The article cites Russian involvement again, followed by mentioning the Yi Peng 3 anchor-dragging accusations.
It seems unlikely that the Chinese would get involved at the behest of the Russians. Russia depends on China now and not vice versa.
We see right now what an actual Russian retaliation for ATACMS strikes looks like: Oreshnik, taking out energy infrastructure in Ukraine, etc. Certainly the visual effects of Oreshnik were greater than a cable cut that just reduces gamer latency in Finland for a couple of days.
One plausible explanation is straightforward corruption. The captain was paid to do this. Its easy to imagine him being approached when in port in Russia. And he was prepared to do it in part because of feeling secure in being Chinese flagged so there would be no repercussions.
Russian ships got away with doing the anchor drag sabotage multiple times already such as in Norway in 2021 on a remote research station
https://youtu.be/pw2lO4sxZn8
There was a NYTimes article that said Russian GRU agency has turned to recruiting petty criminals to do arson and shootings across Europe because most of their spies have been kicked out. And the main side effect is they are sloppy and easy to catch unlike professionals.
It's much easier and cheaper to support criminals and criminal organizations in western countries to sow division and destruction, instead of installing their own networks. Hell, they managed to get criminal elected in USA, for a second time. I wonder when the west stop sleeping and start doing something about it. Or is everyone waiting for real nuke strikes and fallout, like in the Hollywood movies?
There is nothing particularly new about today's modern politics. Here is a rant by George Carlin from 1988 about a previous government nearly 40 years ago:
Honestly, I'm not finding it very easy to imagine a Chinese captain speaking Russian, nor that said captain would think its perfectly normal to encounter a Chinese speaking Russian.
And what is the pitch? "Hey, how about committing a very visible crime you will get caught doing and will risk your ability to ever captain again?" Oh yes, very enticing.
Sorry, I mean I need a source that explicitly states your argument. This is just tangential to the discussion.
No, you can't make inferences and observations from the sources you've gathered. Any additional comments from you MUST be a subset of the information from the sources you've gathered.
You can't make normative statements from empirical evidence.
Do you have a degree in that field?
A college degree? In that field?
Then your arguments are invalid.
No, it doesn't matter how close those data points are correlated. Correlation does not equal causation.
Well Yi Peng 3 recently changed operating only between Chinese ports to operating only outside China and mostly to Russian ports. Current actual owner is probably some Russian oligarch.
Oreshnik does not register for the people living around the Baltic sea. We have seen big explosions in Ukraine for years now, its not going to move any discourse in northen europe by now. Not saying that the cable cut will, but it has a better chance.
Well, the "big explosions" have led Sweden and Finland to apply for Nato membership (and actually get it after various delays caused by Putin's allies) after staying neutral for almost 75 years. And everyone knows that Russia has missiles, so Oreshnik only demonstrated that they actually work (which I think no one seriously doubted either). The question is just whether Russia is willing to use these missiles (and maybe worse) against other targets too...
> Oreshnik only demonstrated that they actually work (which I think no one seriously doubted either)
Actually, many people started to seriously doubt anything that Russia says, especially concerning their military power in the light of their spectacular failures especially at the beginning of the war.
Regarding their nuclear arsenal from Soviet times, we are right to doubt in what shape it is and whether it could pose more damage to other countries or Russia itself.
As for Oreshnik, we have no idea how many copies they actually have, but at least the USA have practiced successfully intercepting hypersonic missiles already several years ago. I doubt they would export the tech to Ukraine, though.
We were told that the Iron Dome works, yet the relatively slow Iranian ballistic missiles got through in large numbers.
Now the U.S. ships a small number of THAAD missiles to Israel, presumably in the hope of testing THAAD under real world conditions.
Patriot missiles in Ukraine do not have a 100% intercept rate. What is the new miracle weapon that is supposed to intercept 18 hypersonic MIRVS in a single IRBM?
Perhaps withdrawing from the INF treaty in 2018 wasn't such a great idea. Perhaps reverting to SS20/PershingII times is not such a great idea. Back then the German Green Party owed much of its existence to protesting both. Now it is an obedient war party.
