I believe this is akin to the US flying obvious spy planes over countries at altitudes they can't stop them at even if they wanted to: a show of force, likely unrelated to how a full-on military conflict would work.
If Russia wanted to make these attacks look like an accident, they could've sent fishing ships or at least pick more believable anchor points.
This sounds like a situation where even if it is deliberate enemy action the appropriate thing to do is ask them to stop. Maybe invite the Chinese diplomats in, tell them to stop, then expel the embassy for a week and then allocate some extra budget to cable repairs.
If we're talking about - and I quote the article - a "sabotage campaign aimed at destabilising Nato allies" then it'd look more like the Nord Stream explosions; big showy events where the US looks so suspicious that we can almost dismiss their involvement because that'd be too obvious. Random cable cutting is a bit too weird in that it doesn't sound like it achieves anything and seems too subtle an attack to have a motive.
I'd bet a significant fraction of my net worth that Europeans will embrace Russian energy after the war.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more...
Isn't this comparing government spending to consumer spending? Because that energy is paid for by the population at the end the line directly.
It singlehandedly and instantly removed a major blocker to European support for Ukraine, at an uncertain time.
Throwing away diplomats for a week, not sure what that would cause, probably 'meh' and continuing if the effort is intentional. Its not like diplomats actually make any serious decisions, they just parrot official policies.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...
I find it more credible that these were the actors involved. Biden wanted to end a future link between Germany and Russia. In Germany there is significant segment of the population that is distrustful of the US (even before the recent Trump shenanigans) and the potential stronger infrastructure ties to Russia. I find it more credible than a ragtag group of Ukrainians did it personally.
Although the truth may never be known.
Edit: for clarity
"85% of Americans and 77% of Germans see the relationship between their countries as good. This is consistent with recent years, though prior to President Joe Biden’s election in 2020, German views of the relationship were much more negative."
It was as high as 82% positive in 2022. During Trump's first term it was much lower but Trump is an outlier.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/11/27/u-s-germany-re...
Do you moonlight as a strategist for the Democratic party?
I'm certain they do, however, have folks who dictate policy so they don't lose any donations from certain large foreign orgs.
They obviously do; they're the folks who, after a few weeks flatfooted, got the Harris campaign to drop stuff that was resonating like the "weird" thing in exchange for "we've got the Cheneys on our side!"
Both were like watching Asimov try and write an emotional speech. People != robots.
I mean, I sure wish they had some good ones.
AOC is the future, IMO, if we do, indeed, have a future.
It isn't China though its Russia, it was Chinese company that owned the ship but it was a Russian captain and it had just left Russia.
LOL. This is hilarious. Its kind of like someone who has never experienced gang warfare stepping into an inner city turf asking opposite sides to take their grievance to cops.
My personal opinion so far is that this whole thing is teetering between media frenzy and actual issue.
Edit: Have to correct myself. Googling now it seems all traces of this statement have been scrubbed, and instead I find that the International Cable Protection Committe (ICPC) claim about 200 cable issues a year WORLD WIDE.
So maybe the Finnish security police had misspoken and have now retracted this statement from all media.
Either way, I have worked with internet since 2004 and I remember as early as 2004 dealing with companies in Sweden who had boats and other equipment just to install and maintain cables across the baltic and atlantic. It's something that requires non-stop maintenance, regardless of the security situation in the world.
One also has to ask if it's productive to cut these cables when 1) it disrupts nothing on a grand scale, and 2) if it were to disrupt anything it also means they cannot perform other attacks.
Welcome to hybrid warfare! This is the point.
Part of a balanced DoS.
The article is about cables but Russia has also been jamming satellite beams and shelling ground stations since the start of the Ukraine conflict, and they (IIRC) even developed a missile with a nuclear payload to take out satellites kinetically.
I'm Swedish, if that matters, and recall reading about (accidental) cable breakages all the way back to at least 2010 sometime. As mentioned elsewhere, there are between 100-200 cable breakages annually
> Do cables break?
> Yes! Cable faults are common. On average, there are over 100 each year.
> Unintentional damage from fishing vessels and ships dragging anchors account for two-thirds of all cable faults.
https://blog.telegeography.com/what-happens-when-submarine-c...
It seems like the media have ramped up reporting on cable breaks, because of the context, but seemingly none of them have been confirmed to be intentional, at least as far as I know. But I agree that it seems highly suspicious, also the recent water-supply sabotage on Gotland seems related to this all (https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vz2em4/misstankt-sabota...)
World wide. A bit different from Baltic Sea only.
The Bornholm Cable seems to have been cut several times in the 2000s, but I can't find anything about any other breakages before 2022.
You should rather wonder why do you hear so much of it now.
For instance, from https://www.iscpc.org/publications/ you can find https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=138 which has statistics over the years by source of damage (spoiler: no russian spy nor UFOs)