Finland detains ship and its crew after critical undersea cable damaged
cnn.com
cnn.com
Russia clearly hasn't acted in such way that they should enjoy these kinds of acts of benevolence. Finland and Estonia should seriously consider retreating from this agreement.
But what's more relevant here are rules about straits - territorial waters that fully enclose a section of someone else's territorial waters. My understanding is that that is a big part of the reason why the two countries restrict their claim of territorial waters to leave a corridor of international waters: They want to avoid the area falling under the straits rules (transit passage), which would give Russia more rights than it has now inside the territorial waters.
However, this act would, in my understanding, give much more power to Finland and Estonia to detain these ships, and charge the crew for the crimes they have committed. Right now there seems to be a loophole in the legislation that Russia is actively exploiting for hybrid warfare purposes. If the strait rules would give Russia more ways to cause harm, some other way of dissuading Russia from making these acts should be done.
In general though, it feels stupid that we have to play by these rules, when the enemy makes a mockery of them and actively tries to exploit them to cause as much harm as possible. But that's the reality when bordering Russia.
That is what separates civilized from uncivilized people, and it is a curse we have to bear unless we want to join the uncivilized.
If the Allies had committed to this thinking, they would have lost the war. And make no mistake, Europe is at war with Russia, just not a kinetic one.
Then why aren't you at the front? Or in a factory making artillery shells?
I’m far from a maritime law expert, but destroying cables doesn’t sound like innocent passage.
Damage was done in the waters of one country, detaining was done in the other.
Why didn’t Russia attack in international waters?
"The Federal Fiscal Court (BFH) said there was "reasonable doubt as to the legality of the confiscation measures," as it was unclear whether the ship had had authorization to enter and leave the EU despite the sanctions, due to an exemption applicable in emergencies."
They make a big deal about having international waters that foreign navies can transit.
The point of US freedom of navigation exercises is to assert free transit of allied and international waters, despite Chinese claims, rather than to transit Chinese territorial waters. US warships generally avoid areas which the US views as Chinese territorial waters.
When you're a country as small and insignificant as Estonia is you're not doing anything out of "benevolence" towards a nuclear hyper-power, but what do I know?. maybe the Maja Kallas-types really do believe in their own word-blabber.
While your sentiment may be correct in 2010s it certainly was not when these things were being decided in early 90s. USSR and Russia which de facto ruled it was seen as a failed state that needs "western help" and on a path to democracy. While we (here in Poland) we're quite skeptical, having the Russian WW2 occupying force leave in 1991 (yes, we didn't get freedom after WW2 until 1991). There was still a lot of hope Russia will follow in the footsteps of other central/eastern European countries like Poland/Czech/The Baltics if only we help them. So yes, there was huge resentment, but also a huge benefit of hope and benevolence too.
Was some of this calculated? Sure. No doubt someone sat in Talin and Helsinki and thought: if we treat them like post WW1 Germany it will be easier for the extremists to take power. So let's not pour sand in their fuel tank as they are desperately trying to restart the engine of their economy.
I don't even think it was a mistake at the time. It was a decent way to behave. But the moment the tide has started turning in Russia towards autocracy the screw should've been tightened. No oil and gas should fund Russian army after at least their attack on Georgia. If not before when the atrocities of the Chechen war became known.
Unfortunately corrupt politicians (that are still in power in Europe and even in my country) have continued signing deals and making money by financing what was clearly a huge enemy in the making.
Russia wasn't an eny in 1993, but it certainly was one in 2008 when it invaded Goergia. If only we acted properly in early 2000s all of this could've been prevented.
These things can and do change.
Think about what war really is, it’s almost always a bunch of powerful people who have a disagreement with a bunch of other powerful people, who then have to trick a bunch of less powerful people to fight on their behalf. If you feel like fighting you’ve been tricked. When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.
I completely disagree. I know anecdata is useless but since you are generalizing I can as well add that all Russians I met, without exception, are normal people who just want to live a normal life, not to kill. And then there is the smaller violent part that is happy to mug, beat, and kill others, including their own people. What I can agree is that Russia has quite a problem with this "pat B" of their population because of systemic issues. But generalizing it like this, on the whole nation, is just like saying that violence has gender, rich people are bad and so on.
Whenever there's trouble, Russia's history demands a strong leader. When one arises, the strong leader soon becomes the trouble.
The same wealth disparity exists in the west. Are you suggesting Russia is the governing model in our future?
Russia is a continental state so it requires its Neighbors to be weak so they cant threaten Russia. As much as it tries to escape this logic, it can’t. Russia’s core interest is to dominate and subjugate its near abroad. It has to. It’s the only way for it to become a global power.
Unless of course doing so makes them far poorer and isolates them culturally/economically, and completely embarrasses their image of having a strong military.
But if I point out that this same thing applies to the Russians as a whole, then suddenly I'm racist.
Really though it’s because Russia mostly has nothing going for its millions of people except petrochemical exports.
It started to expand to the east in 16th century, which was and is still cruel to indigenous people of Siberia (e..g highest level of current war participation per capita).
South/Caucasus expansion was brutal and was displayed in Russian literature.
European states suffered from Russia for centuries as well.
Even if Putin wanted to join the E.U., the economy, social structures and institutions, and uneducated voting populace wouldn't allow it to be stable enough to join.
