My guess on why they do this: It's a cheap way to distract us from focusing our investments into Ukraine. If we think they they could strike anywhere we're less likely to focus our efforts.
It probably has the long term cost of making us more willing to invest in defence though.
No one is really going to invest (financially) in Ukraine while there's a shooting war going on. These Russian attacks on European infrastructure targets (including other means like arson) are more intended to discourage foreign aid and political support for Ukraine. Essentially Russia is signaling that they can make the conflict more expensive for everyone. Hopefully it won't work.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Invest as in investing in Ukraine's ability to defend itself so that we don't need to invest as much on our own defence.
Investing in Ukraine's ability to deal with Russia is clearly the most economical way to deal with Russia for everyone else. Hence they want to distract us from that.
Yeah, in the way I can invest in a new GPU for my gaming computer.
Paying military subcontractors is not putting resources into improving the military, it's spending. Be it bombing a country for no profit (like Afghanistan), for resources (like Irak), or geopolitics gain (like Syria/Ukraine), it's an expense, not an inversion. The military will not get ROI from oil or geopolitics.
"What is hybrid warfare? – Kilcullen's theory about liminal maneuver"
by
"Anders Puck Nielsen, an officer and military analyst at the Danish Defence Academy, specializes in Russia, Ukraine, and maritime operations."
It's electronic signals warfare. Depriving your opposition of power or communications destabilises command structures.
Now you might say "...but these cables are so low value", but these are easy targets that reduce the resilience of the Baltic states. Any more conventional attack would now be more effective because they've taken the backups out first.
The ones under the Baltic (with the exception of some islands) are not 'critical', as in they're used for reasons (cost, latency, directness), but those reasons are not b/c there's no other way to connect to the Internet.
But cutting a few of them doesn’t mean the transactions don’t happen, they’re just slightly delayed, so you can’t count the full value of those transactions as a loss.
To adapt the old saying, the internet interprets cut cables as unreachable intermediate nodes and routes around them.
It could also be a distraction from them cutting and inserting their equipment somewhere else along the line. Dunno how detailed the monitoring is of these cables, but visibly cutting it one place would apparently give them two weeks to play around along that cable.
Or they're just being bullies, or testing willingness to defend. At this point, I'd assume it's some type of aggression, at least. Unless cables have been cut all the time, but now suddenly it's becoming headlines for political reasons...
If we're talking about the Chinese state, I'd say it's viable. Perhaps not breaking AES 256 outright, but screwed up implementations of cryptography. And perhaps even backdoors.
Yes, it's garnered a ton of attention on the shadow fleet carting oil around. It's counterproductive for Russia to fund this kind of guerilla vandalism.
Hopefully Europe got the message and will start arresting and prosecuting the sailors who damage these cables. Europe should impound the vessels as well. Before soon Russia and China will run out sailors and vessels.
This is the second such incident in a row that we know where the sailors and the vessels have been seized. Hope Europe will keep doing the same for future sabotages.
By all means seize the vessels. But most of the sailors on the Russian shadow merchant fleet are actually citizens of neutral countries. Russia might have paid off the master or something but prosecuting random seamen who were following legal orders to drop an anchor or whatever would be cruel and ineffective. Give them a hot meal and deport them.
I think if the sailors are not arrested then other sailors will be enticed by higher than average wages to join these vessels. I feel like the sailors knew what they signed up for. At the very least arrest the captain and onboard officers.
PS. This situation reminds me of a presentation at my former company by some lawyers who sued US Government on behalf of some Gitmo inmates. The inmates survived an attack by US forces in the middle of Afganistan and then were arrested. The inmates' legal case (as per lawyers) was they did not know what cargo they transported - and yet they were paid 3-4 times the usual amount for transport cargo in combat region almost deserted by civilians. I am not convinced these inmates were 100% innocent....
Russia's ASAT capabilities are still very limited. They can do localized jamming from ground stations but haven't developed kinetic weapons anywhere close to China's.
Though really it's always been Russia vs the west since the west including the EU started sending billions in aid and weapons to Ukraine. I guess it's expanded a bit with Iran and N Korea helping the Russian side. Against that Russia has lost a lot of gear. They can't really threaten to roll tanks into Europe any more because Ukraine has destroyed most of them.
