Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Russia's attacks on the undewater cables connecting Finland to mainland Europe have intensified this winter.
In November, two internet cables from Finland were sabotaged (one to Estonia and one to Germany) by an unkown culprit (at least publicly unknown) and a few days ago another electricity cable was damaged by a Russian "shadow fleet" tanker, once again with an anchor. That ship, called Eagle S, has now been seized by Finnish authorities and taken to a Finnish port while the crew and ship are being inspected. Unusual Russian made communication decices have already been discovered on the ship.
https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1151950...-investigation
This is really just the most talked about part of the campaign of industrial sabotage Russia has beem waging against Europe. This ship is registered the UAE, with a multinational crew mostly from Georgia and India.
NATO has already decided to increase patrols at the Baltic Sea.
We'll see what longterm ramifications this has on international shipping in the Baltic Sea. |
Funny thing though:
The only somewhat noticeable effect of these cable sabotaged is that price of electricity is super duper low in Finland right now (literally free during the night even), in part because only a third of the normal capacity to export it is available, and we have had favourable weather. (Lots of wind, not very cold.) (It's not just that of course, price of electricity is very complicated).
...and that's kind of telling on how stupid and pointless these particular sabotages are. Finland and Estonia are in no way either financially or logistically dependent on selling electricity to each other. The transport cables are there for convenience, not necessity.
Russia on the other hand desperately needs the income from their oil exporting shadow fleet, and they've already lost several of those ships to bad weather recently due to them being mostly very old and in poor condition.
In other words, it's quite possible that the loss of income from losing yet another oil transport ship to seizure is actually more of a loss to Russia than these petty, pointless sabotages are to Finland. Especially when you factor in the likely incoming further restrictions and sanctions on these ships.
It seems like Russia thinks Finland is like them, not understanding the practical differences between a rich(ish), well-functioning modern economy and a decrepit petrol-state like themselves, and so they're shooting themselves in the foot thinking it will hurt us more.