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Finland stops Russia-linked vessel over damaged undersea power cable in Baltic Sea (apnews.com)

submitted 2 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Archived version

Finnish authorities have detained a Russia-linked ship as they investigate whether it damaged a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables, according to police and news media reports, in the latest incident involving disruption of key infrastructure.

Finnish police and border guards boarded the vessel, the Eagle S, early Thursday and took over the command bridge, Helsinki Police Chief Jari Liukku said at a news conference. The vessel was being held in Finnish territorial waters, police said.

The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands, but was described by Finnish customs officials as a suspected part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers, Yle television reported. Those are aging vessels with obscure ownership, acquired to evade Western sanctions amid the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.

[...]

Estonia’s government was holding a extraordinary meeting on the issue Thursday, Prime Minister Kristen Michal said on X. Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said she was in close touch with Michal and Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo.

“Our armed forces have strengthened surveillance and are monitoring the situation,” she said on X. “The Baltic states currently have sufficient energy production capacity, although we are challenged by the Baltic Sea cable incidents.”

[...]

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 10 points 2 months ago

What's so weird about all of this is how strange and passive-aggressive it is.

If we're assuming that Russia did, in fact, do this: You're not going to cause any major long-term problem by cutting one power cable. It's just annoying. It's like China spraying water cannons and firing signal flares at "enemy" navy boats. It's like, "You better let me do what I want, or I'll bug you, and you'll have to put in some overtime repairing some minor stuff that I did! And you can't stop me!"

If you want to war, war. If you want to get with the program and stop killing Ukrainians, you can have your assets back and start to trade again. Don't try to tread this middle ground where you're showing the awesome might of the Russian military machine by assaulting an undersea cable, threatening to escalate to bombing trees and sabotaging all Finland's saltshakers if they don't start trembling before you.

[–] sepi@piefed.social 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is the captain russian? Can he swim? Let him swim back to St Petersburg. The russians don't learn if you act reasonably towards them.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago

"The Russians" don't give a shit about this one captain. Nobody except the captain will learn anything from that, and he'll be dead so it still won't accomplish anything.

Reinforce Ukraine. Send troops and more material support. Russia is being run by a dictator, and there's only one way to deal with those. That goes for all dictators, including ones in the Western hemisphere.

[–] Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is also four broken data cables.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 5 points 1 month ago

And multiple cases of sabotage, assassinations & attempted assassinations on NATO soil, along with all the disinformation campaigns. Russia is making a fool out of the West, which cannot find a proper response to this form of hybrid warfare. Everyone's too scared of their nukes, allowing Russia to move all the red lines further and further. They should turn the whole Baltic Sea into a NATO lake and blockade the couple Russian ports.