4 ms·

> It then carried on across four undersea fibreoptic cables, three of which registered failures around the time the ship crossed them. The ship was suspected by

by jl6 2y ago

> It then carried on across four undersea fibreoptic cables, three of which registered failures around the time the ship crossed them. The ship was suspected by Finnish authorities of having dragged its anchor to damage the cables and was escorted into custody. The ship in this case was the Eagle S, estimated to be costing the owner €14,500 per day in running costs while impounded.[0] If the owners abandon the ship, that's a ~$30m asset forfeited, which could be used to compensate the cable owner for the damage. How much does it cost to fix a broken cable? Here's one estimate saying $2m[1]. Monitoring cable breaks + rapid reaction + police investigation + asset seizure + criminal prosecution = increases the cost of this attack. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_S [1] https://subtelforum.com/8m-to-restore-subsea-cable-services/ https://subtelforum.com/8m-to-restore-subsea-cable-services/

jeroenhd 2y ago
The problem with that math is that you can't catch them all. Russia has been gauging Europe's response by attacking cables close by, but there's no reason to believe they won't strike other strategic targets that are harder to monitor in future. The current approach, to zig-zag over a cable with the anchor, is extremely obvious, but they could just as well have an entire fleet of ships just casually drag their anchor when passing over their targeted cable until one of them catches it. With a bit of planning, a large number of unrelated ships could be over one or more cables at the time the cable snaps, making it rather difficult (and therefore expensive) to figure out which ship is behind the attack. The value of their crude oil fleet is also rather diminished by sanctions now that they can't sell as much crude oil as they could before. For this specific attack, the ship being forfeited would be a net win. However, for the many other sabotaged cables, that's not happening. I think Russia gladly pays a couple thousand euros a day to sabotage European communications for weeks, as well as trick European/NATO fleets to show themselves and demonstrate how they behave when they're looking for trouble.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The counter to this is: 1) Rapid identification and localization of breaks, so military/police forces can be dispatched to the area. 2) Continuous deployment of MQ-9B SeaGuardian or HALE UAV platforms around shallow cable runs to locate and id dark ships, who would also be running nav beacons before and after. 3) Low-earth-orbit persistent sensing networks (e.g. what's now called PWSA [0]) with ship id'ing sensor packages. As parent notes though, the lynchpin of this is inverting the cost:benefit ratio to be unfavorable, by raising the likelihood that ships will be detained and ultimately seized. Even oligarchs don't like to light money on fire. [0] https://spacenews.com/space-force-preparing-for-the-age-of-proliferated-low-earth-orbit-satellite-networks/ https://spacenews.com/space-force-preparing-for-the-age-of-p...
  - Braxton1980 2y ago
    >Even oligarchs don't like to light money on fire. Russia's war with Ukraine is not profitable for Russian oligarchs or Russia itself yet it continues
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Oligarchs are not suffering much tho. For them it's no new yacht this year type of thing. They have golden visas and property in nice countries. Plan b is not going anywhere, countries love corrupt money and because US is giving up its influence lately they have even less external motivation to overthrow egomaniac in power. But if world was strict on sanctions workarounds and if US maintained a hard line I think it could change.
      - Braxton1980 2y ago
        They would make more money if there wasn't a war.
  - deepsun 2y ago
    1) is just hard. A lot of crime would not happen if we could just rapidly identify and localize it.
dmix 2y ago
How are running costs an asset forfeiture?
- jl6 2y ago
  They are not. The owner doesn’t want to bear the running costs (and possibly also other ongoing consequences), so they’ve threatened to abandon the ship. Separately, the cable owner has initiated litigation that could see the ship seized to pay damages.
throwaway48476 2y ago
The solution is to require ships to be inspected and registered if they want to sail through Denmarks territorial waters.
- close04 2y ago
  They don't need to sail through territorial waters. The Baltic is a shallow sea (~55m deep on average, 460m at the deepest point) and an anchor chain can be 200-300m long. So dragging an anchor on the bottom of shallow international waters provides just the right combination of plausible deniability and an environment with low legal repercussions. This is one of the reasons it doesn't happen in the Atlantic. By the time you are out of territorial waters, in general the required anchor chain length puts the incident outside of any plausible deniability.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    If they want to sail in or out of the Baltic it's through Denmark. A ship that leaves port to cut a cable and then back to the same port loses all plausible deniability.
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      I would expect them to be capable of multitasking.
    - close04 2y ago
      But what kind of inspection and registration prevent a ship from minding its own business in any Baltic port, say Sankt Petersburg, and then just drag an anchor across some of the cables on its way out or to any other Baltic port? The whole thing with this kind of sabotage is that looks like a ship doing ship things except with a "defective" anchor system, "oops".
Braxton1980 2y ago
Countries spend money on war, look at Russia and Ukraine.
pimlottc 2y ago
The losses from a broken cable are more than just the cost of repair.

