Subsea cable near Sweden cut

[Forever_Winter]

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... s-of-russ/]

[Forever_Winter]

My take - cut all cables to Russia and tell the Germans to get their nuclear power plants going again to avoid using Russian gas. That won't happen as the Germans are wedded to burning Russian gas, which is not there anymore

[adam2]

AFAIK, This was a data cable for internet and telephone service and not for power supply.
If this is an isolated incident then it might be an accident, but many such incidents in a short time starts looking like an attack.

Satellite internet is slow, and too expensive for general or routine use but this sort of thing does underline the importance of satellite connectivity as a standby or emergency facility.

[Ralphw2]

The timing of this break is very suspicious. Only a few days ago a Russian "research vessel" was escorted out of the Irish sea by the British navy when it was spotted sending divers down near undersea cable routes. Russia was vowing 'appropriate response to the Ukrainian escalation ' yesterday.

Edit

It was flying drones, not divers

[clv101]

I'm increasingly surprised the UK has not been on the receiving end of Russian sabotage beyond cyber attacks. I fully expect Russia to target the UK, and our under sea data cables, power cables and off-shore hydrocarbon infrastructure would seem to be prime targets. If the UK steps up engagement in Ukraine as Trump pulls back this just becomes more likely still.

[adam2]

The UK is in my view less vulnerable than some nations to the cutting of data cables, due to the multiple routes and amount of spare capacity.
We are however vulnerable to the cutting of power cables, we are very reliant on power interconnectors, and the loss of several at the same time, and in severe weather could lead to rota power cuts.
An accident or even a series of "accidents" affecting North Sea oil and gas supplies seem likely.
Another vulnerability is LNG import terminals.

[adam2]

Later news report here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dl4vxw501o

[Mark]

Maybe somehow linked to this....?

Sweden tells citizens to prepare for WAR: Five million households get pamphlets on how to get their home ready for nuclear armageddon... as Biden is accused of trying to start World War Three#;
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... flict.html

Russia taking the opportunity to put the frighteners on ?

[BritDownUnder]

Apparently it was a Chinese merchant ship that dunnit. Dragging the anchor for 160 kilometres is probably guaranteed to do it.

The legality of getting into the Baltic I don't know but technically Denmark charges tolls to allow ships in there. Maybe those tolls need to go up a bit for Chinese merchant ships.

[adam2]

Apparently it was a Chinese merchant ship that dunnit. Dragging the anchor for 160 kilometres is probably guaranteed to do it.

The legality of getting into the Baltic I don't know but technically Denmark charges tolls to allow ships in there. Maybe those tolls need to go up a bit for Chinese merchant ships.

I do not see any DIRECT benefit to china in this "accident" but perhaps russia gave them some free oil/natural gas.
If the anchor of a ship drags for 160 KM that suggests that the anchor was of insufficient size or weight for the ship.
Perhaps such ships carry two anchors, one relatively small one for damaging cables, and a larger one to stop the ship drifting.

[BritDownUnder]

Nice YouTube analysis here.

Sounds like an investigation is going on now. Maybe a special anchoring operation was carried out while the ship passed over the cables.