
You know, bad weather can sink bad ships
Especially if they are hit by a torpedo from a sub in bad weather. Just saying.
Swedish authorities have "seized" a vessel – believed to be the cargo ship Vezhen – "suspected of carrying out sabotage" after a cable running between Sweden and Latvia in the Baltic Sea was damaged on the morning of January 26. The cable runs between the Latvian town of Ventspils and Sweden's Gotland island and belongs to the …
Shooting a boat, several of which have been found to be merely incompetent than malicious, and killing all on board is a bit drastic just because your cable in international waters was sliced a little.
What you do is not just leave a cable on the sea-bed and presume it'll work forever, but instead guard it (e.g. robot sub idea as per the article) and then you can just watch anyone who goes near it and seize the vessel if they're not competent or are being malicious.
There aren't enough undersea cables to worry about and a single military ship could just do that and nothing else - especially as they are incredibly important cables.
That nobody has been protecting their cables up until now and we've all only just thought of it (and they haven't done it to other countries or the ones that cross the Pacific and Atlantic) kind of tells you that it's more of a problem that you're not guarding it, and less a problem of having a cable in the ocean generally.
There aren't enough undersea cables to worry about and a single military ship could just do that and nothing else
Really? There are something approaching a million miles worth of cables and pipes criss-crossing ocean floors worldwide. Of course with considerable effort and expense the ones in the Baltic could be better protected than they are now but even within that limited area watching every bit of infrastructure sufficiently to pre-empt attacks is clearly infeasible without drastic and inflammatory forced changes to centuries old international shipping laws. And then the attacks will just migrate to less well monitored areas (calling it now).
For Russia one 'ageing and poorly maintained vessel' traded for a cable out of action for months plus the distraction and resource commitment of NATO's response is presumably a very good deal. What needs to happen is to gather enough evidence to trace the attacks up the chain of command followed by some kind of proportionate response that greatly increases the cost beyond impounded vessels. Assuming is it the Kremlin ordering them, then sadly a lot of the potential proportionate responses have been used up already so hopefully somebody is able to get creative and we don't end up with NATO cruise missiles bombarding Russia oilfields or something similarly dangerous.
Right? and if you want to just wantonly blow them up.. I bet the second one you do is full of the worst toxic waste and maybe even radioactive waste. That will be next anyways I assume; not only do you ditch the more expensive to scrap than build ship.. you can get rid of some bad shit and really snowball that cost for the scandinavians.
but a small shaped explosive charge on the hull, that is made to look like an internal bang is easy to do for some nations and fixes a lot of problems, while allow safe evacuation of the crew and if it doesn't sink, an empty ship in international waters becomes legal salvage !!
"a small shaped explosive charge .... fixes a lot of problems"
It might be worth considering that sinking a ship full of oil within a relatively small body of water surrounded by the precious coastlines of your allies may create more problems than it solves.
For the same reason, I have refrained from proposing that the number of "shadow fleet" ships that just happen to get mysterious fishing-nets and ropes entangled in their propellors should see a tragic and unfortunate rise. It is a nice day-dream, but the real world consequences should be investigated first.
The problem is that even a non-tanker ship carries quite a bit of fuel oil, all of which will then necessitate an cleanup to limit the environmenta effects. Is there had been a plan for this kind of events there would have been "cable corridors" where one could limit and monitor shipping, but that ship sailed a log time ago. And the Baltic is a busy shipping region[1]
[1] https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/cargo-ships/BALTIC%20SEA%20AIS/ship-traffic-tracker#gotomap
> but a small shaped explosive charge on the hull, that is made to look like an internal bang is easy to do for some nations and fixes a lot of problems
I don't know what sort of magic shape-charged you are using to make the buckling of the hull due to the explosion occur in the opposite direction to the direction of blast, but I'd like some (i.e. making a blast on the outside if a hull buckle/bend the hull in an outward direction as if the explosion came from inside the hull).
"Shooting a boat, several of which have been found to be merely incompetent than malicious, and killing all on board is a bit drastic just because your cable in international waters was sliced a little."