Not a single deescalating signal in sight. Power dynamics has evolved a lot in recent two years with many aggressors. America turned into dynastic oligarchy like Russia 20 years ago, Russia turned into Mongol Empire. Yup.
Putin threw the dice a bit too many times, got too brazen, and is now locked in a situation he can't get out of. End the war, and Russia will collapse as there's no war to employ people, or give everyone a foreign bogeyman. Don't end the war, the economy might still collapse but at least it will take longer and you might not live long enough to see it.
It’ll be a pyrrhic victory at best. They’ll take control of a devastated area of a poor country that was worse off than them in every economically relevant sense before the war. Any oil or gas they might get control of, Europe will be less interested in buying. Their military will be so degraded that they might face a series of rebellions in their border regions in the next decade — and will be unable to stop. Their loss of male manpower especially is a slow but sure death-blow to their economy over the next couple of decades.
Even if they rolled through Kiev with tanks tomorrow, the future for the typical Russian looks bleak.
(My prediction is that just like other countries with bad demographics, Russia will require mass-immigration in the near future to avoid collapse. This will dilute their national identity, weaken central control, cause internal strife, etc… Also, if you’re a poor Asian worker looking for a country to move to, would you rather choose South Korea or rural Russia?)
Oil and gas are the last thing that comes to mind when thinking about resources of that region. Coal, agriculture, manufacturing…
> Their military will be so degraded
Russian army is currently stronger than before the war. There’s ongoing purge in ministry of defense to clean the ranks from corruption, they learned a lot and invested a lot in military industrial complex. The casualties are high, mostly among fresh recruits, but also a lot of professional military personnel got plenty of experience. It will be wrong to dismiss it.
> that they might face a series of rebellions in their border regions in the next decade
Absolutely not. Situation in politics is very stable now and there’s no path leading to such destabilization.
>Also, if you’re a poor Asian worker looking for a country to move to, would you rather choose South Korea or rural Russia?
Central Asian workers did well and will be fine in construction, hospitality and few other sectors in Russia where they historically filled significant numbers of jobs. They are scared now, but as the war ends, incentive to return will be high. Biggest Russian advantage here over South Korea is cultural proximity, shared language and established travel routes.
You can't farm in soil that's filled with landmines, unexploded ordinance, and various shrapnel metals. Just ask how productive the fields of Verdun are.
Ukraine wasn't exactly a manufacturing powerhouse before the war, and Russia nearly levelled a big chunk of it, such as the Azovstal steel plant.
> Russian army is currently stronger than before the war.
Have you not watched /r/combatfootage recently? They're doing suicide-runs with golf buggies. They've completely run out of entire categories of armoured vehicles. They might have more meat left for the grinder, but they're forced to buy shells from North Korea!
> It will be wrong to dismiss it.
Oh sure, they retain a lot of strength on paper, but we've all seen what that paper is worth over the last three days... err... years.
> very stable now and there’s no path leading to such destabilization.
“How did you go bankrupt?” The other responds, “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
> They are scared now
"Everything is fine" != "They are scared".
> incentive to return will be high
What incentive? The Ruble is going to lose a lot of its value when the Russian government can no longer afford to artificially prop it up. People don't like being paid in turnips and promises.
> South Korea is cultural proximity, shared language and established travel routes.
Sure, maybe, but would you rather work in an air-conditioned robotics factory that looks like a clean-room and getting paid in hard currency or cutting lumber in Siberia and getting paid in Rubles?
>Coal usage is leveling off and might even start going backwards over the next decade...
Coal is phased out as energy source, but it is used in steel production. There's some local demand for it, but nevermind, you are right, economically it may be already irrelevant. My point was, your mentioning of oil and gas was not based on the knowledge of economic geography of this region.
>Ukraine wasn't exactly a manufacturing powerhouse before the war, and Russia nearly levelled a big chunk of it, such as the Azovstal steel plant.
