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> While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Ru

> While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Russia, or other unfriendly international actors, states should always be cautious. This bears repeating. Russia has bee actively engaged in low-intensity warfare with the west for decades, and has single-handledly escalated their aggression towards the west in general but western Europe in particular for the last couple of years to the point they overtly and very publicly threaten the world with all sorts of attacks and global annihilation. Once Russia tries to casually float a massive bomb right into your doorstep, only a massive moron would not mitigate the risk presented by Russia, even if considered implausible.

dtquad 2y ago
Russia found out they had a faulty dangerous explosive ship under their control and instead of safely towing the ship to Russia and unload the Russian cargo they are instead using it to harass NATO countries as part of their hybrid warfare. The ship has been featured extensively in Danish and Norwegian media. First the Russians attempted to get the explosive ship close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away. The Danish coast guard also had to confront them. The ship contains several times more Ammonium Nitrate than what caused the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- samllmas 2y ago
  7x Beirut or 1/3 power of Hiroshima according to the article (although would it cause as much damage as a nuke detonated in the air?)
  - sixthDot 2y ago
    No, equal TNT power equivalent can have different effect depending on the nature of the explosive. The heat spreaded from an amonium nitrate blast, like in Beyrut, does not last as long, from [0], > However even on this basis, comparing the actual energy yields of a large nuclear device and an explosion of TNT can be slightly inaccurate. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. Gas-expansion and pressure-change effects tend to "freeze" the burn rapidly. A large open explosion of TNT may maintain fireball temperatures high enough so that some of those products do burn up with atmospheric oxygen [...] See also the "Relative effectiveness factor" paragraph [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effectiveness_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effect...
  - bruce511 2y ago
    At some point the comparison becomes moot. It's suffice to say that it's big enough to wreck the port, plus some significant percentage of the city around it. No, it likely wouldn't do as much damage as an airburst nuke. But it would be catastrophic nonetheless.
    - chipdart 2y ago
      > At some point the comparison becomes moot. That's a red herring. No one is looking at the decimal places. The comparison serves to provide a real-world benchmark of the expectable destructive power of the cargo held by this vessel, and a relative comparison of how big it would be. Arguing otherwise is idiotic.
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    Beirut was 2750 tons. So it's slightly more than 7 times as much. Also, one ton of ammonium nitrate is roughly equivalent to 250kg of TNT. If this shipment actually were to explode all at once, the energy equivalent would be roughly 20x0.25=5 kilotons of TNT. That's one third of the Hiroshima bomb's 15 kilotons. But these are highly oversimplified number games. For example, it's highly doubtful someone could get this to explode all at once without dispersing most of it - even if they were actively trying to cause maximum damage. Nonetheless it's still a monumental safety risk and any port in their right mind would do well to shoo this piece of crap back to Russia.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  It’s the same mentality of “it’d be really bad if something happened to that nuclear power plant due to an accident” that they approach the Ukraine invasion with the goal genociding their neighbor and taking their land/resources
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
At the same time, denying access due to the risk also shows that behavior has consequences: if Russia didn't behave like a dangerous, aggressive, untrustworthy bully, they would have an easier time getting their cargo offloaded
AnonCoward42 2y ago
[flagged]
- nkrisc 2y ago
  When you have a Russian ship carrying this much ammonium nitrate, it’s prudent to assume the worst, even without evidence. Russia has made their bed, and now they must sleep in it.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > (...) we should still assume that most media are just propaganda (...) Is the ship filled with the same Beirute port explosion compound? Yes or no? Is the ship refusing to turn to Russian ports and instead is aimlessly trying to get into strategic EU/NATO ports? Even the captain failed to address any kind of repair while at Port. Only a moron does not consider this a threat worth mitigating.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region: https://rntfnd.org/2024/05/10/hobbyists-zero-in-on-kaliningrad-jamming/ https://rntfnd.org/2024/05/10/hobbyists-zero-in-on-kaliningr... Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here. Protecting the borders saps resources from the militaries of these countries. Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
  - AnonCoward42 2y ago
    > I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region: But you can admit that the IKEA fire example is laughable, right? But even the GPS jamming is questionable when it comes to the motivation. Do they have military reasons for it or is it to "disrupt people’s everyday lives"? > Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here. This is actually a bit more nuanced than that. We are the ones that want (illegal) migration, it was only a problem when Belarus opened the borders and to be fair they have no obligation to keep them and they were upfront about it. It was a classic case of hypocrisy. That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem. It's a problem with our border control and creating unnecessary pull factors. > Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West. I see the exact opposite and mostly retaliation to be honest, but even if you do not agree you can probably agree that the west is also hostile towards Russia. It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it, starting at least with 2008 NATO summit and making it obvious in 2014 Ukraine coup d'état. I don't know what Russia did to the US to warrant this kind of provocation.
jojobas 2y ago
[flagged]
- spuz 2y ago
  In what way is this relevant, let alone an elephant in the room when talking about a ship of explosives.
  - jojobas 2y ago
    As if an ammo warehouse didn't blow up in Czechia by two of these, an ammo factory didn't explode in Germany under mysterious circumstances. Not trusting a Russian ship is easy. How easy is trusting an ANFO-laden truck is not getting parked near a busy shopping mall right now? https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-behind-arson-attack-on-factory/ https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-beh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
- piva00 2y ago
  Source for hundreds of thousands naturalised?
- aaomidi 2y ago
  Blatant xenophobia lol. Jesus Christ the state of this world. Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. The average citizen who is probably reading rhetoric like yours and then going and mowing down migrants because the world told them they’re evil.
  - giardini 2y ago
    aaomidi says "Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. " Nonsense. The vetting process can be as simple as wading across the Rio Grande and walking 20 miles (or a similar dry-land journey), whereupon the immigrant gains residency automatically.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hulitu 2y ago
> This bears repeating. Russia has bee actively engaged in low-intensity warfare with the west for decades, and has single-handledly escalated their aggression towards the west in general but western Europe in particular for the last couple of years to the point they overtly and very publicly threaten the world with all sorts of attacks and global annihilation. Citation, please.