Yes, but if the intention IS malicious then the next merchant captain to put his nuts on the block may think twice. These attacks are nation state coordinated and that sir or madame is an act of war.
You don't drag a massive ship anchor a hundred nautical miles without the ship master knowing and approving it. Alternatively, seize and sell the ship to cover the cable repair costs.
>Shooting a boat, several of which have been found to be merely incompetent than malicious, and killing all on board is a bit drastic just because your cable in international waters was sliced a little.
Instagram and Facebook feeds were lost for hours! OK so national productivity surged, but still...
Several of the recently cut cables were buried a at least meter under the seabed. One of the power lines that was cut had concrete plates above it. At a few knots, the anchors will bounce along the seabed so snagging a cable isn't guaranteed if they are intentionally doing this.
a single military ship could just do that and nothing else
Please show me the magical ship that can continuously monitor every minute, 24 hours a day, every inch of a million miles of critical western undersea cables.
That would be one heck of a technical marvel.
Furthermore, if it really were the case that all these "incompetent ships" were constantly tearing up deep sea data cables, it would have been happening on a frequent basis for decades.
But it hasn't. And certainly not all mysteriously concentrated in maritime areas surrounding Russia.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
but look here, we, little people at the Kebab Shop have no mineral resouces, no agriculture, no industry, only tourists for a day or two (or kids to learn English), and we want to be RICH, who doesn't.
and, on a serious note, but the same theme, it's no coincidence that a little known village called London has been informally known as Londongrd. For years. Do as I say, don't do as I do. Ah, but that's history, so fast forward: out of a few hundred cases, not one UK business breaking sanctions imposed on Russia since 2022 has been successfully prosecuted. Guess it must be incompetence rather than planning.
I'd suggest making the "Flag of Convenience" countries into Insurer of Last Resort for the ships they permit to sail under their flags. A hefty bill presented to the Central Bank of wherever might encourage more due diligence.
I like this idea a lot.
The shipping industry's corruption in this regard is getting very tiresome, especially in the current geopolitical climate.
>The shipping industry's corruption in this regard is getting very tiresome, especially in the current geopolitical climate.
It is a little ironic that shipping companies that register their vessels in Narnia and use crews from middle-earth are being protected from Houtis by $Bn worth of warships from Europe and the USA.
Of course I assume these navies are doing this out of a fraternal bond with seafarers - and not a desire to put a shitload of force protection off Iran's coast
Most of the ships in this shadow fleet are pretty much scrap, so it wouldn't be a great financial loss. Bringing it into port and finding out as much as you can from the ship and crew and putting the "Maltese" owners under pressure might bring greater reward.
And one would surmise that the crew mostly know very little and would be considered expendable.
Someone (usually the captain) will have been paid some money (usually Dollars or Euros) to do something and the crew will just be doing what they are told. They will not question it simply because they are not paid enough.
If you arrest the crew the chances of making any sort of legal case stick are very limited and would probably cost more that it is worth.
Impound the ship and any cargo - confiscate what you can and if it is not seaworthy scrap the hull. At least that prevents it being reused.
yes, this is how to wage proxy war, by outsourcing the outsourcers. It's perhaps much less effective than having your own, trained and dedicated people 'do stuff', but so much cheaper and practically untraceable. The same model is being employed in the current Russia-Ukraine war, definitely by both sides, and the price for doing damage starts begins at around 10 euro, if I remember correctly.
I thought that, until I heard that apparently the captain tried to explain that he had weighed the anchor due to "stormy conditions"
That sounds fishy, because the ship stayed on course and only slowed down a bit, and then cut the cable. If there were such an emergency that it had to lower the anchor, then they would surely have a) stopped the engines (the anchor drops from the front, so it makes no sense to drag it for stability in a storm) and b) called for help
If he had outright denied that he ever gave an order to drop the anchor, then it would be more believable i.e. someone else on board (a stowaway from the Russian port, or a bribed crewman) could have done it without the rest of the crew noticing.
