Why does it have to be a Russian port? If they're trying to be sneaky, why would Russia deliberately choose a merchant ship entering or leaving one of _its own_

Why does it have to be a Russian port? If they're trying to be sneaky, why would Russia deliberately choose a merchant ship entering or leaving one of _its own_ ports? You can get Russian intelligence officers in many other country's ports. Russia is more than capable of doing this same supposed bribe elsewhere. Let's imagine it was Latakia or Tartus in Syria. They can then track the ship and deliver a message. They don't need to use Russian ships to deliver the message. Any nation deliberately causing sabotage would not want to be blamed, and would want any "clues" to mislead and point in the direction of of their enemies. All we know for sure is that we believe the Yi Peng 3 likely damaged two submarine cables, and it was boarded and its crew were interviewed on 18 December 2024. The rest is speculation. It's similar to the Nordstream pipeline sabotage. It was already deactivated due to European nations agreeing not to buy Russian gas because of their invasion of Ukraine, but it was then, we believe, deliberately sabotaged. Russia was accused (by nations that don't like Russia and support Ukraine). The US/UK were accused (by Russia). Ukraine was accused. 2 years later and the current status is: we're fairly confident it was sabotage, but we're still not sure who did it. Everyone denies doing it. Everyone fingers their main enemy as the one who did it. Does that sound familiar here?