Russia at this point can't even be a successful authoritarian state like China. It's hard to say that it will never be a democracy, but those with a memory of the 1990's find that idea traumatic. Looking far forward in time, eventually global oil independence and demographic decline may force economic reform.
How do you measure that?
From that lens, loosing a few millions in a "pre-emptive strike" to save the bulk of population looks reasonable. Don't ask me how they ended up with this picture of reality.
Joining the EU would be somewhat nonsensical as they would gain very little from it and cede substantial sovereignty in exchange. It's the same reason places like Norway have no interest in joining the EU.
But Russia never inquired in good faith. It was only ever sarcastically. And had it joined NATO (perhaps because the west was stupid, which it is), then right now we'd be in the pickle of trying to reconcile one NATO member invading another (likely) NATO member, and wondering what to do about it. Russia doesn't honor its treaties, neither according to the spirit of the law nor to the letter.
Now that there's no longer any point in hiding it, we should expand NATO to include everyone that is marginally adjacent to Russia. Japan, South Korea, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Hell, why not throw Taiwan in.
Not joining, of course, but Russia did, both the people and Putin. The West had different plans, as we learned.
'From Lisbon to Vladivostok': Putin Envisions a Russia-EU Free Trade Zone - SPIEGEL ONLINE, 2010 [0]
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0]
[0] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vl...
Maybe this could offer more insight:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/vladim...
The Putin regime began with Putin using military force to arrest any disloyal oligarchs while formulating his anti-Western ideology. But sequence of event explains why most Russians today have zero faith/interest in joining the Western World.
Country was destroyed, markets were destroyed, industries were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands died in ethnical conflicts, hundreds of thousands died from hunger. It was all a huge mistake and I hope we'll never repeat it.
Or if we get more serious: it's mix of imperial ambitions, feeling of been humiliated by west and desire of revenge, (cultural level) aggression, arrogance, ignorance and been sure that Russia is a special country with special pathway and superior culture and one of world superpowers (that been ignored and this is not "fair")
A couple of days after russia started war, on it's official news agency site was auto published article that was supposed to be victory lap (after all it was supposed to be 3 day special operation). It was promptly removed but not before it was archived. You can read decent translation here and it will show you some glimpses of what I wrote above https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2vz4v/ria_news_ac...
For reference: I was born back in USSR and lived there till my early teen years. Been closely following russian media, discussion platforms, etc ever since.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Georgian_demonstrations
Glasnost and Perestroika under Gorbachev were not benevolence but necessary because the centralized power of the Soviet Union was dwindling. The SU became more and more occupied with fixing its own problems and could no longer hold together the Eastern Bloc by influence or force. Which is why the Eastern Bloc then slowly dissolved. This didn't start with the German unification, but earlier, and encompassed Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
The SU (who are actually dominated by, but different from "the Russians") certainly would have liked to hold it together. And while under Yeltsin, there was a period of acceptance of the dissolution of the SU, currently Putin seems to want to revive it, at least in terms of territory.
It's a government comprised of people that weren't elected that destroys countries it supposed to govern by forcing non-rational choices that people hate but too afraid to openly criticize.
The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
What EU can offer us? Nothing.
Look at any chart that shows any useful economic metric or things like life expectancy of eastern/central European countries before and after they joined the EU. It's almost to good to be true.
> The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
That's quite easy when your GDP per capita is behind Trinidad & Tobago or even Cuba.
Russians are essentially a european people and has a lot more in common with the EU than BRICS.
Also, both are headed full-throttle towards a demographic disaster so might as well do it together
And of course your comment about unelected officials acting irrationally that people cannot criticize surely reminds you of home
Citations, please.
> What EU can offer us? Nothing.
Right, what is clear from your messages in this thread is that Russia only sees value in other things it can take over / steal / destroy. May I ask what Russia has to offer to the rest of the world?
Similarly, notice how much they invested in their naval base in Syria on the Mediterranean (though I'm not sure of its status now, and they oddly seemed to abandon Assad, who provided it to them).
More critically, think of a war: How do they trade by sea by sea? Their economy could be choked off, restricted to Pacific trade and trains across Asia to the population centers. They are in a corner.
My bet is that it'll happen sometime between 2029-2035, after UK, France and Germany have had their general elections, where populist parties with more pro-Russian stances are likely to gain power.
Fortunately while close, the border runs along a fairly wide river with just a single bridge across, so logistically somewhat complicated to supply with heavy equipment from the Russian side. At least covertly.
But definitely a scenario that needs to be considered.
Narva is much less interesting in that sense.
It's NOT like driving with the handbrake on, it's more like shoving your car forcibly in reverse at full speed. You WILL notice it.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/JOow58/kabelbrott-mella... (Swedish)
[...] two of their submarine cables – one between Sweden and Estonia and one between Estonia and Finland – have been damaged. The first cable was damaged on December 30th and the second on December 31st.
(Arelion is AS1299/formerly known as Telia Carrier. The name change happened because it's now owned by a Swedish government-managed infrastructure-focused pension fund.)
Turns out it was the Ukrainians! I'm past even guessing at this point...
What relations? Nordstream went boom after 2022 war started.
And let's not forget that Russia purposely inflated gas prices to put pressure on EU during 2021.