Speaking of which, you are certainly not aware that there's a property boom in Mariupol right now, thanks to 2% mortgages subsidized by government (that's basically free money). In peaceful times it will be incredibly attractive for investment for many reasons. Reconstruction jobs will last for a while and the example outcome of such spending you can see in the skyline of modern Grozny. It's more likely than in Chechnya that the economy of this region may actually produce some surplus within 10-15 years due to a different governance model. In Ukraine it would be an economic powerhouse too, but it is wrong to think that Russia has ruined it forever.
>Just ask how productive the fields of Verdun are.
There's nothing even remotely comparable to Verdun in Ukraine. The same region was a battlefield in WWII and civil war, it did not make it lifeless. Cleaning and reconstruction effort will take some time, but Russia does have resources for that.
>Have you not watched /r/combatfootage recently?
Of course not. I can work with native sources in Ukrainian and Russian on both sides of the conflict that give me a full picture, not just drone videos.
> but they're forced to buy shells from North Korea!
Taken out of context this means nothing. Russia is currently producing 3 times more shells than entire NATO combined. They were much more efficient in increasing production than supposedly economically superior Western countries. They buy extra from North Korea due to the intensity of the conflict. The same can be said about many other types of equipment (drone production increasing even ahead of schedule).
> The Ruble is going to lose a lot of its value when the Russian government can no longer afford to artificially prop it up. People don't like being paid in turnips and promises.
Wrong assumption. There exists scarcity of the workforce in Russia, so salaries in non-government sector are rising too. As a matter of fact, the war reduced inequality for the first time in many years, thanks to visibly higher incomes of working class. For migrants, who send the money abroad this only means that they should not save in rubles and use less volatile currency. Yuan is already popular in Russia.
> Sure, maybe, but would you rather work in an air-conditioned robotics factory that looks like a clean-room and getting paid in hard currency or cutting lumber in Siberia and getting paid in Rubles?
Reality is not how you imagine it. First of all, many Siberian and Arctic jobs are paid better and are often taken by Russians. Most Central Asian immigrants go to European part of Russia and a few big cities in Asian part. It's mostly a hard work, for sure, but assumption that they will get anything better in Korea or anywhere else in South Asia is surely wrong. Nobody is going to hire a guy from Tajikistan who does not speak Korean and has no idea what to do on an air-conditioned robotics factory. He will be doing the same type of the job as in Russia but with less social security, no support from diaspora, much harder visa process etc. It's basically an ignorant fantasy that they might have gone to Korea. It does not work that way.
> Russia will require mass-immigration in the near future to avoid collapse.
Russia's male military-age population is under 12 million, and maybe 800,000 have been killed or seriously injured so far. The solution Russia is trying: "Pregnant at 16", a reality TV show, to encourage young women to get pregnant.[1] They need fresh meat for the grinder.
They've been sacrificing less-than-ideal workers, such as the over-40s, the less educated from rural regions, and prisoners. The numbers of young men are dropping only indirectly, because they emigrated to escape potential conscription, or just escaping Russia in general. This brain-drain is going to kneecap their economy.
Demographic analysis in a modern sense is irrelevant for Russia. They will need to introduce something resembling feudal slavery and suck people out from former Soviet Union republics.
It's kind of sad really. Here's video of some of their troops being sent to attack on crutches, presumably either because they are short of soldiers or Putin would just prefer them dead to returning wounded. https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1i6w20y/elite_russ...
It is not that they are winning territory, they gain power over EU.
If they win, EU politically will be destroyed as half of Europe will seek protection by agreeing to whoever promise it, while US withdrawing from all its obligations.
It is really may be a new order when everyone is on themselves.
> If they win, EU politically will be destroyed as half of Europe will seek protection by agreeing to whoever promise it, while US withdrawing from all its obligations.
All of the countries formerly occupied by Russia are seeking protection from Russia. There's no scenario where they'd turn toward it for protection, no matter whether US withdraws from European obligations.
I agree that the US might withdraw (under Trump), but the EU can defend itself. It spends EUR 330 billion on defense, way more than Russia. It has more people. It can build nuclear weapons on demand.
I think all the statements that the EU "is freeloading" on the US are not factual. The US spends more than the EU because it has a nuclear arsenal (forbidden for many EU countries) and regularly engages in hegemonic wars like in the second Iraq war or in Afghanistan.