by jl6 2y ago

jeroenhd 2y ago

The problem with that math is that you can't catch them all. Russia has been gauging Europe's response by attacking cables close by, but there's no reason to believe they won't strike other strategic targets that are harder to monitor in future. The current approach, to zig-zag over a cable with the anchor, is extremely obvious, but they could just as well have an entire fleet of ships just casually drag their anchor when passing over their targeted cable until one of them catches it. With a bit of planning, a large number of unrelated ships could be over one or more cables at the time the cable snaps, making it rather difficult (and therefore expensive) to figure out which ship is behind the attack. The value of their crude oil fleet is also rather diminished by sanctions now that they can't sell as much crude oil as they could before. For this specific attack, the ship being forfeited would be a net win. However, for the many other sabotaged cables, that's not happening. I think Russia gladly pays a couple thousand euros a day to sabotage European communications for weeks, as well as trick European/NATO fleets to show themselves and demonstrate how they behave when they're looking for trouble.

ethbr1 2y ago
The counter to this is: 1) Rapid identification and localization of breaks, so military/police forces can be dispatched to the area. 2) Continuous deployment of MQ-9B SeaGuardian or HALE UAV platforms around shallow cable runs to locate and id dark ships, who would also be running nav beacons before and after. 3) Low-earth-orbit persistent sensing networks (e.g. what's now called PWSA [0]) with ship id'ing sensor packages. As parent notes though, the lynchpin of this is inverting the cost:benefit ratio to be unfavorable, by raising the likelihood that ships will be detained and ultimately seized. Even oligarchs don't like to light money on fire. [0] https://spacenews.com/space-force-preparing-for-the-age-of-proliferated-low-earth-orbit-satellite-networks/ https://spacenews.com/space-force-preparing-for-the-age-of-p...
- Braxton1980 2y ago
  >Even oligarchs don't like to light money on fire. Russia's war with Ukraine is not profitable for Russian oligarchs or Russia itself yet it continues
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Oligarchs are not suffering much tho. For them it's no new yacht this year type of thing. They have golden visas and property in nice countries. Plan b is not going anywhere, countries love corrupt money and because US is giving up its influence lately they have even less external motivation to overthrow egomaniac in power. But if world was strict on sanctions workarounds and if US maintained a hard line I think it could change.
    - Braxton1980 2y ago
      They would make more money if there wasn't a war.
- deepsun 2y ago
  1) is just hard. A lot of crime would not happen if we could just rapidly identify and localize it.

dmix 2y ago

How are running costs an asset forfeiture?

jl6 2y ago
They are not. The owner doesn’t want to bear the running costs (and possibly also other ongoing consequences), so they’ve threatened to abandon the ship. Separately, the cable owner has initiated litigation that could see the ship seized to pay damages.

throwaway48476 2y ago

The solution is to require ships to be inspected and registered if they want to sail through Denmarks territorial waters.

close04 2y ago
They don't need to sail through territorial waters. The Baltic is a shallow sea (~55m deep on average, 460m at the deepest point) and an anchor chain can be 200-300m long. So dragging an anchor on the bottom of shallow international waters provides just the right combination of plausible deniability and an environment with low legal repercussions. This is one of the reasons it doesn't happen in the Atlantic. By the time you are out of territorial waters, in general the required anchor chain length puts the incident outside of any plausible deniability.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  If they want to sail in or out of the Baltic it's through Denmark. A ship that leaves port to cut a cable and then back to the same port loses all plausible deniability.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    I would expect them to be capable of multitasking.
  - close04 2y ago
    But what kind of inspection and registration prevent a ship from minding its own business in any Baltic port, say Sankt Petersburg, and then just drag an anchor across some of the cables on its way out or to any other Baltic port? The whole thing with this kind of sabotage is that looks like a ship doing ship things except with a "defective" anchor system, "oops".

Braxton1980 2y ago

Countries spend money on war, look at Russia and Ukraine.

pimlottc 2y ago

The losses from a broken cable are more than just the cost of repair.