I also very much doubt it was the Ukrainians in by themselves - as blowing up heavily reinforced pipes 80m under the water is a rather extreme task, but at least they would have had a reasonable motive. Russia was fueling the German economy, and Ukraine would have had a viable concern about Germany prioritizing their own economy over Ukraine. OTOH it seems somewhat obvious at this point that Russia would not have threatened to turn off the gas, so it was a terrible miscalculation by whoever did it.
Wouldn't be the first time Russia to make a bold move that blows up in their face... 3-day special operation and all.
There was already no gas flowing through either pipeline at the time and with European gas reserves having been kept at an artificially low level, this could've put a lot of pressure on Germany to certify and permit gas flows through the remaining undamaged NS2 pipeline if it hadn't been a mild winter.
This could've been a massive strategic political win for Russia.
But you are not answering the question. What need is there for an independent international investigation that has not already been served by the investigations done by Sweden and Denmark?
I agree with the first part of your comment, but it baffles me that people keep claiming "Sending some divers from a small yacht plant a bomb underwater" would beyond the capabilities of the Ukrainian special forces.
Remember the Ghost of Kiev?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balticconnector#2023_damage_in...
In 2024, another Chinese ship damaged telecom cables in the Baltic Sea area between Sweden and the Baltic countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Baltic_Sea_submarine_cabl...
Which part or combination makes them "Russian", in the sense of "the Russian state asked asked the ship to harm Finnish infrastructure, and they actually did it"?
You can lazily speculate about the aggressive, warmaking nation (that illegally annexed Crimea, is currently at war with Ukraine, is regularly sending submarines, ships, drones, jets into the territories of its neighbours) all you like... but if you want to be able to prosecute them, you need to be able to show evidence of the Russian state ordering this action, and that the cable damage was actually caused by that ship. Where is your evidence?
It clearly worked very poorly in the case of the recent "Russian drone interference" panic, many of which turned out to not even be drones, never mind Russian ones. https://www.dronewatch.eu/61-european-drone-sightings-analys...
Or the "UFOs" over Pennsylvania.
If you declare war without there being a bona fide casus belli, you'll be whisked out of power so fast your head will spin. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_...
If you don't declare war, you don't get those emergency powers. You only get peacetime powers.
Russia loves to go right up to the line, and then cross it a little bit, just to antagonise you. But unless you're willing to be the instigator of WW3, you'll stick to peacetime powers and peacetime courts with peacetime standards of evidence
You're standing in a forest, lighting a forest fire to kill the other guy. There is lots of history about this most fundamental error.
Testing limits and tolerance, threatening what they could do in a real attack. Creating econocic pain in retaliation for support with a strong alibi to blame.
Boarding and detaining is a new escalation. How many cables cut before we consider military reaction? 3? 10? all of them?
For example, here's a CSIS (American think tank) report: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-wes...
Put simply, the goal is to add friction to anything NATO tries to do to aid Ukraine, and/or generally to improve its posture against Russia, while also trying to crack apart and erode both broad based and elite support for acting against Russia.
In the grand scheme, repairing the cables and supporting Ukraine will cost less and hurt Russia more than escalating tentions in the Baltic sea.
The EU and US were an unassailable bastion of freedom, peace, and prosperity, with arguably the most solid political foundations in history in democracy, and the most solid alliance in history in NATO.
How do you defeat such a place? You turn up the heat, to describe it very generally. It means, n a sense, radicalizing the population, a classic solution to Russia's problem. That's what terrorists do: How do you cause the US to shoot itself in the foot: terrorize people into thinking they are unsafe and overreacting (even though 9/11 affected on small area of one city).
One way they turn up the heat is to spread ethnic hatred, social distrust, embrace of violence, and abandonment of those things that prevent those maladies: universal human rights, democracy, rule of law, etc.
You can see it in this thread: People rooting for warfare, abandonment of the rule of law, etc. - all by some minor, cost-effective actions, like cutting a cable.
The expensive action and infinitely more consequential action - the invasion of Ukraine - remarkably doesn't create the same outrage. That outrage would trigger the obviously best solution: Guaranteeing unlimited material and political support for Ukraine until they win the war.
That is, it's remarkable if you don't appreciate information dominance, especially with social media companies either abandoning all responsibility or openly aiding the radicalization. Russia can create radicalization directly too.
Agreed it's what they're doing but this looks more like "turning everyone against you". And you want your enemies to underestimate you (like Song or Kievan Rus' underestimated the Mongols) but the world doesn't underestimate Russia. Maybe it could have but WW2 and appeasement are still too fresh in memory.
Someday, in hindsight, that might be what it looks like. Though notice that Russia has the world's #2 and rising power, China, on their side (in a marriage of convenience, I'm sure).
But I think there's an implicit misapprehension. The West is the status quo power, and Russia is revisionist, and both play out the traditional roles in that ancient game: Russia is challenging - trying to revise - the status quo order that puts the West on top. When you challenge the status quo order, lots of people invested in it don't like you; people born to the status quo can't imagine another way and reject you reflexively (and people also reflexively reject change).
This happens with tech innovation - status quo tech and disrupters. Sometimes it looks, in hindsight, like the disrupter 'turned everyone against them'. Sometimes people join them and they look like visionaries and leaders, and eventually elder statespeople. They are none of the above; they are just revisionists and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
> WW2 and appeasement are still too fresh in memory.
