back to the RATs and neocon RINOs in DC.

The truth doesn’t matter. Only the hogwash propaganda they post matters.

[BobL]

Tisk. Tisk. Hopefully the Neocons learn a lesson from this - which is that Russia also has friends, and in this case, one of their newest friends is due, directly, to the Neocon War in Ukraine - and that friend is China.

[ansel12]

Finland, Sweden, and Estonia suffered attacks on their pipelines and communication cables and the evidence strongly points to Communist China and/or Russia.

The pro-Red China/Russia internet support people have responded aggressively on this thread.

[canuck_conservative]

would that be the same Russia, a country so primitive and backwards that arriving Jews are hunted down by fanatical lynch-mobs at the airport?

THAT Russia??

[ro_dreaming]

Russian state-owned nuclear-powered cargo ship

Are there a lot of nuclear powered cargo ships? That means that thing will run 20 years without needed refueling, right?

Is that where all their nuclear power sailors go, since they don’t have a CVN? What about their subs, do they have any nuclear powered subs anymore, or are they all DE’s?

[BobL]

...or that Canada that CELEBRATES WORLD WAR 2 NAZIS.

That Canada?