If the US withdraws its forces from the EU, Poland alone could stop a Russian invasion, not to mention a two front war with Finland involved.
I blame the EU politicians for not responding with more confidence and concrete examples like the above to Trump's recent statements. Trump has no cards to play. If he leaves, good riddance. If he threatens 50% tariffs, block Google, Meta, Amazon, X and Tesla. This is the language he understands.
> I think all the statements that the EU "is freeloading" on the US are not factual.
But they are. Germany's Minister of Defence recently admitted that Bundeswehr is in such sorry state that "pretty much anyone could defeat it". They have tanks, but those tanks are not even operational, because they are not maintained. Same goes for other types of equipment, and other EU countries.
War in Ukraine was a wake-up call, but it will take at least a decade for EU to be able to defend themselves without US help.
Germany has a higher budget than Poland. Apparently Poland is able to keep 1000 tanks operational. Germany/von der Leyen made the mistake to use McKinsey as consultants for the army. McKinsey can leave Germany, too.
They have something like 2,500 tanks. The mechanical failure rate of heavy armoured vehicles is very high, of all models, in all militaries. Look up the maintenance hours per flight hour of a fighter jet!
> Apparently Poland is able to keep 1000 tanks operational.
We did have close to 750 operational tanks before 2022, but I think around 300 of them were given to Ukraine when the war started. We are now slowly replacing them with M1 Abrams and Korean's K2.
> Apparently Poland is able to keep 1000 tanks operational.
Polish army is nepotist institution with budget being spent on things like 40 years old retirees. Any equipment numbers reported by them to be multiplied by 0.6 or even 0.4.
EU will only be able to defend itself if it stays united, which is not a given in the future.
There is no guarantee that part of the EU will decide not to block any joint military action for either fear of retaliation from russia or because of separate peace agreements with it.
You can see that right now US incites division in multiple ways: Musk in Germany, Republicans in UK, Trump in Denmark.
These are all coordinated attacks with the same strategic goals.
The Polish "elite" has portfolio of real estates located from Spain to Dubai. The Russian invasion would be meatgrinder of youngish non rich male population as in Ukraine.
All of this is irrelevant. Putin needs domestic victory and if he can save his face in the end, then it was all worth it. Whether their military still stands is irrelevant too, because they have nukes.
That's debatable. Russia has lost most of its good troops, much of its soviet guns and ammo and is now having to turn to N Korea of all places to bail it out. Plus ever more industrial stuff in Russia is blowing up from Ukrainian drones. In Syria and Afghanistan they looked like they were doing ok until they collapsed. I'm not sure when they last won a major war without US backing?
I’m not sure where I heard this phrase but I love it so much: being a dictator is like riding a wolf by the ears, the only thing more terrifying than continuing to hold on is letting go.
Most of the search results I turn up attribute it to Thomas Jefferson. A similar quote, "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers from which they dare not dismount." is attributed to Winston Churchill, but apparently his quote derives from even older sayings from China (… he who rides a tiger cannot dismount …, … to bind a tiger is easy, the trouble is to let him loose …, etc). "The More You Know" ~ PSA jingle sounds ~ :)
China is partnering closely with Russia and will help support their economy, perhaps in exchange for sensitive tech like hypersonic missiles or jet engines or whatever. They may also negotiate a purchase of Russian territory, on the east, in a worst case scenario for the US.
Unemployment in Russia was historically low for many years before the war and the war is now suffocating Russian economy, not boosting it, by draining resources, scaring immigrants and flooding the economy with cheap money — inflation and interest rates are very high. As soon as war stops, there will be temporary recession, but it will recover same way as it happened several times before in previous crises. Currently there’s no way for the West to bend Russia to Ukrainian terms: the time is against Ukraine more than against Russia. The war will end on favorable terms to Putin, his power stronger than ever.
>Currently there’s no way for the West to bend Russia to Ukrainian terms
The West has been pretty wishy washy on blocking Russian oil sales. That could change.
Trump is just itching to have a tariff war and tariffs/sanctions on any country buying Russian oil, including India and China could cause problems for Russia with it being their main source of income and their being a bit on the edge financially already.