Since the U.S. wants to station IRBMs in Germany, thereby making it the primary nuclear playground again while being safe itself: Will Germany also get these anti-IRBM wonder weapons and will they actually work?
Sabotage tactics is the modus operandi of Russian foreing intelligence so it does not make much sense to talk about this being a retaliation. Much like election interference and the incitement of conflicts in other countries, these actions are integral to Russia's hybrid warfare strategy, specifically designed to destabilize nations that are economically more advanced than Russia itself.
>Certainly the visual effects of Oreshnik were greater than a cable cut that just reduces gamer latency in Finland for a couple of days.
The Russians are testing our response and response times. They do it like this by cutting cables, they sail ships close to the border, they cross into our airspace.
Remember, in the 80s a Soviet submarine ""accidentally"" ran aground in southern Sweden. (Totally not spying on us btw)
It's a Chinese-flagged ship, not a ship operating at the direction of the PRC. While one doesn't want to assign guilt too quickly, it's extremely reasonable that they just took a contract to sail a bunch of Russian around and not ask questions. Or even to rent out the whole ship to a Russian crew
I mean, this is spy stuff here. It strains reason to expect that Russia would use only clearly identified Russian government vessels for its clandestine sabotage operations.
> The article cites Russian involvement again, followed by mentioning the Yi Peng 3 anchor-dragging accusations.
> It seems unlikely that the Chinese would get involved at the behest of the Russians. Russia depends on China now and not vice versa
1. Russia still has significant autonomy and is not a "client state" yet.
The Russia-Ukraine War itself was a major blow for Chinese ambitions - much of China's naval (eg. Aircraft carriers [0]) and aerospace technology (eg. Turbofan Jet Engines [1]) exists thanks to Ukraine's defense industry in the 2000s and 2010s. Ukraine was also one of China's largest Belt and Road Initiative (BRI/OBOR) partners in Europe [7], which has all now gone to smoke.
Russia's rapprochement with NK is also worrisome for China, as China is trying to negotiate a three-way free trade agreement [2] with South Korea and Japan which collapsed as both view North Korea as an existential threat [3], and North Korea has pivoted towards Russia for military cooperation because China has also unofficially committed to North Korean denuclearization in order to unblock the China-South Korea-Japan FTA [4]
2. The crew on the ship were Russian nationals. The ship was China flagged, and realistically this was probably a Russian operation. This fiasco came at a horrible time, as European policymakers are in the process of adding additional tarriffs on China and de-coupling from China, and this fiasco only proved that point.
3. Even Russia doesn't want to become a client state of China. This is why Russia has been wooing North Korea as leverage as NK has become increasingly anti-China [5], and diversifying trade relations by leveraging India, especially because it was Russia that mediated between China and India during the 2020 Galwan Crisis which almost became a China-India War [6]
-------------
All in all, the Russia-Ukraine War was a massive failure for Chinese ambitions, and treating Russia and China as part of a single axis doesn't make sense.
Citation needed. The sources I can find (e.g. [1]) claim that the vessel "is captained by a Chinese national and includes a Russian sailor". The first part can be verified by the strong accent of the radio operator [2].
Good point. I think I am conflating this event with the Oct 2023 event, which was done by a Chinese flagged ship owned by Torgmoll [0] - the Russian operated that manages Russia-China export logistics [1]
I think it's less of a matter if Russia can get China involved in its sabotage operations and more if they can get a handful Chinese citizens involved in its sabotage operations.
It's the Nord Stream even a topic anymore? It was a shameful project from the start with the involvement of corrupted politicians like Schroeder (the guy had the balls to sue the Bundestag after all this...). It's an embarrassement for everyone and it's good it's gone.
I hope one day after Putin dies Russia becomes a free country and at that point we could consider using this pipeline - or even build more! But now it's just an infamous piece of infra nobody wants to deal with.
In Finnish news currently whenever anything bad happens, the first suspicion is a conspiracy throry about Russian involvement. The press is in sort of a war propaganda mode.
And if you mention this, you're an instant suspect of taking part in a Russian disinformation campaign.
In sweden a while ago they ran news about a "russian spy whale".
It's actually a whale with some harness, nothing attached to the harness, that has lived around norway and sweden for several years… So in no way connected to ukraine. But the title and the article just look better that way.