I find that hard to believe. I have no data, but my impression:
First, there has been plenty of appeasement since WWII. NATO already appeased Russia on Georgia long ago, on parts of Ukraine (e.g., Crimea) a decade ago. The West threatened but then let the Soviets crush dissent in Hungary and the Prague Spring in the mid-20th century. Détente, arguably a degree of appeasement, was US policy in the 1970s. Trying to bring China into the global order was the policy until the mid-to-late 2010s. There are many more examples.
Second, the rush to war and the abandonment of human rights as the foundation, the rule of law, international law, international institutions, the outlawing of war, NATO, the rejection of nationalism, etc. etc. ... are all abandonments of the WWII generation's lessons, principles, and accomplishments. They built the postwar order. They conducted the Nuremberg trials, specifically a demonstration of the rule of law, justice, and human rights - and some Nazis were found not guilty.
Russia is obviously having quite a hard time from sanctions caused by their actions.
This self-hypnosis of walking on water while going to Takatuka, is falling apart faster then it can repair itself.
Works for small and medium-sized private companies. Doesn't work for major nations like Russia.
Doing as you suggest is like writing parking tickets for delivery trucks. They don't care. It's just a cost of doing business.
Internal Propaganda. You show to your own people, that you can cut off the enemies' communication lines easily.
External Propaganda. You show to the enemies that they are vulnerable, spreading fear and doubt in their own strength.
Exercises for larger operations. You train ships' crews for those kinds of maneuvers, in case you need to to it a large number of times, e.g. to cut off all baltic cables at once, cut all transatlantic cables, cut all cables to some important island like Iceland, etc.
Internal Normalisation. You get the ships' crews, your population and your governance structures used to a more aggressive mode of operations.
External Normalisation. You get the enemies' population and governance structures used to those kinds of pinpricks. So when the large-scale operation starts, they will ignore the first signs as "just the usual irrelevant pinpricks".
Testing and mapping connectivity. When the cable goes down, you can have your spies look at which relevant infrastructure goes down at the same time.
But i could suggest another potential benefit for russia: If russia already operates under the assumption that they are in a (cold) war with EU/NATO, and they don't care about the effects on the relationship with Finland. Then this may simply be a really low cost, high damage operation. That not only imposes the replacement cost of the cable, but also forces countries to invest in counter measures.
By that same morning they start the invasion of Estonia / the Baltics and separated them from the world through communications jamming and cutting all overseas cables. Without NATO support the Baltics are ocuppied by the same afternoon. In 12-16 hours Rússia has essentially re-occupied them.
These normalisation exercises are a part of it.
Also, how do you identify the ships? Do you blockade all maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea? All too and from Russia? The first would destroy our own economy, the second is a certain act of war.
What I mean is that they will only understand counter measures that you'd take in a war, like blockade or sink them for instance.
I.e. they are already engaging in the acts of war, so it's late to worry about that, the question is what is anyone doing about it.
Ukraine sinks their fleet in the Black Sea, and they understood it very well - they don't leave their ports.
Likely that is what they want. Do you think Russian planners are ignorant, and can't foresee that? This sort of game is long played in international relations.
It's chess: You try to cause your opponent to put themselves in a bad position. Provocations are manipulation - it's obvious what Russia is trying to provoke.
More likely they think countries around Baltic Sea are too scared to offer strong resistance, so they can engage in such activity with impunity. And they won't limit it to Baltic Sea either, they'll do it anywhere they feel they can.
It's a mobster mentality. As I said, the only language they understand is response with force, nothing else.
- Russian ship damages another cable - EU deploys military ships and planes on Baltic/North sea - Russia deploys military ships and planes of their own - EU tries to stop and seize another RU shadow fleet vessel - EU vessel denies EU demands - EU attack a vessel, trying to immobilize it - RU ships and planes attacks EU ships and planes - casualties from both sides - RU drops 10-15 MRBMs with conventional (non-nuclear) warheads onto key EU naval bases - orange clown in the White House says "this is not our war"
Your move.
Your move.
The EU doesn't have a plan for how to fight without the US. Today's airstrikes should be carefully planned: planes, pilots, munitions, targets, engagement trajectories, and return trajectories. They will need time to figure out those plans. In their shoes, I would have started drafting those plans four years ago, but they still didn't.
The EU will not attack nuclear siloes, for fear of nuclear retaliation. Even if they try, most of those siloes are much farther than 700 km from Russia's borders. Those siloes were built by the USSR, and the USSR knew better.
The EU will use Storm Shadows/SCALPs/Tauruses. There aren't many of those in arsenals. Trying to use smart planning bombs with sub-100 km range will only make casualties 10-20 fold.
The EU strikes may reach Baltic and Black Sea naval bases, some energy infrastructure (port Primorsk being the first), and some airfields. They will not get the North Sea and Pacific bases, airfields near Murmansk, Saratov, and Irkutsk, which are used now to attack Ukraine.
Russia has integrated air defence, anв the shit is real, it is fight-proven, it works day and night for the last 3 years. Ask Ukrainians.
EU strikes will not be very effective and will not last. I estimate it in 1500-2000 sorties, and about half of those will reach the targets. The EU will lose about 100 planes and 50 pilots. Russia will receive a blow, but will not be devastated.
Russia will retaliate with new conventional MRBM strikes on the military and double-use airfields, and also factories of Gripen, Rafale, Airbus, etc. With those strikes, the EU will lose another 200 planes and most of its capacity to produce and repair them. Russia will also strike one large natural gas storage, one LPG from the Gulf comes into. Russian diversants will deliver several hits to the EU energy system, probably to large distribution hubs.