I think what Trump has done to Colombia is not reproducible at scale and he won't use the same approach against China or India for wrong reason (war in Ukraine is an unworthy problem in "America first" mindset).
Monroe doctrine may be still alive, but re-alignment is going to happen everywhere now and further sanctions will have less and less effect because of that most of all.
I do think that the West has lost this war in 2023, when Biden and northwest of Europe were sleeping and ignoring the signs. This happened not least because the West does not actually care about Ukraine, it's pure moral standing with zero strategic interest. I mean, Poland may believe that Ukraine is a good buffer and Baltics may believe that Ukraine is a good distraction, but what makes them safe is that they do enjoy Article 5 protection and Russia will not test that for wrong reason.
I just watched Anders Puck Nielsen latest and he thinks both sides think they are winning - Putin because he's taking territory and the Ukrainians because they think Russia's economy will collapse. Time will tell I guess
re "the West does not actually care about Ukraine", I think they care about the principle that you should be able to go about your business without getting invaded more than about Ukraine specifically. It's like if someone gets mugged in your town - you may not care that much about the specific victim but you care about the principle that the muggers don't get away with it.
Yeah, some part of Western political elites does care about it, sometimes dogmatically. However it is applied selectively and with plenty of excuses - a moral standing, but not a moral standard. And it has quite low priority compared to vital national interests or even internal politics.
Western Europe and Germany in particular are like Sméagol thinking about cheap Russian gas, and they dreamed about ending the war ASAP since 2022, because without cheap gas leverage their economy will sink.
Also a political crisis in EU is inevitable: similar change as it happened in the US now, but a lot more violent (as usual in Europe history).
Extending the war seems to be the current plan for Putin.
Once German and Polish markets for Russian gas disappeared, smaller players immediately grabbed the opportunity. For Orban and Fico cheap Russian gas means absolute lifetime power in Hungary and in Slovakia.
Seems a bit unfair. Trump was clearly elected and not part of a long line of Bush/Clintons + friends. Also his main plan is to stop the fighting, perhaps by being economically aggressive but that's a step back from killing people.
My reading of article 19 of UNCLOS says Denmark and/or Sweden can't place a new universal insurance requirement for innocent passage, because it is not on the list of activities which are "prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State."
Article 235 says there can be 'procedures for payment of adequate compensation, such as compulsory insurance or compensation funds' for 'the protection and preservation of the marine environment' but that's the only mention of insurance I see.
I don't think an insurance company would pay out for deliberate acts of sabotage.
It's all to easy to set up an insurance company which would go bankrupt in that case, requiring oversight.
Clearly of Denmark were to set up the only insurance company which could meet all the criteria, then we are back to having Sound Dues.
If Trump goes through with his Greenland annexation Denmark might want to block US vessels.
It is a pity that the EU would have to fight a two front war against Russia and the US after the US has started the eastern front part (as acknowledged by Trump himself).
The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 does not include warships.
The Danish Royal Ordinance of 27 Feb 1976, amended in 1999 by the Ordinance Governing the Admission of Foreign Warships and Military Aircraft to Danish
Territory in Time of Peace, only allows passage during times of peace, and is specific that "Other vessels which are owned or used by a foreign State and which are not employed exclusively for commercial purposes shall be equated with foreign warships in the application of the provisions of this Ordinance."
Trump is definitely not "just shooting off his mouth" and is dead serious. Whether he’ll do it is another question, but a lot of damage is already done. In the long term, the US have a lot of potential to be very damaging as well. Europe is between a rock and a hard place and its prosperity will depend on the risk assessments that were made in the recent past and that are being made now.
There are some wriggle room here. The rights provided by the UN do have conditions, like protection of undersea cables. If a country do not enforce such protection, they could in theory loose the right associated with international waters. Insurance requirements could in this theory be used to codify compliance with the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Maritime law is definitely not my forte, but I think the convention was related to the tolls imposed to pass through these waters (Sweden's Gota Kanal was built to bypass this). It's also related to "innocent passage", which may not be so innocent in this case. Either way, there are probably provisions here for Denmark to close this off, as ultimately they are Danish waters.