The closest what I can call it is whataboutism. Russia is actively trying to provoke the West in various ways. The most that West is doing is helping Ukraine to defend itself. We are not gathering poor immigrants into planes and transporting them to borders with Finland, Poland etc. instructing them to push their way to the other side. We are not sending inflammable materials via commercial airplanes. And we are not killing Russian spies in Moscow like they did with Lytvynenko.
As for Putin being upset with the West helping Ukraine: they can stop it at any moment. It's enough they stop attacking Ukraine and go home, as simple as that.
To be fair if we were the best at it, we would probably have less obvious / more easily deniable methods of getting our way.
> As for Putin being upset with the West helping Ukraine: they can stop it at any moment. It's enough they stop attacking Ukraine and go home, as simple as that.
The way I see it, staying in the war to force a treatise is Putin’s only option to preserve his regime, as well as his intention from the start, not anticipating the US prolonging the conflict.
Exactly comrade, same when a personality that opposes Putin is assassinated on Putin's birthday all non Russians start with conspiracies when the FSB clearly told us it is a coincidence. Same when critics f Putin die from falling from windows, or when people Putin named traitors get posissoned with nerve gas, tons of consp[conspiracies.
Can;t it be just a coincidence that all this people die and Putin is not a giant criminal? Russians do not like criminals, they would not worship criminals like Stalin, Putin, the Wagner guy
I know, I did not said Putin is communist, he is a criminal
but many Russians and some in Ukraine are still soviets in mentality,
my point is that Russans think that criminals are good leaders, because they are though and Ruzzia needs to be tough and reclaim half of Europe because some fake history book said that Ruzzia has the right to dominate this people.
Everything gets blamed on Russia now. The press and politicians tells us Russia is both incompetent and omnipotent. "Normal" people on Twitter will accuse you of being a "Russian bot" if you have a slightly different opinion. We blamed the Russians for blowing up their own pipeline for no reason in particular. It's crazy.
Is this a meta-attack from Russia to flood the information space so that blaming Russia becomes something people ignore? Hmmm....
Paying the captain of a cargo vessel to damage an undersea cable by dragging his anchor for 160km isn't exactly a conspiracy theory that requires Russian "omnipotence".
Most people I know think the Ukrainians blew up Nordstream.
Not only.. hacker news actively censors any opinion which their llm bot (or an equivalent) judges to come from Russian people (unless these Russians are themselves Russia haters).
And this is probably why most of Russia related items on HN has reactions which are so "homogeneous" (I know, got blocked many times.. cannot login, shadowbanned, etc.). Though it has to do also with the fact that americans don't read very much.. Not Machiavelli for sure (and why should they, they have the Washington Post..)
HN isn't actively censoring anything in that way, and we've always been clear that nationalistic attacks are not allowed against any nation or national group here.
What is true that the HN community (though highly international) is mostly Western, so there's a bias in favor of Western points of view and some difficulty in opening to non-Western points of view. We try to help with this where we can, but there's not a lot we can do.
Among the many problems with this is that minority participants—that is, the ones with contrarian or minority views—tend to feel embattled and to defensively break the site guidelines themselves. (You've done that in your own post here, for example.) That puts the moderators in a quandary: we want minority viewpoints to be heard fairly, but we can't condone the guidelines breakage. I wrote about this recently if anyone cares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41948722, and there's plenty more at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
Sweden has just asked China to cooperate in the investigation.
Its not clear what form exactly this will take, or what has been asked, but I could guess that they've asked that the ship sail into Swedish territorial waters.
Will they make the Chinese ship company pay for the reparations and big fine on top of that for cutting cable? Because if not then it will happen again and again.
Turning the Baltic into a "NATO lake" by controlling the Finland-Estonia strait would be an interesting idea, especially now with Finland and Sweden in the alliance. Effectively limiting Russian naval access from St. Petersburg (except for civilian traffic, subject to inspection) would certainly boost regional security.
I know it's a mental shortcut and if we wanted to be precise it would quickly become unwieldy so just a quick note, also to self, that the Russians I know don't have and don't want to have anything to do with this, are fed up with what is going on and just want to live in peace.
