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[RD] War in Ukraine: Other topics

Authorities recover Eagle S anchor from Gulf of Finland​

An anchor belonging to the oil tanker Eagle S, suspected of being used to damage undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland, has been located and retrieved from the seabed.
According to Yle, the anchor was lifted by the Swedish Armed Forces' multipurpose vessel HMS Belos.

Finnish authorities have taken possession of the anchor, and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is to begin analysing it on Tuesday.


https://yle.fi/a/74-20135216

Will the retrieved anchor prove itself to be the smoking gun, that links the Eagle S to the much debated act of sabotage?
If so, what happens to the ship and its crew?
 
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hah , not spicy enough . The very same authorities found Turkish keyboards for electronic listening stuff on some UAE owned ship , apparently this very one . Will it be enough to tip the balance and return to the Middle East to bomb New Turkey , so that angry people with lynch "traitors and foreigners" in the country
 
Will the retrieved anchor prove itself to be the smoking gun, that links the Eagle S to the much debated act of sabotage?
If so, what happens to the ship and its crew?

What will you do then, ans daddy Trump to take time off plotting the seizure of Greenland to come and "defetn" Denmark? Hnt that they can blow the last operating nordstream pipeline just in case while pretending to inestivate?

"Please beat me more, I enjoy it sir""
 
“I believe we have the right to demand”: Zelensky promised that he would still talk with Trump about security guarantees for Ukraine

“We need to pay attention and say honestly: they don’t see us there (in NATO - approx.) And I believe that this is one of the reasons why we are at war. Because they were not afraid that Ukraine would be with someone. Putin understood that no one would stand up for Ukraine. He understood that his army was larger and he could destroy us.

We want specific security guarantees and we ask for this from the alliance of America and Europe,” the president noted, commenting on Trump’s statement that Ukraine cannot be in NATO.

 
Since 24 February 2022, more than 500,000 people have been declared wanted for evading mobilisation, - Nataliya Kindrativ, an officer of the Communications Department of the Ground Forces Command, has said
According to her, the data was passed to the National Police, but for them the search is not their only duty, and it is quite difficult to find all these people with the means they have now.


The number of soldiers who left the unit unauthorisedly is about 100,000 people - this can be equated to 20 brigades,’ military officer Yevhen Ievlev said in a commentary to the Ukrainian mass media.

unian.net
 
Ship: impounded and sold to cover the damages.
Crew: criminal charges for those responsible.

Hopefully the Finns will seize the opportunity to set an example. Any shipping company or crew that considers committing sabotage in exchange for Rubles & vodka, risk their ship and freedom.
 
Well that's settled then, just to be sure :


“If the Russians see that we are present there, the likelihood of such sabotage acts immediately decreases, because saboteurs can be caught in the act, and once caught, it’s much easier to deal with them,” Arjen Warnaar, commander of SNMG, told the publication.

Honestly - what is wrong with the Russians, have they no other ambition than to cause misery for their neighbours , they must be a very frustrated people..
 
Well that's settled then, just to be sure :




Honestly - what is wrong with the Russians, have they no other ambition than to cause misery for their neighbours , they must be a very frustrated people..

It's the combination of Russian pessimism and desire to be perceived as strong. They don't think that their situation can improve so the only way how to feel strong is to bring others down to their level.
 
It's the combination of Russian pessimism and desire to be perceived as strong. They don't think that their situation can improve so the only way how to feel strong is to bring others down to their level.
You've basically encapsulated the "rich Russian culture" and the "mysterious Russian sole soul" in two sentences, congrats.
 
Highly likely © news
Accidents, not Russian sabotage, behind undersea cable damage, officials say

But so far, officials said, investigations involving the United States and a half-dozen European security services have turned up no indication that commercial ships suspected of dragging anchors across seabed systems did so intentionally or at the direction of Moscow.

Instead, U.S. and European officials said that the evidence gathered to date — including intercepted communications and other classified intelligence — points to accidents caused by inexperienced crews serving aboard poorly maintained vessels.

 
Well that's settled then, just to be sure :




Honestly - what is wrong with the Russians, have they no other ambition than to cause misery for their neighbours , they must be a very frustrated people..
GPS signal jamming over the Baltic, stretching up to Finland, still ongoing.
 
Highly likely © news
Accidents, not Russian sabotage, behind undersea cable damage, officials say

But so far, officials said, investigations involving the United States and a half-dozen European security services have turned up no indication that commercial ships suspected of dragging anchors across seabed systems did so intentionally or at the direction of Moscow.