dtquad 2y ago

Russia found out they had a faulty dangerous explosive ship under their control and instead of safely towing the ship to Russia and unload the Russian cargo they are instead using it to harass NATO countries as part of their hybrid warfare. The ship has been featured extensively in Danish and Norwegian media. First the Russians attempted to get the explosive ship close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away. The Danish coast guard also had to confront them. The ship contains several times more Ammonium Nitrate than what caused the 2020 Beirut port explosion.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
samllmas 2y ago
7x Beirut or 1/3 power of Hiroshima according to the article (although would it cause as much damage as a nuke detonated in the air?)
- sixthDot 2y ago
  No, equal TNT power equivalent can have different effect depending on the nature of the explosive. The heat spreaded from an amonium nitrate blast, like in Beyrut, does not last as long, from [0], > However even on this basis, comparing the actual energy yields of a large nuclear device and an explosion of TNT can be slightly inaccurate. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. Gas-expansion and pressure-change effects tend to "freeze" the burn rapidly. A large open explosion of TNT may maintain fireball temperatures high enough so that some of those products do burn up with atmospheric oxygen [...] See also the "Relative effectiveness factor" paragraph [1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effectiveness_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effect...
- bruce511 2y ago
  At some point the comparison becomes moot. It's suffice to say that it's big enough to wreck the port, plus some significant percentage of the city around it. No, it likely wouldn't do as much damage as an airburst nuke. But it would be catastrophic nonetheless.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > At some point the comparison becomes moot. That's a red herring. No one is looking at the decimal places. The comparison serves to provide a real-world benchmark of the expectable destructive power of the cargo held by this vessel, and a relative comparison of how big it would be. Arguing otherwise is idiotic.
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  Beirut was 2750 tons. So it's slightly more than 7 times as much. Also, one ton of ammonium nitrate is roughly equivalent to 250kg of TNT. If this shipment actually were to explode all at once, the energy equivalent would be roughly 20x0.25=5 kilotons of TNT. That's one third of the Hiroshima bomb's 15 kilotons. But these are highly oversimplified number games. For example, it's highly doubtful someone could get this to explode all at once without dispersing most of it - even if they were actively trying to cause maximum damage. Nonetheless it's still a monumental safety risk and any port in their right mind would do well to shoo this piece of crap back to Russia.
EasyMark 2y ago
It’s the same mentality of “it’d be really bad if something happened to that nuclear power plant due to an accident” that they approach the Ukraine invasion with the goal genociding their neighbor and taking their land/resources