As a Pole by birth, I'm undoubtedly biased. However, it's not as simple as "Putin wants war, despite opposition from most Russians." Living near the USSR border and within the Soviet sphere of influence taught me that a vast majority of Russians prioritize a strong, assertive nation, often placing societal and economic development lower on their list of needs. If that means occasional invasions and killings, it's part of the game.
Putin may achieve 80%+ support through rigged elections, but even without rigging, it's likely 60%+. So, it's not a simple dichotomy of the Russian people versus Putin - it's more complex.
That said, I also have Russian friends (many now former Russians) who passionately hate the current government and condemn its actions.
It would be good to hear how many that were in favor of ending the war because it's the right thing to do. Because it's unjust. Because it's an invasion of a sovereign nation. Not just "Because the sanctions make my butter too expensive".
The difference being that if the former number is over 50% that might mean the people would be for change, for new leadership and direction. If the latter is above 50 that just means people want cheaper butter. Perhaps wait a bit and try invading later. Or invade some weaker nation.
I think saving their sons is a more pressing issue than the old-news sanctions.
From a Russian perspective it’s not at all clear that it’s unjust; Ukraine was persecuting ethnic Russians and the initial claimed purpose of the war was to bring ethnic Russian regions back into Russia.
Classic playbook - aggressors always claim grievances: Japan and oil access, Germany and Prussia/Danzig extranational transport corridors, Russia and "oppressed comrades".
Russia has already anticipated this problem and updated their nuclear doctrine to include nuclear first use also against countries that would "isolate" Russian territory (Presumably thinking of Crimea and Kaliningrad).
Edit: Not sure what the downvote is. It's factually true. I don't think that necessarily means it's a bad idea or that it's a red line that should be observed when all other red lines are obviously illusions.
Russian nuclear doctorine is just words on paper and doesn't mean anything. Their nuclear doctorine already allows them to nuke any NATO country at will because "any attack by a non-nuclear power (Ukraine) supported by a nuclear power (US, UK, France) would be considered a joint attack" and "any attack by one member of a military bloc would be considered an attack by the entire alliance". And even if they didn't, there's no actual opposition that could prevent changing the doctorine as they wish.
It feels really meaningless to talk about "Russia" like this when in reality it's just Putin and his personal discretion, not "Russian nuclear doctrine". It's a dictatorship not a republic.
Russia is an oligarchic republic. It's neither a dictatorship nor a liberal democracy. And regardless of the power he has, Putin is still a product of the system. His eventual successor will quite likely be another similar leader.
It's more accurate to say Russia's history as a distinct entity goes back around 850 years. Before that, it was part of Kyivan Rus', and the term "Ruthenian" primarily referred to the people and territory of modern-day Ukraine. Moscow Rus' was initially a peripheral, tribal offshoot of the larger Kyivan polity.
The word "oligarch" has "arch" in it, which means power. What power the supposed oligarchs had over the decision to invade the neighbors and start a massive wealth redistribution inside the country, that practically depraved them of what they had? Lisin refused to call himself "oligarch" in 2018 first, and everyone laughed at him at the time. Maybe he had better insight than the armchair experts, after all.
> regardless of the power he has, Putin is still a product of the system.
Yes, and the system in question is FSB, or vaguely siloviki in general, not the business elite. It's extremely decentralized.
Even 10 years ago this was no longer true. Putin completely quashed the oligarchy -- and what he succeeded in building in its place has been by far the strongest one-man system the country has seen since Stalin. The oligarchy will likely have some success in reasserting itself, at least for a while after he croaks/fades in a few years.
His eventual successor will quite likely be another similar leader.
You almost want to wish, right?
The problem with the system he created is that it can only be managed by someone very much like himself. But Putin's really quite unusual, both for Russia and when compared with virtually any leader we've ever known anywhere.
His "successor" will likely be an effective power vacuum, visible to the outside world as an open-ended period of instability. It's entirely possible (likely even) that the security agencies will try to someone up the flagpole again, at least for a while. But it's difficult to imagine that person having the actual battery of intelligence, skills -- and sheer force of will -- to run things the way Putin has.