The EU stocks will drop to 70%-50% of their current value. The euro will fall by 20%-30% against global currencies. Electricity, gas, and heat prices will rise 2-3 times; gasoline and diesel prices will increase 1.5-2 times.
Your move.
> Russia has integrated air defence, anв the shit is real, it is fight-proven, it works day and night for the last 3 years. Ask Ukrainians.
Yep. There are videos of oil infrastructure destroyed every single day. Russia is big, so it's hard to defend, and most of its air defense systems are either destroyed, or try to cope with 91 imaginary drones in Valday.
> The EU will lose about 100 planes and 50 pilots
Wishful thinking. You assume EU planes flying just above Moskow, or something like that. Won't happen and Russian planes won't be able to send air missiles to intercept them, as Russia runs out of A-50s.
> will retaliate with new conventional MRBM strikes
Oreshnik does not exist. It's an experiment, that failed to launch into [mass] production. Wishful thinking again.
> Russia will also strike one large natural gas storage, one LPG from the Gulf comes into. Russian diversants will deliver several hits to the EU energy system, probably to large distribution hubs.
This is realistic and very likely, those tactics were already tested in the past few years.
> The EU stocks will drop to 70%-50% of their current value. The euro will fall by 20%-30% against global currencies. Electricity, gas, and heat prices will rise 2-3 times; gasoline and diesel prices will increase 1.5-2 times.
Not realistic. There is oil in the world, there is a lot of oil processing in Europe. US would love to send LNG and earn a lot of money, but it won't be 2-3 times. Ukraine has shown, that Russia can't keep enough pressure to stop the economy completely, so 70-50% numbers are too high.
You are not playing a war game, you are mostly fantasizing about world dominance, as many Russians did mid-feb 2022. Yes, Russia can spoil your day. No, it can't fight and defend successfully on two fronts. Yes, it has more soldiers now and experience. No, it can't protect them on marches, it's forced to fight with FPVs and will be. Armored vehicles are lost. Air defenses are lost. Many strategic aviation, including bombers and A-50s are down. Bombers didn't even knew what hit them, no ballistic missiles needed. Few A-50s were hit by ground-based air defense systems, which is kinda ironic. EU has stockpiled air defenses which, as we know, work well against Kinzhals, Onyxes, etc. EU has Saab 340s to defend against low-flying Kalibres and drones. EU doesn't have enough interceptor drones yet, but it has enough AAGs. And you should expect the same drone swarming as done in Ukraine, to penetrate the air defense with ballistics.
So, I would expect 1) Diversions 2) PsyOps 3) Combined strikes (not as devastating as you paint them) 4) CyberOps (can count as diversions)
I would not expect 1) Air superiority 2) Destruction of Europe's industrial and military infrastructure by missiles (maybe some by GBUs, but seems risky) 3) big drop in EU stocks, or increase in pricing (unless CyberOps and PsyOps succeed)
You’re not going to get young German to go to the front. He is more interested in domestic interest-generational conflict.
The response needs to be forceful: seize and auction off the ships. There needs to be sufficient deterrent to actually stop this from happening.
One ship might be considered a reasonable pawn to sacrifice. I'd go further: require that any ships passing through the strait to be bonded at some eye-watering amount like 10x the price of the ship plus the repair costs of the cable. Make it so if the cable is cut, you make a profit.
There was a Planet Money episode touching on Maritime law:
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/17/nx-s1-5577076/shadow-fleet-ru...
It was about Russian tankers breaking the sanctions, but with a well put explanation of why we can't just stop these ships even with extreme confidence in their fraudulency.
To be clear, why we don’t want to. Freedom of navigation makes all of us tremendously richer, even if it permits such fuckery.
Every great power has, at this point, rejected the notion in limited contexts. And if you’re not concerned about trashing trade, there is no incoherence to ignoring these rules.
Russia isn’t even pretending to follow international maritime law. China hasn’t for a decade. And now America is being creative with its interpretations.
The US follows the rules carefully when Russia encourages it to.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...
But we probably have promised not to blockade ships in some conventions. And little Denmark (or Sweden) do not benefit from setting a precedence that conventions can be broken.
Getting payback is easy though: support Ukraine.
Good start. Then turn off Russia’s cable that runs via Finland [1] and make vague threats about (a) seizing shadow-fleet vessels in the Baltics and (b) how vulnerable Russia’s cable to Kaliningrad [2] would be to careless anchors.
All the while: start setting up non-cable based back-up bandwidth for if Russia severs these cables in advance of invasion.
[1] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/bcs-north-...
[2] https://www.submarinecablemap.com/submarine-cable/kingisepp-...
They won't be able to seize those without opening fire.
https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/how-seven-students-unmasked-russi...
The Associated Press has documented 59 Russian hybrid operations across Europe. A systematic campaign of intimidation, sabotage, and violence: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-europe-hybrid-...
Russia supplied the Buk missile system that shot down MH17, killing 298 civilians, most of them Europeans. Putin eliminates political opponents, like Alexei Navalny, who died in custody days before a possible release.
European leaders may be passive and slow, but what is making the situation truly dangerous, is the dictator-jealousy fueled encouragement and indulgence of the current U.S. administration, and all its sycophants, which got to the point of publicly applauding a dictator on U.S. soil.