Denmark can put some constraints for ships passing the straits. They are danish water. So the Baltic is special in that you can’t reach it on international water. Similar to the Black Sea. But these restrictions are codified in existing agreements so I don’t think Denmark could easily and unilaterally change them to include more conditions. But they could start enforcing ships following the existing requirements for environmental safety and insurance. It would make life pretty difficult for those shipping oil past the sanctions in rusty single hull tankers.
These cables are on the sea floor right? I imagine you have to try in other to damage them. At least, damage them as frequently as it's being done recently
There is no doubt in my mind that these incidents are done with intent. My understanding is that these ships are essentially dragging their anchor across the seabed in vulnerable areas, causing the cables to snap.
If one wanted to play devil's advocate, you could argue that an anchor malfunction could be to blame, but that doesn't explain why the captain didn't then stop the vessel, why they didn't divert to a safe course.
> How? Open water diver is 18m, advanced Open water diver is 30m. With „deep diver“ specialty, you’re at 40m.
Correct. Those are the limits of those certifications.
> I think you need to become an instructor to go deeper, that’s not the 2nd easiest qualification at all.
In order to go down to deeper depths and returning you generally need a technical or professional certification. Anyone can go to any depth, as long they don't expect a reasonable chance to get back to the surface alive.
PADI open circuit technical course go down to 50 but there are other agencies for technical diving with a bit better reputation, and those generally max out at 100.
Most people who are trained for 80+ depth usually do so on a rebreather. Padi do have a 100m course for that. However with rebreathers, students mostly look towards specific instructors and not agencies. What agency a instructor uses is generally much less important than that you trust the instructor.
I think PADI doesn't even go that far, it is predominantly a leisure diving organization. Their technical diving courses seem to end at 50m. Not really related to instructor courses either, a regular instructor typically has no need to go beyond 30m.
Diving to 80m is a serious endeavor on this scale.
80m is moderately serious. I've personally done 75m in the Atlantic and I wouldn't say I'm superhuman or anything (or military).
It requires helium mixes and personally I'd only want to do it with a rebreather, not normal "blowing-bubbles" type SCUBA gear (too wasteful on the breathing gas). 20-30 minutes at the bottom will mean around 90-120 minutes decompressing. You don't want to be doing anything taking too long, or being too laborious.
Could be done from a fishing boat without any problem.
Yes, it's very doable given the right training. But it's not really an extension of what a typical "PADI diver" might do, is what I meant.
Having had equipment failures no deeper than 30m, I decided any dives that require decompression are not for me. I'll leave deep dives and sabotage to others :)
You know, I never dove but I always wonder, why do deep divers not breathe a nitrogen-free atmosphere before they dive to flush out the nitrogen? I understand astronauts do this too (they breathe pure oxygen but at a lower pressure so it's not dangerous). And because this a sudden pressure drop won't give them the bends.
It would seem simple, being able to deep dive then without decompressing. I'm sure there's a good reason it's not being done, I just wonder what.
I think what you breathe pre-dive is almost irrelevant. The real kicker is what you breathe during the dive, and that's always going to be gas under pressure. The levels of gas in your blood go up very quickly. Recreational divers can only afford ~10-20 minutes at 30m depths before they need to decompress. And that doesn't even count as "deep".
You can't breathe pure oxygen under water, as it becomes very toxic very quickly as pressure goes up. So you have to dilute it with something. Nitrogen is easy to get hold of (actually you just compress atmospheric air). I'm also not sure cutting nitrogen out helps much with decompression sickness, you get it with other gases too - maybe more slowly, I'm not sure.
You can, and do, replace nitrogen with other gases, mostly helium (and in rare circumstances, hydrogen), but for other reasons. Nitrogen too becomes toxic under pressure, around the 30-40m mark, with symptoms similar to drunkenness - not good under water.
Funnily enough, helium does the same deeper down, except the symptoms there are the opposite - nervousness, tension etc. So to some extent perhaps these two balance out. Hydrogen has very low toxicity, but for some reason people feel queasy about mixing pure hydrogen and oxygen.
Crucially, too, a lot of deep diving is commercial in nature, and cost-sensitive. Anything that isn't just compressed and bottled air is getting very expensive very quickly.