I'm not excluding captains from the 'bribed crew' category. It's the nature of the business that the owners of a ship and it's entire contracted crew didn't exactly grow up in the same town and go to the same school because the crews are very international and the shipping investors are enjoying the good life, just setting up a company and finding some skeleton talent to manage it. It's a similar situation to North Koreans landing US tech jobs working from home, quite easy to infiltrate without the tech CEO's knowledge.
It's going to be interesting though, at some point some bribed crew will fess up (with the right carrot & stick balance) and there's a possibility of stepping up the chain of command toward a shady organisation. Or less likely your captain turns out to be ex-Naval Spetsnaz with fake documents or whatever.
they will fess up to having received an offer of a side money, from an anonymous source, for a minor, arguably harmless act, that's all they will know (and they're not paid to investigate why, quick bonus to their account, most likely not held in any Western bank. It's not like they'll come up with a recording of a video-call with somebody identifying themselves as GRU colonel, with adequate hollywood office background to prove he's real deal.
It's not super clear from the article but this latest incident actually involves a brand new ship worth ~$25 million. Seems fairy likely the owners are actually innocent and it's just planted or bribed rogue crew.
Yep. Ship was launched in 2022. This is a handy channel for learning about.. what's going on in shipping and discusses this incident-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrT1Pl3pR6Y
and makes some interesting comments. Like a rogue crewmember could drop an anchor, and the Captain wouldn't necessarily know. The autopilot would adjust for any drag, and the vessel carry on along its course. I found it suprising that there aren't indicators on the bridge to show anchor state. It also showed the steps necessary to drop anchor, and I could think of a few issues where that may happen by accident, so the dog not set, brake slips, anchor drops and nobody notices. Accidents like this happen.. But they do seem to be happening quite frequently. I have no idea if there are statistics on anchor mishaps, so if this is anomalous, or maybe there needs to be a design change to prevent this from happening accidently.
Have an upvote for the link to Sal's YT channel. I subscribe and watch Sal regularly.
There appears to be an excess of incompetency on ships departing these Russian Baltic ports. I wonder if these ships even have had to use their anchors after leaving the dockside. Going in then yes, sometimes ships are held at an anchorage while they wait for a berth. Coming out they should just be on their way to their destination with no need to use the anchor until arrival. I could imagine that while in port a ship's anchor windlasses would be checked over to ensure the anchor and chain are secure and any necessary maintenance done.
The appearance of something dodgy happening to data and other cables in the Baltic is strong. Pirate icon seems applicable.
Have an upvote for the link to Sal's YT channel. I subscribe and watch Sal regularly.
And he's done another update, which you'll have seen but will plonk here for others-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WOWpMAQAGs
Interesting because the ship Captain has been talking, and offered an explanation as to how the anchor might have dropped accidentally. Which Sal then discusses how probable that could be, and if it could have been a cascading failure. Plus the Captain mentioned the current state of the investigation, and that the Swedes haven't started interviewing crew yet. Which given tracking data shows when the slip probably occurred, might also identify the whereabouts of crewmembers and who might have dropped the anchor if it was deliberate.
"innocent" owners? New to the shipping business are you? All these ships are being registered with the help of some think brown envelopes. Owners will try as far as possible to aim for plausible deniability and, since ship registration fees became an issue, registrars will turn a blind eye to the ships and the crews. That is until someone mentions sanctions, ie. problems for all ships registered. The only exception thus far was the Chinese ship with the Russian crew. The Chinese refused to cooperate but we haven't seen many of their ships doing the same route. For all its bluster about the South China Sea, China is extremely keen on maintaining a general freedom of navigation because it has so much to lose.
"China is extremely keen on maintaining a general freedom of navigation because it has so much to lose."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/25/can-anyone-stop-china-vast-armada-of-fishing-boats-galapagos-ecuador
"... The recent discovery by the Ecuadorean navy of a vast fishing armada of 340 Chinese vessels just off the biodiverse Galápagos Islands stirred outrage both in Ecuador and overseas."
"innocent" owners? New to the shipping business are you?