That behavior legitimizes aggression, emboldens Moscow, and directly undermines European security, and is making thinks really, really, sketchy right now.
Germany accuses Russia of air traffic control cyber-attack: [1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgrrnylzzyo
I personally think there's a more direct link between the US administration and Russia, in line with the rest of your points. I think it's more than "dictator-jealousy fueled encouragement", although what that "more" is I'm not entirely sure, and I'm not sure the differences between the possibilities matters in the end.
I really think it's hard not to read [about] Foundations of Geopolitics and the history of Viktor Yanukovych, the ties between the latter and Trump, and not conclude Russia's tendrils in the US, England, and elsewhere are far deeper than is generally acknowledged in the press.
I lost a lot of trust in most media to cover this issue appropriately when people in the UK started mysteriously dying and zipping themselves in body bags, and the coverage was a collective shrug. Why they would report something like that and then with a straight face conclude an article with "police say there's no evidence of foul play" is beyond me. But then again how the Mueller investigation got spun as an exoneration is also beyond me as well.
I know it's often seen as dismissive or shallow to blame the media for things, but I really do place a huge proportion of the blame for our current mess, at least in the US, on news outlets and media soft-pedaling what's been happening for the last 10 years. A lot of what people trust became propaganda, and a lot of the rest of it chased that audience around for clicks.
Scotland Yard's inquiry also found no evidence of Williams's fingerprints on the padlock of the bag or the rim of the bath, which the coroner said supported her assertion of "third-party involvement" in the death. Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt said it was theoretically possible for Williams to lower himself into the bag without touching the rim of the bath. A key to the padlock was inside the bag, underneath his body" (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams)
It's absolutely mad, but remember this happened in 2010 -- before Russia did many of those bad things you mention. It wouldn't surprise me if a combination of political pressure and police incompetence made this go away.
But does it matter? 77 million Americans knowingly voted a convicted felon and court adjudicated sexual assaulter back into the presidency instead of a jail cell. From those, about 40 million were women, fully aware that a jury found him liable for sexual assault, and that multiple judges affirmed the verdict.
The majority of Americans saw criminality, sexual violence, and contempt for the law and decided that was acceptable leadership. :-))
"Kushner Companies and Russian individuals exchanged suspicious money transfers at the height of the 2016 race, ex-Deutsche Bank employee says" - https://www.businessinsider.com/jared-kushner-russia-2016-mo...
The exhibits are short and worth looking at
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursion_i...
Any reasonable planning requires looking at the scenario your action creates - the range of outcomes. The range certainly includes Putin using nuclear weapons (which is part of Russia's military doctrine - see 'escalate to deescalate'). That needs to be part of your plan.
If we had acted decisively at the beginning of the Ukraine war, the risk of nuclear war would be lower today.
Appeasement can work. But it can also increase risks. In this case, giving into a bully invites escalation itself, which increases the chances of a fuckup (e.g. a misfired drone taking out an early-warning radar) which legitimately calls for nuclear escalation.
Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ?
To be clear, strikes wouldn't be "pre-emptive", Russia is already in a war, and it's entirely allowed for any nation to join the side of Ukraine. None of the rules of war prevent helping a friendly country by joining the fight.
A pre-emptive strike would be expensive and immediately retcon into making Putin be the good guy - he’s long said NATO is the aggressor. Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it.
I think the bigger risk currently that Europe faces is the low and mid level corruption where Russian agents extend their tendrils into government structures in EU.
War is best prevented by robust deterrents. When it comes to belligerent fascist regimes who want to see how far you can be pushed, not responding to provocations and aggression forcefully makes larger-scale war more likely in the future.
Good luck with that, though.
Depending on the days, the priority changes, between Russia or attacking the US first, maybe with the help from Canada :-))
You have to deal with one threat at a time, and it seems the fight against chlorinated chicken will take priority for now... :-)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-demands...
But yeah, if Russia keeps it up, just blockade the Baltic Sea for ships heading to Russian ports.
The only reason why this seizure of russian money in Belgium might be a bad idea is reciprocity. Russia would of course then try to seize European assets in Russia.
And regarding ships, prize law is still internationally accepted and in effect. Ukraine can offer prize letters to privateers or foreign navies, allowing the seizure of Russian ships. Or they can seize ships themselves. When those ships are then in a Ukrainian or allied harbor, a Ukrainian admirality court then assigns ownership of the vessel and all goods to the ones who brought it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_(law)
They already did.
all the planes https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/16/business/russia-aircraft-...
carlsberg https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/business/carlsberg-russia-bus...
danone https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66218999
fortum https://www.fortum.com/en/media/2025/08/fortums-statement-re...
the list goes on and on
Honestly, give any Russian or shadow-vessel crew a bounty if they surrender. Turn Moscow’s fleet into a cheap source of intelligence and scrap.
Jailing crews in comfy Scandinavian prisons can hardly be a strong deterrent either.
Russia is all-in on this confrontation, Europe is much wealthier but won't commit anywhere near the effort or expense.
"We don't want to start a war doncha know, so whenever Russia attacks us we'll just take it on the chin and not fight back too hard".
It appears the world has forgotten the lessons of the Sudetenland.
