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Too many "accidents" lately. Trying hard not to be a conspiracy theorist since cables were being cut prior Ukrainian war but we've been seeing cables being cut

Too many "accidents" lately. Trying hard not to be a conspiracy theorist since cables were being cut prior Ukrainian war but we've been seeing cables being cut off and ships being sunk more frequently than usual (or maybe now they are just being reported more). Will we ever know?

surfsvammel 2y ago
According to an interview with people from the company that owned this particular cable (from Swedish media SVT) these things happen by accident sometimes, they said a couple of times per decade. They themselves did not think this was an accident.
- stavros 2y ago
  Who did they think did it?
  - phplovesong 2y ago
    Well in this time its most likely russia.
whatsupdog 2y ago
[flagged]
- nashashmi 2y ago
  Wasn't it proven that the US was behind the accident?
  - Paradigma11 2y ago
    If you are referring to NS2, no. It is pretty conclusive that it was Ukraine and the US had nothing to do with it. Germany identified the actors as Ukrainian citizen/military operating under an Ukrainian shell company. Also the US had made public half a year before that Ukraine had such plans and very strongly warned against it. Parts of the Ukrainian intelligence apparatus and money showed some initiative and went through with it anyway. The point of NS was always to circumvent Ukraine for Russian oil exports and not really for additional capacity. The remaining capacity was never remotely maxed out, I think less than 30% or so and it was the Russians who blocked exports for a long time (Think of the repaired turbine story).
- croes 2y ago
  Speaking of karma, maybe not attacking another country would have prevented the $5 billion project being blast away. Not to mention all the unnecessary deaths on both sides.
  - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      Russia is making Ukraine a puppet state very explicitly. Putin said so on his blog.
    - croes 2y ago
      And how is that an excuse to kill innocent people? „The US did something wrong, let’s make something even worse“ Insane logic
      - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
        [flagged]
- kyriakos 2y ago
  I don't believe in luck and neither karma. Accidents do happen. Some are more likely than others (nordstream, without being an expert seems unlikely to be an accident). My question is if we will ever know who are the actors behind these events and who did they finally benefit.
20after4 2y ago
At this point it seems pretty likely that several of these cable cuts are intentional. Sometimes it's ok to entertain conspiracy theories, a significant number of theorized incidents do turn out to be actual conspiracies.
neonsunset 2y ago
Not an accident. A Chinese vessel did this.
- lrasinen 2y ago
  The current prime suspect is flagged in Cook Islands and registered owner is in UAE. Currently anchored off Finnish coast with a Coast Guard escort. True, there was a Chinese ship nearby but its path crossed the cable several minutes earlier.
  - cenamus 2y ago
    Would be interesting to know how much the anchor hangs to the back when it cut the cable, and whether it was the chain or the anchor itself.
jiggawatts 2y ago
My completely unfounded pet conspiracy theory is that China or Russia gained control of the company that owns the fibre repair ship. Cut fibres one at a time, and the victim will pay you to insert a listening device into their fibre. If you simply cut the fibre with a submarine, they might get suspicious. If you’re repairing an “accidental” cut everyone expects the outage. They’ll investigate the cut, not the repair.
- kyriakos 2y ago
  This was a power cable...
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Similarly, you could insert a device that can instantly sever the cable on command, such as a specific acoustic pattern. In case of war, simply flood the area with an encoded sonar ping and a bunch of links all get cut at the same time.
- jmpman 2y ago
  Can’t you simply encrypt all traffic across the cable at each end point? I’d be surprised if that wasn’t common practice these days. And if wasn’t common practice when these cables were deployed, seems like it would be possible to retrofit.
  - baybal2 2y ago
    [dead]
nuccy 2y ago
Unlike previously cut cables, which were mostly communication fiber cables, this particular one is a power cable and during the cut it was delivering 650MW at 450kV [1] so almost 1450A of current. If it was cut by accident by an anchor I could imagine achor being damaged due to underwater plasma in the arc. In general this cable should also be of quite some diameter. It should be made of thick copper wires (delivering 1450A over 145km) and plenty of dielectric isolation (to separate high voltage of 450kV), the ship would be slowed down or turned if it was accidentally draging this cable behind. Edit: P.S. Googling for some more details I found some pictures [2] from the installation of Estlink 2 and it doesn’t look that thick, but still it is solid metal with rigid plastic insulations. 1. https://www.4coffshore.com/news/vital-eastlink-2-energy-link-repair-expected-by-12-september-nid30168.html https://www.4coffshore.com/news/vital-eastlink-2-energy-link... 2. https://group.merko.ee/en/project/installation-of-estlink-2-underground-cable/ https://group.merko.ee/en/project/installation-of-estlink-2-...
ajuc 2y ago
It's been confirmed for months already. We even know which ship damaged the previous ones (and how they lowered the anchor just before the cables and rised it after damaging the cables). It's not a conspiracy theory when you have evidence and mainstream consensus.
roenxi 2y ago
> (or maybe now they are just being reported more). Will we ever know? If you don't have statistics on this then there is no reason reason to assume that there is anything unusual going on (although, obviously, in wartime we probably should check vs. the base rate). Cables fail all the time and the reporting is fairly muted. It is quite hard to break into international news even with a major multi-faceted debacle like the Basslink cable failure back in '16 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis.