Innocent because it doesn't make sense to use such a relatively valuable ship to perform this kind of sabotage, considering the risk of lengthy impounding, when you can use any old ship worth a fraction of the value. The fact that the ownership structures are so murky only adds to that argument; there's zero reason not to use a junk ship if the owner of the ship is aware of the sabotage.
Just seize them for an in depth inspection that takes a few months. Taking a few such ships out of commission for such a long time where neither the vessel nor the crew are earning any income will make captains think twice before doing anything that might damage undersea cables. Whether they are doing it accidentally, or deliberately under orders that go through a chain of people ending at Putin.
If, as part of the inspection, a tracker or two are "accidentally" installed in the vessel so its position can be monitored even if the ship's transponder is disabled or its ID changed, oops. That was just as unintentional as their cable damage, I'm sure!
And what if the captain has been offered 12 months salary and a Russian wife(*)
(*) I'm saying this because the alleged assassin of General Igor Kirillov was said to have been offered (probably spuriously) an EU passport by the Ukrainians and I can't think of anything else of non-financial value Russia could offer. A foot-rub from Putin maybe? But he's probably too busy.
three Four times.. Even Sal of wgowshipping (the only youtuber whom I currently bother giving my time to) is suspicious
It's obvious yet still 'deniable'. Like shooting down passenger aircraft or planting grenades on board, shoving people out of windows, or staging a military training exercise on your border that turns into a special military operation, which turns out to be an invasion, which turns into a war
It's pretty much their M.O.
It's deliberately obvious, to try to send a message "here is the price of joining NATO and supporting Ukraine", while being just deniable enough to avoid directly triggering Article 5
Because it's really, really easy. Essentially zero cost, with a relatively high impact in making the enemy (us) expend resources repairing the cable- and adding extra backup capacity in case these cuts happen again.
No-one's going to start a war over cutting one of the cables crossing a watermass, especially when there are others to- at least partially- take the strain.
Closing the Baltic to international shipping would also have a relatively high financial impact to Russia.
Some Baltic states really want this and to turn the Baltic into a 'NATO lake'. Slight snag is that would amount to a blockade, which is both illegal and be a casus belli for Russia, which would be rather bad.
Or just introduce "stringent" safety standards for ships
Those already exist, ie ship classifications and insurance requirements. Which are also part of the problem. So the MV Vezhen is insured in the UK, but as part of the sanctions, Russian vessels can't do that. So part of the 'shadow fleet' designation is basically vessels that aren't insured by Lloyds or Western insurers. But then as part of Russia's counter-sanctions, they created an alternative to Lloyds to route around that problem. If the conflict and sanctions end, those alternatives to Lloyds, Swift and other service providers may continue for BRICS members, and suck billions out of the West's service economy.
> alternatives to Lloyds, Swift and other service providers may continue for BRICS members, and suck billions out of the West's service economy.
So long as you only intend shipping or trading within the bloc you can. The USSR had similar arrangements.
However when trading internationally you are generally at the mercy of the customer when it comes to obeying rules
"But a submarine wouldn't sink a merchant vessel without surfacing, inspecting its papers and giving the crew time to evacuate - that would be a war crime."
Is it? German U boats did this in both 20th century conflicts but I don't recall reading of any subsequent prosecutions.
I sometimes wonder if the Ukraine issued letters a marque to enterprising privateers whether Putin's oil trade might be significently hindered.
Curious fact: the US last issued letters of marque in 1941 to of all craft a blimp - the previous letters were issued during the War of 1812.
And got cleared of the charges because the US did the same in the Pacific from day one.
The German uboats followed the rule until the Laconia incident where a American B-24 tried to sink a uboat on the surface while towing boats with people from a sunken ship. They failed and got a medal for it...
I know that English is a wonderfully flexible language and that meanings change over time, but I am sorry that this particular word has changed so much in only 64 years. The article could have said "noticed" and most would understand.
Example of one version of the original definition:- "Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed – to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience."
My coat? The one with "grumpy old man" on the back.... ;-)