Instead, U.S. and European officials said that the evidence gathered to date — including intercepted communications and other classified intelligence — points to accidents caused by inexperienced crews serving aboard poorly maintained vessels.

Bezos' Washington Post is being accused of peddling Russia-aligned disinformation/falsification. Accused by Jukka Savolainen, Finnish coast guard commander and presently working at "European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats"

https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010974584.html

[Auto-translated]

Jukka Savolainen, Network Director of the European Hybrid Competence Center, considers the claims published by the Washington Post on Sunday about the background to the cable damage in the Baltic Sea to be completely unfounded.

According to Savolainen, it is absurd to claim that three cable damages in the Baltic Sea within a year and a half constitute (accidental?) damage. According to him, that is not possible in any scenario.

The Washington Post reports that “U.S. and European intelligence officials” are treating the three cable breaks in the Baltic Sea as accidents. The authorities have found evidence that the actions were accidents, the newspaper claims. However, no evidence has been found to prove Russia’s guilt, the newspaper says.

– Now we are moving with an agenda that is clearly in line with Russia's interests, Savolainen says.

He wonders about the motives behind the news and the newspaper. The Washington Post has a solid reputation as a reliable, quality newspaper. Is someone feeding the newspaper disinformation and not being able to recognize it? Did someone take the wrong bait?

– Or maybe they are doing it on purpose, but it's pointless to speculate, Savolainen says.

– Here we see unfounded news that has a significant impact in our European information environment against the joint projects and credibility of NATO and the European Union, he continues.

The Washington Post has previously published a story regarding the Nord Stream pipeline, which, according to Savolainen, has given the general public the wrong impression that the Ukrainians have sabotaged the gas pipeline.

According to Savolainen, Sunday's article cleverly mixed two things - as is done in disinformation and misinformation.

It is true that no one has made any firm claims that Russia directed the ship's personnel to act as they did.

According to Savolainen, this true claim is accompanied by completely unfounded claims that real Western intelligence agencies have already said that Russia has been proven innocent of these events.

– By mixing these and using huge media attention, public opinion will be made to doubt this Baltic Sea NATO summit and its rationality. Yes, this is a pretty big game.

The essence of hybrid influence is that it leaves no water-proof evidence.

The Washington Post article underlines that the authorities have no evidence of Russian guilt.

According to Savolainen, it is very unlikely that Russia could be proven guilty of sabotage using the criminal investigation mechanisms of the rule of law.

– Then the ship's captain would have to say, yes, I received instructions from the Russians and I did that. Without a confession or some kind of intelligence interception, there will be no proof.

In a state governed by the rule of law, legal processes require solid evidence, and in a hybrid operation, such evidence is not generally available. There is no smoking gun.


"Such a number of anchors dropping and being dragged along by accident is completely impossible. Someone is doing something about this," he says.

In the past decades, no anchors have fallen accidentally in a way that would damage significant infrastructure, Savolainen points out.
 
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Good to have named officials counter WaPo's anonymous "officials" and their nonsense.
 
The Russian government, Putin, has in no way shape of form changed its initial ambitions for this war, as laid out already at the beginning. Disregard at own peril.

And of course it's also considered at least poor form to sell others up river due to it.
 

Russia’s 1950s BTR-50s Are Lightly Armed, Thinly Protected—And Increasingly Precious As Newer Vehicles Run Out​

A year ago, independent analysts noted an uptick in activity at the Kremlin’s 1295th Central Base of Repairs and Storage of Tanks in Arsenyev in Russia’s Far East.

Technicians were reactivating dozens of 1950s-vintage BTR-50 tracked armored personnel carriers and driving them off the yard. “We found 63 BTR-50s at the 1295th which have all been removed and they seem to be in good condition,” analyst Highmarsed reported.

That’s two whole battalions of vehicles. All-terrain rides for hundreds of Russian troops. But to Highmarsed, there was another, darker implication. “I would expect to see more BTR-50 losses in the future,” the analyst predicted.

Sure enough, the Russians have written off no fewer than 10 BTR-50s that the Oryx intelligence collective has tallied. The survivors are still in action, however—some sporting new turrets, and most with add-on armor for deflecting the ever-present explosive drones that have made it extremely dangerous for any Russian vehicle to break cover.

If anything, the “museum pieces”—as one observer described them—are becoming more common along the 800-mile front line as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its fourth year. But their resurgence may be temporary. All Russian vehicles are endangered species in a war increasingly dominated by drones.