The same could be said for the Soviet Union as well. The nuclear doctrine is just Putin trying to point out that he is frustrated. Luckily nuclear deterrence in general is useless in deterring anything except nuclear attack.
The last time there was cable and gas pipe damage in the Baltic, it took about two weeks for the investigators to do their thing and hold a press briefing. Some details ("mechanical damage, doesn't look like an explosion") had been published before, but most of the investigation results were publicized all at once.
What is publicly known this time: when and where the cables were cut (locations approximately, times accurately), and that there's a Chinese ship (Yi Peng 3) that was followed by Danish navy vessels, and the ship has been anchored for a week with constant guard from German and Danish (and possibly Swedish) navy.
There's a video[1] by a Finnish sea captain with MarineTraffic history access going over the track of YP3. Since it's in Finnish, a brief summary (or try your luck with auto-translation):
1) The ship sets off with a speed of 9-10 knots, but then slows down to 5-6 knots for 400 km or so, before returning to 9-10 knots. While weather could be a factor, other ships in the area experience no slowdowns.
2) The ship crosses the cables right around the reported break times.
3) There is an additional slowdown to 3-4 knots near a known underwater sand ridge.
4) The ships heading jumps around a bit; again, the other ships do not do this.
5) There is a missing portion in AIS data; however, this is seen with other ships as well.
Now, this is all circumstantial evidence, but is consistent with dragging the anchor on the seafloor for an extended period of time. Calling it sabotage would require establishing malicious intent, of course.
That conclusion probably takes some time. Even if they found some evidence now, we're unlikely to hear about it until the investigations are wrapped up. And there are multiple criminal investigations in at least 3 countries, so it won't be this year.
Documented? A foreign nation won't really give us the docs buddy.
Deliberate? If it was not they would say so.
China and Russia are allies against the west.
I am fine here in my bubble of truth. And I get it, I really do. You saw some Oliver Stone films that lists all the bad things the EU and USA has done and saw Michel Moore go to Cuba for cancer treatment.
But now, Russia especially is worse. The Cold War never ended. The west knows best, not in EVERYTHING, free healthcare, university, and access to abortion is good, but we have all that in Sweden an EU country. There is no need to go full commie my dude.
"Documented? A foreign nation won't really give us the docs buddy."
So how do you know this 'fact' then? It's possible it was deliberate of course. But for now there is only circumstantial evidence and brazen finger-pointing at Russia, just like Nordstream. Except in that case it was most likely the US, not Russia.
"I am fine here in my bubble of truth."
lol, none are so blind as those who will not even look.
Of course Russia is a corrupt dictatorship with a deliberate policy of sowing lies and chaos, and China is on the same road. But look at your (our) own governments, they are far from the angels you seem to believe them to be.
>Of course Russia is a corrupt dictatorship with a deliberate policy of sowing lies and chaos, and China is on the same road. But look at your (our) own governments, they are far from the angels you seem to believe them to be.
"Both sides equally bad" is a Russian talking point/propaganda. You fell for it, congrats.
Has the USA and EU/WEST done bad things. Yes. Is there corruption? Yes.
But at least my country has all indoor plumbing... like at some point one thing is better over the other. For quality of life I would rather be in the EU rather than the USA sure.
You cannot put western governments to a perfect standard and russia/china as inperfect. China is trying the same sneaky shit being classed as Third World country for climate and economy to get grants.
I used a little critical thinking to determine that western governments also lie and manipulate, especially in cases like this, cold war situation. If that's a Russian talking-point, well, maybe they're right to point a finger back at us. Something about throwing stones in a glasshouse.
'hybrid warfare', 'Russian spy ships", 'Russian saboteurs', etc are all talking points and propaganda of western governments (let alone the Nordstream sabotage) but we're expected to blindly ignore all that that because they're 'on our side'?
It seems unlikely that the Chinese would get involved at the behest of the Russians. Russia depends on China now and not vice versa.
We see right now what an actual Russian retaliation for ATACMS strikes looks like: Oreshnik, taking out energy infrastructure in Ukraine, etc. Certainly the visual effects of Oreshnik were greater than a cable cut that just reduces gamer latency in Finland for a couple of days.
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