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago

At the same time, denying access due to the risk also shows that behavior has consequences: if Russia didn't behave like a dangerous, aggressive, untrustworthy bully, they would have an easier time getting their cargo offloaded

AnonCoward42 2y ago

[flagged]

nkrisc 2y ago
When you have a Russian ship carrying this much ammonium nitrate, it’s prudent to assume the worst, even without evidence. Russia has made their bed, and now they must sleep in it.
chipdart 2y ago
> (...) we should still assume that most media are just propaganda (...) Is the ship filled with the same Beirute port explosion compound? Yes or no? Is the ship refusing to turn to Russian ports and instead is aimlessly trying to get into strategic EU/NATO ports? Even the captain failed to address any kind of repair while at Port. Only a moron does not consider this a threat worth mitigating.
rich_sasha 2y ago
I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region: https://rntfnd.org/2024/05/10/hobbyists-zero-in-on-kaliningrad-jamming/ https://rntfnd.org/2024/05/10/hobbyists-zero-in-on-kaliningr... Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here. Protecting the borders saps resources from the militaries of these countries. Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
- AnonCoward42 2y ago
  > I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region: But you can admit that the IKEA fire example is laughable, right? But even the GPS jamming is questionable when it comes to the motivation. Do they have military reasons for it or is it to "disrupt people’s everyday lives"? > Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here. This is actually a bit more nuanced than that. We are the ones that want (illegal) migration, it was only a problem when Belarus opened the borders and to be fair they have no obligation to keep them and they were upfront about it. It was a classic case of hypocrisy. That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem. It's a problem with our border control and creating unnecessary pull factors. > Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West. I see the exact opposite and mostly retaliation to be honest, but even if you do not agree you can probably agree that the west is also hostile towards Russia. It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it, starting at least with 2008 NATO summit and making it obvious in 2014 Ukraine coup d'état. I don't know what Russia did to the US to warrant this kind of provocation.

jojobas 2y ago

[flagged]

spuz 2y ago
In what way is this relevant, let alone an elephant in the room when talking about a ship of explosives.
- jojobas 2y ago
  As if an ammo warehouse didn't blow up in Czechia by two of these, an ammo factory didn't explode in Germany under mysterious circumstances. Not trusting a Russian ship is easy. How easy is trusting an ANFO-laden truck is not getting parked near a busy shopping mall right now? https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-behind-arson-attack-on-factory/ https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-beh... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_warehouse_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
piva00 2y ago
Source for hundreds of thousands naturalised?
aaomidi 2y ago
Blatant xenophobia lol. Jesus Christ the state of this world. Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. The average citizen who is probably reading rhetoric like yours and then going and mowing down migrants because the world told them they’re evil.
- giardini 2y ago
  aaomidi says "Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. " Nonsense. The vetting process can be as simple as wading across the Rio Grande and walking 20 miles (or a similar dry-land journey), whereupon the immigrant gains residency automatically.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hulitu 2y ago

> This bears repeating. Russia has bee actively engaged in low-intensity warfare with the west for decades, and has single-handledly escalated their aggression towards the west in general but western Europe in particular for the last couple of years to the point they overtly and very publicly threaten the world with all sorts of attacks and global annihilation. Citation, please.