I'm sorry I have no snark-free way to respond to this.
But how hard could it be to get a Cat 395 excavator in there? Dig a little trench and bury it.
Sounds like a weekend project to me. Has someone told the telecoms this?
Which part or combination makes them "Russian", in the sense of "the Russian state asked asked the ship to harm Finnish infrastructure, and they actually did it"?
You can lazily speculate about the aggressive, warmaking nation (that illegally annexed Crimea, is currently at war with Ukraine, is regularly sending submarines, ships, drones, jets into the territories of its neighbours) all you like... but if you want to be able to prosecute them, you need to be able to show evidence of the Russian state ordering this action, and that the cable damage was actually caused by that ship. Where is your evidence?
The response needs to be forceful: seize and auction off the ships. There needs to be sufficient deterrent to actually stop this from happening.
Please elaborate. What's the reason for Russia? What does it gain from damaging undersea cables? Instead, think about what NATO/U.S./UK does actually gain from it (naval blockade of Russian and Chinese shipping lines).
This makes invoking article 5 likewise somewhat difficult because it allowed other NATO members pressure the border states into "not overreacting". The point is to slowly escalate into outright hostility without ever having "the event" that makes it obvious article 5 must be invoked.
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/JOow58/kabelbrott-mella... (Swedish)
[...] two of their submarine cables – one between Sweden and Estonia and one between Estonia and Finland – have been damaged. The first cable was damaged on December 30th and the second on December 31st.
(Arelion is AS1299/formerly known as Telia Carrier. The name change happened because it's now owned by a Swedish government-managed infrastructure-focused pension fund.)
Why should NATO/U.S./UK do this? Because then they have a reason for a sea blockade of Russian and Chinese shipping (just like the U.S. already does in the Caribbean). That's the goal.
The Eagle S (I think it was?) case was brought to court here in Finland and they even admitted to dragging heir anchor but steadfastly maintained that it was due to their own incompetence (which the judge unfortunately believed.)
I suppose that was also a NATO ploy?
neuroelectron•1h ago
wtcactus•1h ago
That would pass the right message if courts keep refusing to make things right.
immibis•43m ago
rjsw•38m ago
rwyinuse•40m ago
Unfortunately too many Western leaders still think that it's possible to negotiate in good faith with Russians. In reality they respect only force, and see European rules based order and "fair play" as weakness. If Baltic states didn't belong to NATO and Finland didn't have such a big army, Russians would be already doing a lot worse things than cutting cables.
Over here in Finland, even during the "good" years between collapse of the Soviet Union and invasion of Crimea, Russian businessmen kept buying property that made absolutely no economic sense, but was located next to critical infrastructure. Better relations between West and Russia were largely an illusion, especially since Putin took over.
shtzvhdx•38m ago
You mean like NATO did off the coast of Spain a year ago?
rwyinuse•30m ago
huhhuh•35m ago
As far as I understand, it is totally different case if they find any proof of intent.