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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

(www.cnn.com)
577 points mooreds | 5 comments | 18 Nov 24 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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staplung ◴[18 Nov 24 20:22 UTC] No.42176496[source]▶
It's worth mentioning that cable breakages happen quite often; globally about 200 times per year [1] and the article itself mentions that just last year, two other cables and a gas pipeline were taken out by an anchor. The Gulf of Finland is evidently quite shallow. From what I understand, cable repair ships are likely to use ROVs for parts of repair jobs but only when the water is shallow so hopefully they can figure out whether the damage looks like sabotage before they sever the cable to repair it. Of course, if you're a bad actor and want plausible deniability, maybe you'd make it look like anchor damage or, deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables.

Cable repairs are certainly annoying and for the operator of the cable, expensive. However, they are usually repaired relatively quickly. I'd be more worried if many more cables were severed at the same time. If you're only going to break one or two a year, you might as well not bother.

1: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea...

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Etheryte ◴[18 Nov 24 22:38 UTC] No.42177868[source]▶
This is a misleading framing. The two cables last year were not taken out by an anchor as an accident, it was literally a ship putting down its anchor just before the cable and then dragging it over the cable. In other words, sabotage. There's no point in trying to color any of this with rose tinted glasses when it's clear who's done it and why.
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stoperaticless ◴[19 Nov 24 10:38 UTC] No.42181978[source]▶
Well, you never know 100%. There is a small (really small) chance it was an accident. Just like there is a small chance that Al Capone was innocent man.

(But really, it clearly has “Russia” written all over it)

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pelasaco ◴[19 Nov 24 11:03 UTC] No.42182151[source]▶
just to be honest, the Pipelines explosion, had "Russia" written all over it, except after investigation, and a possible culprit, i.e not Russia, then nobody wanted to discuss about it anymore. I think the hysteria is too high, people are thirsty for War, looks like..
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oneshtein ◴[19 Nov 24 11:53 UTC] No.42182451[source]▶
Delivery of Russian gas was stopped by Russia in violation of contract. European gas companies demands $20 billion in compensation. Nobody had incentive to blow up empty pipes except Russia.

Of course, Russians used false flag as usual, to blame Ukraine, but Ukraine doesn't hide successful attacks on Russian infrastructure, because Ukraine has legal right to defend itself.

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1. aa-jv ◴[19 Nov 24 14:32 UTC] No.42183833[source]▶
>Nobody had incentive to blow up empty pipes except Russia.

Nonsense. Biden had a great deal of incentive to destroy that pipeline.

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2. oneshtein ◴[19 Nov 24 15:06 UTC] No.42184190[source]▶
LOL Biden has no balls to do that.
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3. aguaviva ◴[19 Nov 24 17:09 UTC] No.42185712[source]▶
Biden had a great deal of incentive to destroy that pipeline.

But far too many more obvious counterincentives.

Unlike the Ukrainians, NATO/US were smart enough to see that blowing up NS2 would be hugely stupid, providing precisely zero strategic advantage while simply provoking Russia to respond assymetrically (in exactly the same way as it is apparently doing right now). In addition to the huge methane release.

So if anything, the standpoint of "incentives" points squarely in the opposite direction (that is, against the idea that the US/NATO must have done it).

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4. aa-jv ◴[21 Nov 24 09:27 UTC] No.42202531[source]▶
Your belief in the infallible nobility of NATO belies a vested interest in ignoring its massive, undeniable war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of human rights at massive scale, as an organization, this century.

>Unlike the Ukrainians, NATO/US were smart enough

I do not concur with this glib assessment one bit.

5. aa-jv ◴[21 Nov 24 09:28 UTC] No.42202537[source]▶
Had. NS2 was almost two years ago. Your current Biden assessment may be correct, but two years ago there was a great deal more lucidity, when he stated that "no matter what, the NS2 pipeline will not be allowed to persist" ..