Look if russia wants to conquer the world, let them. They can't make things worse than the indolent ivy-league rot that has destroyed western culture. If people braying about the threat of the east want to be taken seriously, they need to make a much more concerted effort to convince us that the western model makes sense and we're not just working our asses off to suck off rich retards
But since Russia IS locked in a land war with Ukraine, in a hypothetical world, you could retaliate by upping aid through Ukraine, OR (if you were being sneaky), laundering your actions through Ukraine.
Speaking of the joy of living in Russia, check out the hilarious story of racist right wing Finnish Flat Earther anti-immigrant anti-refugee pro-Russian criminal asshole Ano Turtiainen, now living as a refugee in Russia and threatening to fight against fellow Finns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ano_Turtiainen
Ano Turtiainen is a former Finnish powerlifter turned far-right politician who managed to embarrass himself and others at every step:
He was banned for two years in 1998 for androgenic drug use -- perfect start to a "morally upright" career.
As an MP with the batshit crazy racist right-wing Finns Party, he posted a mocking tweet about George Floyd's murder ("Pink Floyd"), which was widely condemned as even too racist for the Finns Party, which got him expelled.
He set up his own splinter faction and then a tiny party, Power Belongs to the People (VKK), which became known for praising Russia and opposing sanctions and Finnish NATO membership, utterly at odds with mainstream Finnish views.
Turtiainen even refused to fire an assistant who posted racist content and had a parliamentary visitor do a Nazi salute (which he photographed himself!).
Instead of behaving like a responsible adult during the pandemic, he mocked public health measures, called them "neo-communism", refused masks, and threatened violence over mask mandates.
Meanwhile his own company manufactured masks: the ultimate hypocrisy.
Turtiainen failed to explain how he used over €30,000 in parliamentary group funds -- so the Finnish Parliament is trying to collect it back through debt enforcement.
Not only that: He's a Flat Earther, doesn't believe in space existing, and was convinced NASA interfered in the last election he was involved in so that he only got 7 votes.
Now the Ultimate Irony: the Anti-Immigrant Asshole Becomes a Hypocritical Refugee.
After losing his seat in the 2023 election (with only ~632 votes), Turtiainen moved to Russia, the country he celebrated, defended even during its invasion of Ukraine, and praised as a cultural "brother".
Russia granted him refugee status (yes, refugee status), despite his previous anti-immigrant posturing -- and he proudly accepts it.
In videos he’s now said he might fight for Russia -- even against Finns -- in the war in Ukraine. That’s right: the man who slammed refugees and immigrants is now a political asylum seeker in Russia, flirting with joining Russian troops and fighting his own countrymen.
Turtiainen's political life is a one-man case study in right-wing hypocrisy, racism, ignorance, self-harm, and irony: The guy who mocked others' suffering ends up dependent on another country’s goodwill -- the same country he championed in Finnish politics.
Former Finns Party MP granted refugee status in Russia: The pro-Russian ex-lawmaker has claimed that he would be "ready to go to the front against the Finns" if necessary:
Former Finnish MP and his wife granted refugee status in Russia: Turtiainen founded and leads the political party "Power belongs to the people":
https://fakti.bg/en/world/1024214-former-finnish-mp-and-his-...
Ano Turtiainen: the PS doesn’t love me, I love the PS – watch me now eat my words:
https://migranttales.net/ano-turtiainen-the-ps-doesnt-love-m...
Ano Turtiainen Flat Earth Anti-NASA Views:
https://murha.info/rikosfoorumi/viewtopic.php?p=1866262#:~:t...
The other side wants escalation of tension, otherwise they wouldn't do this. And they get to choose when and where and, to a degree, the means by which it happens - you can be sure it's a time and place and means that benefits them.
The fundamental of international relations in conflict is to deter without escalation, and to act in the time, place, and manner of your choosing. You'll see leaders cite that specifically: 'We have this problem; we will respond in the time, place, and in the way we think best.'
That's fair. I lack the expertise and information to know the options and details. But what I said in the GP is international relations 101 - or maybe the first day of grad school.
You can see the same thing in many areas, such as race relations. The status quo is outraged and can't believe that other groups may be unhappy - after all, things work well in the status quo person's experience!
I see what you did there!
Why not send a couple ships to drag anchors across Russia's cables? "Oh we are but innocent fishermen" is still valid going the other way.
Then when Russia inevitably seizes and imprisons the crew, the international community can do the same for every Russian controlled ship with the bare minimum of suspicion.
Would be a pretty sucky mission though, so many risks of capture. But the Russian government does it because they don't care about their people and also the rest of the world is too toothless to do anything about it (until this occurrence at least, go Finland - but then they know Russia's tactics very well).
Russia has been doing a "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself" to the world for too long, abusing the "nice" way we desperately try to see things, pretending even when it's obvious. Like they'll do something egregious and then when the West calls them out, suddenly their political mouthpieces are all "we can't believe that the West is making this shocking and provocative accusation which is of course completely false, EU are bullies!" and then the world responds by taking a step back, pretty much every single time.
-- Then when Russia inevitably seizes and imprisons the crew
Are you volunteering yourself for a vacation in a Russian gulag?
Though perhaps we could test some autonomous trawling vessels, you know, big tech company stuff. But as we know, software can sometimes be difficult and have...bugs... ;3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage
Destroying that pipeline pushed Germany to act more against Russia (being officially unable to continue buying gas).