surfsvammel 2y ago

According to an interview with people from the company that owned this particular cable (from Swedish media SVT) these things happen by accident sometimes, they said a couple of times per decade. They themselves did not think this was an accident.

stavros 2y ago
Who did they think did it?
- phplovesong 2y ago
  Well in this time its most likely russia.

whatsupdog 2y ago

[flagged]

nashashmi 2y ago
Wasn't it proven that the US was behind the accident?
- Paradigma11 2y ago
  If you are referring to NS2, no. It is pretty conclusive that it was Ukraine and the US had nothing to do with it. Germany identified the actors as Ukrainian citizen/military operating under an Ukrainian shell company. Also the US had made public half a year before that Ukraine had such plans and very strongly warned against it. Parts of the Ukrainian intelligence apparatus and money showed some initiative and went through with it anyway. The point of NS was always to circumvent Ukraine for Russian oil exports and not really for additional capacity. The remaining capacity was never remotely maxed out, I think less than 30% or so and it was the Russians who blocked exports for a long time (Think of the repaired turbine story).
croes 2y ago
Speaking of karma, maybe not attacking another country would have prevented the $5 billion project being blast away. Not to mention all the unnecessary deaths on both sides.
- BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    Russia is making Ukraine a puppet state very explicitly. Putin said so on his blog.
  - croes 2y ago
    And how is that an excuse to kill innocent people? „The US did something wrong, let’s make something even worse“ Insane logic
    - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
      [flagged]
kyriakos 2y ago
I don't believe in luck and neither karma. Accidents do happen. Some are more likely than others (nordstream, without being an expert seems unlikely to be an accident). My question is if we will ever know who are the actors behind these events and who did they finally benefit.

20after4 2y ago

At this point it seems pretty likely that several of these cable cuts are intentional. Sometimes it's ok to entertain conspiracy theories, a significant number of theorized incidents do turn out to be actual conspiracies.

neonsunset 2y ago

Not an accident. A Chinese vessel did this.

lrasinen 2y ago
The current prime suspect is flagged in Cook Islands and registered owner is in UAE. Currently anchored off Finnish coast with a Coast Guard escort. True, there was a Chinese ship nearby but its path crossed the cable several minutes earlier.
- cenamus 2y ago
  Would be interesting to know how much the anchor hangs to the back when it cut the cable, and whether it was the chain or the anchor itself.

jiggawatts 2y ago

My completely unfounded pet conspiracy theory is that China or Russia gained control of the company that owns the fibre repair ship. Cut fibres one at a time, and the victim will pay you to insert a listening device into their fibre. If you simply cut the fibre with a submarine, they might get suspicious. If you’re repairing an “accidental” cut everyone expects the outage. They’ll investigate the cut, not the repair.

kyriakos 2y ago
This was a power cable...
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Similarly, you could insert a device that can instantly sever the cable on command, such as a specific acoustic pattern. In case of war, simply flood the area with an encoded sonar ping and a bunch of links all get cut at the same time.
jmpman 2y ago
Can’t you simply encrypt all traffic across the cable at each end point? I’d be surprised if that wasn’t common practice these days. And if wasn’t common practice when these cables were deployed, seems like it would be possible to retrofit.
- baybal2 2y ago
  [dead]

nuccy 2y ago

Unlike previously cut cables, which were mostly communication fiber cables, this particular one is a power cable and during the cut it was delivering 650MW at 450kV [1] so almost 1450A of current. If it was cut by accident by an anchor I could imagine achor being damaged due to underwater plasma in the arc. In general this cable should also be of quite some diameter. It should be made of thick copper wires (delivering 1450A over 145km) and plenty of dielectric isolation (to separate high voltage of 450kV), the ship would be slowed down or turned if it was accidentally draging this cable behind. Edit: P.S. Googling for some more details I found some pictures [2] from the installation of Estlink 2 and it doesn’t look that thick, but still it is solid metal with rigid plastic insulations. 1. https://www.4coffshore.com/news/vital-eastlink-2-energy-link-repair-expected-by-12-september-nid30168.html https://www.4coffshore.com/news/vital-eastlink-2-energy-link... 2. https://group.merko.ee/en/project/installation-of-estlink-2-underground-cable/ https://group.merko.ee/en/project/installation-of-estlink-2-...

ajuc 2y ago

It's been confirmed for months already. We even know which ship damaged the previous ones (and how they lowered the anchor just before the cables and rised it after damaging the cables). It's not a conspiracy theory when you have evidence and mainstream consensus.

roenxi 2y ago

> (or maybe now they are just being reported more). Will we ever know? If you don't have statistics on this then there is no reason reason to assume that there is anything unusual going on (although, obviously, in wartime we probably should check vs. the base rate). Cables fail all the time and the reporting is fairly muted. It is quite hard to break into international news even with a major multi-faceted debacle like the Basslink cable failure back in '16 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis.