NATO say that it is stepping up patrols in the Baltic Sea following recent damage to undersea infrastructure in the region.
The increased measures include additional surveillance and reconnaissance flights, including with maritime patrol aircraft, NATO AWACS planes, and drones.
A fleet of four NATO minehunters is also being dispatched to the area.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely, and we remain in close contact with our Allies Estonia and Finland, and our partner Sweden,” said acting NATO spokesperson Dylan White.
“NATO will continue to adapt its maritime posture in the Baltic Sea and will take all necessary steps to keep Allies safe.”
According to a NATO statement:
“Since the Nord Stream sabotage in September 2022, NATO has enhanced patrols near critical undersea infrastructure and has promoted technological innovation – including with drones – to better detect any suspicious activity.
Earlier this year, NATO created an undersea infrastructure coordination cell to deepen ties between governments, military, industry actors and NATO, and has since established the NATO Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure within NATO’s Maritime Command.”
Reports emerging that the Finnish authorities are investigating a Chinese flagged vessel that was in the vicinity of the pipeline around the time the damage occurred.
Weakness is a temptation to predators. Good luck trying to push Finland around.
Its just a cargo ship, just bad use of anchor in a restricted area.
All this huffing and puffing over ‘bad actors’ when unlike the Nordstream which was act of sabotage traced to Ukrainian military covert forces ( given the cover name of ‘shadowy forces’ by NY Times) , this is just damage caused by a dragging an anchor.
Much the same scare stories over the Faroes fibre communications cable which was later attributed to fishing boats
Ockhams Razor rule applies
It’s all just completely understandable and can be explained away by attributing these, prior to Ukraine war, never before experienced sub sea infrastructure damage as accidental. Of course Russia and China have no malice or intent to disrupt NATO countries energy supplies or internet connections.
Do me a favour Duker. Just because you sprout Russian interests and misinformation dont expect anyone to actually believe your narrative.
The sooner the RN orders RFA Proteus sister ships and a stinking number of surveillance and attack drones the better.
Duker wrote:
There were 3 pipelines damaged :
1 in Finish waters
1 in Estonian waters
1 in Swedish waters
and I’m pretty sure the gas pipeline was encased in concrete
Bad use of 3 anchors🤦🏼♂️😂😂😂
Who makes anchors out of explosives these days?
No one has said explosives were used. Ships dont just anchor immediately outside a port
Ships also dont just anchor directly over multiple sets of sensitive items on the sea bed and allow said anchors to drag over them either. Go figure.
‘Oh, you will duker, you will.’
Apologies to James McNeil Whistler.
Bridge piles colide with explosive boats, bridge railways burn when in contact with train full of fuel… accident happens all the time.
It happens all the time. People make a fuss of everything now. Look, it is like Prigozhine airplane exploding en n the sky, who has never seen it. People are so suspicious…
Thats news to me that there was 3 separate damage locations.
The gas pipeline and the fibreoptic were one location between Finland and Estonia
Any way the Finns are saying its a cargo ship
“For this reason, the investigation is now focused on the role of the said vessel,” the Finnish investigators added.”
‘Anyway’.
Who said this sabotage of nord stream was Ukrainian. Let me guess the Kremlin controlled media.
If Ukraine wants to blow up pipelines there are many more much closer to home.
Ukraine doesn’t even have a navy.
Ukraine didnt use their navy it was an undercover mission, it was the baltic anyway.
NY Times and others have reported investigations by Germany have found the links to Ukraine. Theres arent Kremlin controlled.
Anyway who benefits from the shut down of gas ? Russia can turn the taps off and has done so previously.
Well at the time Russia threatening to turn off the taps clearly pointed to it benefiting from it.
A good read – https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/investigating-the-attack-on-nord-stream-all-the-clues-point-toward-kyiv-a-124838c7-992a-4d0e-9894-942d4a665778
Ships don’t deploy anchors when they’re making way. Unless of course they’re attempting to damage or foul something on the sea floor……
The stop for various reasons all the time, especially in a sort area like the Baltic which has shallow water and isnt open ocean
Those marine tracking websites will show this, plus the finns have said they have started a criminal investigation into this Chinese cargo ship- but dont let facts spoil your fun fair ride
Read again carefully what I wrote. Ships don’t deploy their anchors while making way. Fact.
Nope . You’re showing your lack of knowledge there, anchors are not designed to be dragged, they’re designed to bury themselves in the seabed and hold fast. The whataboutery and half truths are on your side.
I have 2 boats, and anchors drag until they dig into the seabed or catch onto something. If there is nothing to catch on to, or they fail to dig into the seabed (e.g. due to a bad design), they will drag, and that’s a pain in the arse.
Certainly, I’ve owned boats myself and anchored many times. My point was that an anchor isn’t really designed to drag along a seabed, its purpose is to dig intothe seabed as you state. I know that they can drag if things go wrong. Plus, no captain of any vessel would have the anchor dragging along the bottom as the ship is steaming along as the other poster suggests.
You haven’t a clue about what you’re talking about. You seem to find it very hard to follow a narrative, relying on obfuscation, gaslighting and pedanticism in your replies. Nowhere did I mention that dropping an anchor brought a moving ship to an immediate halt, although, when anchoring, a ship slows down, drops the hook and a caternary of chain ( 3: 1 at least is my preference), engages reverse to allow the anchor to “bite ” into the seabed and hold fast.
How do I know this? Because I’ve done it hundreds of times. That you don’t know how anchors work or the principles of anchoring just demonstrates the paucity of your knowledge and debating skills
Stick with your comics, a swimming pool or a shower of rain is probably the closest you’ve been to water.
Still as clueless I see. Ship captains don’t just drop anchor on a whim, charts are checked for depth contours and potential underwater obstructions ( like, yeah, you guessed it, pipelines and cables), snagging something like that could cause the total loss of an anchor and chain if it snagged fast and couldn’t be freed. You are gaslighting and conflating different scenarios to make up for your lack of knowledge.
If marine traffic shows those ships stopped in the vicinity of those cables/ pipes then it wasn’t for a tea break or to catch a few whiting for supper, are you really that naive? Also, as pointed out above, anchors being dropped don’t cause minor seismic readings consistent with a small explosion. Like the fact that there was actually 3 different cable and pipeline damage events, this is something that you’ve chosen to overlook, whether because you have difficulty processing information or are just clueless and rely on bullshit to gaslight your way along the story.
See if you can find out where the other seabed damage occurred. Here’s a little tip for you, don’t rely on what the Russians tell you, they’re not accurate or veritable.
Still no. From your original quote… “and once anchors are dropped they are designed to be dragged- hence the shape.”
That is so comically inaccurate it calls into question your competence to comment on anything beyond the weather. What you’ve quoted above is completely different from your original point. More gaslighting from you.
I don’t need to spend hours on the furthest reaches of the Internet searching for some irrelevant bullshit that I can wave around as “proof “. The only thing you’ve proven is that you have a modem and broadband connection. I’ve enough real world experience, knowledge and qualifications to inform my opinion. The scenario you are pushing of a ship dragging its anchor for several miles ( on 3 different occasions in 3 different locations, really ?) is so utterly absurd and preposterous and so heavily freighted with Russian bullshit that only the most gullible of pro Kremlin shills would swallow it.
Another thing, I’ve noticed from your odd spelling, punctuation and phraseology that English may not be your 1st language. What is ?
That’s just more clueless supposition from you. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Pro Russian shills usually don’t. It’s why I file your every comment into the big bin that’s marked “Bullshit “
They don’t actually. And You’ve described yourself very well there. Just not in very good English.
There was also a small seismic event measured by instruments. Anchors also do not do that….
It was the Chinese ‘ship’. Finns are now assessing whether this damge was an accident. That is very fair minded of them. This spot is no anchorage. Chinese ship is not responding to maritime authorities for clarification surrounding this act of sabotage, er, incident.
That Chinese ship was one ship that slowed from 14 to 7 knots while passing the area.
The more suspicious ship is the Russian ship that went up and down area. Going in or out of the baltics doesn’t require going up and down only left and right.
Is brief on you tube did a piece about it.
I’m not putting a link as the message sometimes takes ages to appear.
The Finns are explicitly saying the Chinese ship is the one under investigation , according to Rueters
“he police have established in the criminal investigation that the movements of the vessel NewNew Polar Bear flying the flag of Hong Kong coincide with the time and place of the gas pipeline damage,” NBI said in a statement.”
facts dont matter to you do they
Imagine if really it was done by the Chinese on purpose and this triggers a WW3. It will go down in history as “WW3 started by New New Polar Bear” and we will all look like fools 😂
Estonia are saying they are looking into the Russian ship in the area also.
Those are the 2 ships that were in the area so it probably one of them. If a captain of either ship suspected they damaged a pipeline by accident they should have reported it by now.
I wouldn’t put it past the Chinese captain to haven taken a large payment to drag anchor over the pipeline.
These undersea infrastructure are clearly marked so these problems don’t happen.
My question is why China, what do they to gain from this? Especially when considering what they lose in international relations and disclosing capability. Mistake seems way more likely, even if it does seem odd that it happened to multiple ones
A Russian/NATO conflict with China on the sidelines selling to both sides would be a huge gain.
There is already a Russia/nato conflict going on, and a full out war would be really bad for global trade. I can’t see the gain to China doing this, especially if they left it be known it was their ships, giving the west an excuse to reduce trade with them.
I read the Chinese ship actually dragged the anchor for several km. It was apparently even recovered at the „accident“ site. Now it’s in Russia and doesn’t answer. Looks pretty serious
What I can see is the Chinese captain being given a suitcase full of cash to drag anchor across the area. The ship was sailing from Russian port.
This wouldn’t require the CCP to sanction it and provides the Russians with deniability.
I won’t discount the Russian ship also in the area just yet
>A fleet of four NATO minehunters is also being dispatched to the area.
I find that interesting as the UK has decided to give up by 2030 the standalone capability offered by manned minehunters. As number of Hunt’s and Sandown’s rapidly shrinks it’s increasingly difficult for the RN to contribute to such ops. By the early 2030s we will have just 4 Castle-class logistic support vessels (LSVs) acting as mother ships for autonomous mine countermeasures systems. No doubt these will be very capable, but they can only be in a maximum of 4 places at a time, e.g. Rosyth (certain), operating out of Portsmouth and Bahrain (very likely) and in refit/workup. I hope that the MOD has some serious backup plans in event that this is not enough. E.g. imagine a legitimate seeming merchant ship sailing around the UK dropping off a handful of seabed mines in the approach to every major UK port, all timed to become live at the same time.
Send Proteus to see if it’s configuration is okay.
Any truth to the rumour that the u.k will go for the black scorpion torpedo for mad fox and the CETUS projects?