Historically anti russian states like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Estonia or even NATO would have liked that.
Russia could have blown it up themselves to pin it on Ukraine to decrease support, but that doesn't seem to be the outcome.
Even germany could have blown it up to pivot their own politics.
It's a massive game of clue. It may become declassified in 20 years by whoever did it.
That you guys had presidents that didn’t fall into this trap is the reason you and I are ariund today.
William Inboden, The Peacemaker:
> In America’s last fight against totalitarianism, President Franklin Roosevelt had demanded the unconditional surrender of both Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. In the context of total war, against implacable dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo, Roosevelt’s insistence on unconditional surrender made strategic sense. Such a demand did not fit the Cold War. Much as Reagan looked to Roosevelt and World War II as a model for how the free world should confront dictatorships in thrall to evil ideologies, in the case of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, calling for “unconditional surrender” from Moscow would have been delusional and foolhardy—especially since Reagan remained desperate to prevent the Cold War from turning hot and ending in nuclear apocalypse.
Russia would deny any involvement, right? So throwing the crew in prison for a few decades and scrapping the ship aren't actions against Russia. They're not a party to this at all.
There are many other solutions, and if you read the experts, that's what rational governments pursue. It's not as emotionally satisfying as starting a war, but it's far more satisfying than what comes after that start.
Warfare, as anyone who has experienced it, is a catastrophe win or lose or stalemate. The victors of WWII put extraordinary effort into preventing future wars, including outlawing it, creating the UN and EU, rebuilding their former enemy's economies, etc.
What do you know about warfare that they don't? Were they cowards? Naive or innocent about evil?
Is it really warmongering to suggest a country should police it's own territory, or defend it's own interests from aggression aimed at them? And, how is that aggression towards them not warmongering? If Russia isn't responsible for these attacks on infrastructure, then no one should have a problem with the crew being tossed in prison and the boat being chopped up and turned into patio furniture or repurposed as a reef. If they are responsible, then they're the warmongers; only a fundamentally dishonest person would suggest a measured response to or self defense against an attack is warmongering.
btw
i'm not even suggesting anyone go to war with russia. But more than likely capitulation is going to fail and russia will cross a line with their acts of sabotage and terrorism in Europe (or they'll just move on to whoever is next after Ukraine.) Since you brought up WWII, remind me, how did capitulating to Hitler in 1938 work out in the long run?
Cooler heads in this case are idiotic heads. It doesn’t take two partners to start a war, it only takes one and Russia already decided.
Someone in the other comments linked an article stating that Europe was doing the “unthinkable” of planning to retaliate and I was agog reading it if true. Not because Europe was going to retaliate but that they hadn’t even come up with plans over the past decade of increasing aggression from Russia.
You don’t have war plans for every crazy situation your analysts and strategists can conceive of because you’re excited to use them. You have them so your state apparatus is prepared and ready to go in an unlikely emergency instead of needing to take the months to years that any large bureaucracy needs to be ready to take action.
> It doesn’t take two partners to start a war, it only takes one and Russia already decided.
Wars are not acts, but the conseuqences of long chains - large graphs - of decisions often lasting decades or more. Wars come from situations where there is no other choice.
The main goal of international relations policy is to create optimal scenarios, to not get caught in a situation where you have bad options or no options. Russia's 'grey zone' actions, including of course online propaganda campaigns (seriously, why wouldn't they?), are trying to create the scenarios that suit Russia best. They are preparing the political ground, and warfare is fundamentally politics (the most widely accepted maxim of warfare - see Clausewitz).
For an example, people emotionally and aggressively advocating for warfare, like on this page, if widespread can set the political ground.
It takes two (or more) to get into that position. It's a game of chess - checkmate isn't the result of one move.
No, because “cooler heads” are advocating for not retaliating. I’d accept the opinion of “cooler heads” if it was things like “we’re not ready yet and need to build up our military before being able to risk active conflict” vs “we should never fight back, war is bad :(“
> Wars are not acts, but the conseuqences of long chains - large graphs - of decisions often lasting decades or more. Wars come from situations where there is no other choice.
I have no idea how that is a response to what I said instead of just waxing poetic. If another nation decides they are at war with your nation, then guess what buddy, you’re at war. Even with your head in the sand.
You don't understand that your comment is incredibly aggressive and insulting? That's ok. You just don't understand that. Might not even be your fault you don't.
As far as I understand, it is totally different case if they find any proof of intent.
That would pass the right message if courts keep refusing to make things right.
Unfortunately too many Western leaders still think that it's possible to negotiate in good faith with Russians. In reality they respect only force, and see European rules based order and "fair play" as weakness. If Baltic states didn't belong to NATO and Finland didn't have such a big army, Russians would be already doing a lot worse things than cutting cables.
Over here in Finland, even during the "good" years between collapse of the Soviet Union and invasion of Crimea, Russian businessmen kept buying property that made absolutely no economic sense, but was located next to critical infrastructure. Better relations between West and Russia were largely an illusion, especially since Putin took over.
You mean like NATO did off the coast of Spain a year ago?
I'm sorry I have no snark-free way to respond to this.
But how hard could it be to get a Cat 395 excavator in there? Dig a little trench and bury it.
Sounds like a weekend project to me. Has someone told the telecoms this?
Geez, how are we so much better at this than the actual engineers?
Edit: to parent comment, I think people missed your joke.