The BTR-50 is a 15-ton, diesel-fueled armored tractor with two crew and space for up to 20 passengers. It usually packs a heavy machine gun. The BTR-50 entered service in 1954 and, for the next 12 years, was the Soviet army’s main fighting vehicle. BTR-50 crews would haul infantry into battle, protect the soldiers as they dismounted and then support them with its machine gun.

The BTR-50 is lightly-armed and thinly-armored, however. When the heavier, and more heavily-armed, BMP-1 debuted in 1966, thousands of BTR-50s cascaded to second-line units. The BTRs hauled artillery, engineers and anti-aircraft guns until MT-LB tractors began displacing the older vehicles from those roles, too.

As of late 2022, the Russian army operated just a handful of geriatric BTR-50s. That the Russians held onto a few BTR-50s should come as no surprise. “Russia sees no need to completely change out its inventory of older vehicles, and instead has adopted a hybrid approach towards modernization,” Lester Grau and Charles Bartles explained in their definitive The Russian Way of War.

But these operational BTR-50s performed secondary support roles far from any enemy forces. Meanwhile, a few thousand of the old vehicles rusted away in storage. Two years ago, it would have been inconceivable for these surplus BTR-50s to roll into action in Ukraine. But that was before the Russians lost more than 15,000 armored vehicles and other pieces of heavy equipment.

Given that Russian industry builds maybe 200 BMP-3 fighting vehicles and 90 T-90M tanks annually as well as a few hundred other armored vehicles including BTR-82 wheeled fighting vehicles, the vast majority of the replacement vehicles the Kremlin must generate to make good combat losses unavoidably comes from once-vast stocks of old Cold War equipment.

Three years ago, storage yards held tens of thousands of old tanks, fighting vehicles and other vehicles. But the stocks weren’t infinite. As they began to deplete, the Russians began deploying more civilian-style vehicles for direct assaults on Ukrainian positions: cars, vans, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and even electric scooters.

Today, it’s practically routine for some unarmored civilian vehicle packed with terrified Russian infantry to barrel toward Ukrainian lines—likely heading for fiery destruction.

The deployment of civilian vehicles is one sign of stress in Russia’s equipment-generation effort. The continued sightings of up-armored BTR-50s is another. Recent satellite imagery indicates even deeper stress. In some of what were once the most abundant storage yards, there are no longer any recoverable vehicles. Not even 70-year-old BTR-50s.

That doesn’t mean Russia won’t keep fighting. It does mean its forces will increasingly fight on foot. Incredibly, foot-borne infantry often fare better than vehicles do under relentless drone attack. The former are fleeting targets. The latter are usually pretty hard to miss.

“Every single time” Russian regiments attempt a vehicle assault, “the result is zero,” one Russian blogger lamented recently in a missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated. But “infantry, with the support of artillery and drones, slowly but surely take tree line after tree line.”

There’s one thing leg infantry can’t do, however. They can’t exploit breaches in enemy defenses in order to swiftly and deeply penetrate enemy territory. That’s why recent Russian advances have mostly been measured in yards, not miles.

And why the surviving BTR-50s are, despite their advanced age, still a precious commodity for the Russians.
 
Because I know basic scholl in Portugal is in a disgraceful condition now, tell me - can you actually read past the misleading headline?

Russia is not "running out" orf amoured vehicles, either infantry or tanks, any more that Russia "ran out of missiles" ever. Russia has been increasing the size of its army massively, and very sensibly refurbishing and putting to use the vehicles it had put into stock when it downsized the army. Thast was exactly the purpose of the stock. Those vehicles are not gone, they're repaired, many upgraded, and in active service. That is not a signal of weakness, it's the opposite.
 
they have less modern vehicles, and Soviet stocks are running out.

they'll never be really out of anything, they have natural resources and factories and enough people to assemble military stuff (but already not enough to produce civilian stuff)

but what they assemble now is either costly and in low number because it requires western components under sanction or is a vehicle directly coming out of mad max with 60 years old tech at best.
 
Because I know basic scholl in Portugal is in a disgraceful condition
Why you wound my homeland?:cry:
now, tell me - can you actually read past the misleading headline?
Sir...why you wound me? :cry:Take your grievances to whom wrote the headline.

I've been actually avoiding to post optimistic stuff because of the obvious wishful thinking beyond it and I acknowledge there's is way too much wishful thinking, but I shared the article because it's evidencing that Russians are running out of museum pieces, this has been observed by many independent sources...it's not hot news.
And sure the article might be riddled of wishful thinking towards the end but its still stating the fact the Russian have been using 1950's BTR that are, obviously, way more fragile than current BTR as yet another sign that Russian does not care for their troops, not even an inch. Still better riding an old BTR to the front then a bike!
 
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