Cable Cutters
Someone has been attempting to sever the undersea communication and natural gas lines on the Baltic Sea floor. Who was it?
The items in question include a natural gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia, and two communications cables: one between Finland and Estonia, and the other between Sweden and Estonia. The attempted sabotage occurred on October 7th and 8th of this year. The Swedish government announced on October 23rd that the incidents were attempted sabotage.
As the report at CEPA has it:
Remarkably, it transpired, two vessels were present above all three pieces of infrastructure each time: the Russian freighter Sevmorput and the Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship Newnew Polar Bear.
What are the odds that a Russian vessel and a Chinese vessel just happen to be floating over the infrastructure in question?
A video clip embedded at the CEPA site includes details about what the investigations have revealed regarding the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline in September of 2022. Some of the vessels identified at all the sites are the same. Some are merely registered in Russia, others are Russian state vessels. They had their tracking beacons shut off whenever they were at the sites, before the sabotage occurred. Their presence was later discovered by analyzing the satellite imagery over the period.
Western media have covered the incidents with a typically even-handed approach, giving similar benefit of the doubt and skepticism towards Western and Russian officialdom. It’s the sort of even-handedness also seen in the recent events in Israel, where the statements from terrorist organizations like Hamas are treated as equally valid and believable as statement from Israeli government officials.
Western media outlets often make themselves unwitting supporters of so-called international bad actors when they try to view a conflict from both sides. In treating both sides as equal, they imply a level of transparency and accountability to authoritarian, police-state, and criminal organizations that doesn’t exist. While it is fine to regard Western government sources with a degree of skepticism because of those sources’ interest in covering up their own errors and misdeeds, the interest of hostile governments in concealing their military misdeeds goes unremarked.
With a bit more skepticism, it would appear that hostile governments are actually testing the defenses of our allies—and by extension—of us. The use of such “grey zone” sabotage merits greater public attention. Our adversaries are trying to detect weak spots that would be useful in a war. But instead of taking heed, we continue to pretend that we don’t need to pay any attention to the outside world, as if nothing of any relevance to us ever happens there.
Breaking news: TD replied to my report and email and said my friend Pat Riot has had his/her commenting privileges revoked for a few months. Good to know that freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.
It feels like it’s coming at us from all sides lately. The news media has been worse than ever in its coverage, and thank goodness there are other resources. However, it really is up to us to stay vigilant, and question everything. Phil has probably provided a link from John M to the NYT piece by David French. It’s a very interesting read.
It’s suddenly gotten quite cold in Wisconsin. It was only 27 this morning!!! That’s too soon. The farrier is coming tomorrow to pull the shoes off the horses, and trim their hooves. It’s going to be a high of 35. Thank goodness Richard can be the one to hang out in the barn; I’d just be standing there, shivering. If we’re lucky, the horses will last until the end of February or early March before they need to be trimmed again.
And, thanks for recommending Acorn—nice to listen to some English accents, and watch some good British mysteries.