It all gets incredibly complicated. Deep enough, you need to breathe gas that contains so little oxygen that you would suffocate on it at surface pressure. At pressure, it's fine - the partial pressure of oxygen is sufficient, and having less of it makes it less toxic. But you have to be careful to only use this gas deep enough, else you'll run out of oxygen. Or at other times, when decompressing, you might use an oxygen-rich mix, which while more toxic, helps you purge some of the other gases from your bloodstream, cutting decompression times.
It's a fascinating topic to read about from the comfort of my sofa.
Might work for technical divers but regular leisure divers use compressed air which contains nitrogen anyways. If you prebreathe pure oxygen and then begin the dive using regular air, you will reaccumulate the nitrogen pretty quickly, I think, so you will need to decompress like normal. And you can't dive with pure oxygen because it becomes toxic when going lower than about 6m due to the high partial pressure.
Also, you would need to have pure oxygen available and breathe that for maybe an hour before each dive, which would be expensive and annoying. For touristic dives, especially along the shore, it's easier to just plan the dive so you can still see something interesting while waiting for decompression.
How much value is a vessel itself + the cargo its carrying overall? And how much is that relative to the the cost of repairing all the physical damage alone(Not including other damage). Would it be useful measure to seizure the vessel and use its value to compensate for its damage done, making it a deterrence?
Since these cables are repaired within days or up to 2 weeks it seems, it can’t cost a fortune. A reasonably sized ship sounds like it would pay for it easily.
Especially as authorities seem to have trouble finding those responsible. Tracing the owner of the ship leads to some hotel in Dubai or similar (previous incident). Just keep the ship until the owners call. If there seems to be no owner interested in taking responsibility, sell it.
And we should start enforcing the requirement for insurance and environmental compliance for any passing the danish straits to/from Russian ports. Any ship that isn’t up to standard can turn back to the Atlantic.
A better deterrence would be for Europe to actually stop buying fossil fuel from Russia (including indirectly via neutral countries) instead of goofing around with price caps or other marginally effective sanctions.
I don’t think we’ll want to be in a war of escalating service-denial with a country full of people used to not having indoor plumbing. Seems like we’d suffer more.
What's the chance of requiring some sort of status transponders on anchors ? Spend the 50k$ to install one or GTFO of the Baltic. Sell it as a commonsense measure and apply it to traffic to/from Russia too by enforcing it at the Skagerrak.
I think you are strengthening the point of the parent poster. It was called hybrid walfare as long as someone else was suspected and was no longer called that after it became known who did it.
Yeah, because the west isn’t at war with Ukraine, so it can’t be a hybrid war. If there’s an explosion in a Mall and I say „it could have been terrorism“ and it turns out to be a gas leak, is it wrong if I don’t call it terrorism anymore?
It’s not hybrid warfare if it’s done by Ukraine, more like regular sabotage.
Indeed, you are right, but the analogy is not perfect. More like you first say it could have been terrorism and it turns out that it was one of the shopkeepers who did it and then it is not clear what to call it.
It's not all words, they seized the ship and are taking it back to a Swedish port.
I'm not sure how you stop this from happening besides build a record of handling these incidents with firmness, as opposed to acting like a wet noodle, as they did the first couple of times it happened.
Unfortunately and by industry standard, a ship's owner and operator are often obsfuscated under multiple layers.
It's about as easy to figure out who actually owns and is operating a ship as tracing an international bank account ~1980.
It'll be curious if one outcome of the Russian shadow fleets is a stronger worldwide push for verifiable true commercial maritime registration. Essentially: mandating transparency in shells and KYC reporting, in the same way post-9/11 financial reporting was implemented.
Improved transparency is already the direction of travel, but pushing back on that is part of "Project 2025" and Trump has signalled that's an important objective.
This article is complete nonsense. It claims unnamed people involved in the investigation think it's accidents, yet many people involved in the investigation and willing to be named claim it was definitely intentional.
You’d need to provide more information regarding why you think balance is needed, and why you think an oligarch’s mouthpiece is more balanced than a public service.
https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/2025/...
> A vessel suspected of carrying out the [suspected] sabotage has been seized following a decision by prosecutors.