Chinese Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables:
A Chinese commercial vessel that has been surrounded by European warships in international waters for [several weeks] is central to an investigation of suspected sabotage that threatens to test the limits of maritime law—and heighten tensions between Beijing and European capitals.
Investigators suspect that the crew of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier—225 meters long, 32 meters wide and loaded with Russian fertilizer—deliberately severed two critical data cables last week as its anchor was dragged along the Baltic seabed for over 100 miles.
Their probe now centers on whether the captain of the Chinese-owned ship, which departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15, was induced by Russian intelligence to carry out the sabotage. It would be the latest in a series of attacks on Europe's critical infrastructure that law-enforcement and intelligence officials say have been orchestrated by Russia.
"It's extremely unlikely that the captain would not have noticed that his ship dropped and dragged its anchor, losing speed for hours and cutting cables on the way," said a senior European investigator involved in the case.
Related: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=24/11/20/2252220
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EU leaders suspect sabatoge:
An internet cable connecting Finland to Germany and another one between Lithuania and Sweden, both running under the Baltic Sea, were cut within 24 hours of one another. While accidental damage on undersea cables happens, CNN says these are rare events. So, the disruption of two cables around 65 miles apart and happening nearly simultaneously is a sign of sabotage, says German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
"Nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed," said Pistorius. "We have to know that, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a hybrid action, and we also have to assume that, without knowing by whom yet, that this is sabotage." The Finnish and German foreign ministers have also issued a joint statement, saying, "The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicious of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times." They also add, "Our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors."
These events came a few months after NATO warned that Russia was developing strategies to disrupt the global internet, with the latter mapping undersea fiber optic cables as future reference. Right before the suspected sabotage occurred, the US government also recently allowed Ukraine to use some long-range US weapons to attack targets in the Kursk region inside Russia, enflaming tensions further and heightening suspicions of Russian involvement.
[...] Despite these attacks, internet disruption remains limited. Telia Lithuania, the company that runs the Lithuania-Sweden cable, says that the damaged cable handled about a third of Lithuania's internet capacity but that traffic has already been restored even though the cable is yet to be repaired. Cinia, the company behind Finland-Germany fiber optic cable, also confirmed that service through that line was down. It also said that its telecommunications network is run through multiple links, thus limiting disruption.
Update 11/20/2024 03:38 PT: The Danish Navy has boarded and detained the Chinese Bulk Carrier Yi Peng 3 in the Danish Straits, near the exit of the Great Belt, according to reports in Eurasia Daily and Defence24. The detention reportedly took place on the evening of November 18. Officials have not verified those reports, however. According to Financial Times sources, Swedish authorities are "carefully studying the Chinese vessel."
Related:
- Opinion: What's Really Up With Data Disconnects in the Deep Blue Sea?
- UK Official Warns of Russian Risk to Undersea Cables
- Could Russian Subs Stop the Internet?
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) discovered anchor drag marks on the seabed after mapping it from start to finish. However, Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanomat reports that the authorities are still looking for the anchor that caused the damage. NBI Detective Chief Inspector Sami Paila says, “So far, a possible anchor detachment point has not been confirmed.”
The investigation focuses on the Eagle S, suspected of dragging its anchor on Christmas Day to cut the Estlink 2 power cable and several other internet and communications cables connecting Finland and Estonia. Authorities have already boarded the ship, but its anchor is reportedly missing. The authorities then sailed the Eagle S into Finland's territorial waters. They moved it to an even more secure anchorage in Svartbäck to facilitate the investigation, with other ships restricted from approaching the ship to maintain security. Its crew has also remained aboard for further questioning, with Finnish Customs authorities also looking into its cargo.
“The vessel’s captain and crew have remained on board and active during the move [from its original stopping point]. Once anchored, we will resume investigative procedures, focusing on whether this ship caused the damage,” said Helsinki Police Superintendent Heikki Porola to Finland’s national broadcasting company Yle.
The investigators discovered anchor drag marks on the seabed just a day after moving the ship. “East of that point, there are several tens of kilometers [of dragging], if we are not talking about almost a hundred kilometers,” says Paila. He added, “The track ends where the ship lifted the anchor chain.”
Because of this, Finland is adding aggravated telecommunications interference to the charges against the Eagle S and its crew. This is in addition to the initial aggravated arson charge and the aggravated regulation offense that Finland customs is investigating regarding the oil cargo it carries.
Sources say the Eagle S is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a collection of poorly maintained ships with murky ownership and registration that the country uses to circumvent sanctions and smuggle its oil exports despite the embargoes.
This is the second such incident in the last two months. In mid-November, a Chinese vessel, Yi Peng 3, is suspected of cutting undersea cables connecting Lithuania to Sweden and Germany to Finland. Underwater cameras also revealed drag marks that coincided with the vessel's maneuvers, further proving that it dragged its anchor to cause the damage.
Related:
• Undersea Power Cable Connecting Finland And Estonia Experiences Outage Capacity Reduced To 35%
• Chinese Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Username on Thursday December 05, @10:53AM (34 children)
I can see it being an accident. I don't think these guys are trained very well. Like the one that hit the bridge in southern United States. If it was sabotage, wouldn't they drag it while going to Russia? Why let the people you're sabotaging arrest you?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 05, @11:13AM (7 children)
Because they were going back to China and they have done it before (different crew and ship) and they can't just be arrested like that.
They dropped it right before another cable, which they didn't catch, and then continued until they were forced to raise it. Their speed was low and they constantly moved the return time further. They knew exactly what they were doing.
You just fell into their trap. The point obviously is to cause damage and make it look like an accident. They rely on the fact, that western civilisations need to prove intent to punish, and if there is a punishment, they will do something else to raise the stakes and claim being mistreated. A bit too coincidental to have two exact same "accidents" within a year, when that has not happened in decades if ever.
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Slava Ukraini! Slay the orcs!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday December 05, @02:14PM (5 children)
Actually this stuff happens all the time. Wikipedia has two examples of multiple cable severing from 2008 [wikipedia.org] and 2011 [wikipedia.org].
Or you fell into someone else's trap? Lots of opportunity for conspiracy theories with all kinds of angles with this sort of thing. All I can say is that there's plenty of people stupid enough to drag an anchor 100 miles. So an accident is somewhat plausible. Having said that, there seems to be several actions which show intent: turning off the transponder (who does that?), dropping anchor while in motion, apparently changing ship's direction while raising the anchor ("started zigzagging"), and finally, an interesting aspect is that the ship started operating in the Baltic nine months ago. We'll see if anything comes of this.
(Score: 2) by corey on Thursday December 05, @09:19PM (3 children)
Agree, it's all plausibile deniability stuff so anyone can have a different take on it.
I think the evidence is pretty strong here pointing to deliberate damage.
I'm no sailor but I can imagine the load on the ship (and possibly yawing) from dragging a whatever length of chain and anchor through the water. I think it's reasonable to conclude without much doubt the captain would have known the anchor was down, given these guys are sailing around the world. Agree they were probably stupid, but I don't think they were soccer mums out on a Sunday sail (on the other side of the world).
I suppose next time, they (China?) will do it via better means - submersibles, etc with normal transponders on, doing active fishing or whatever to increase the level of plausibility.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Friday December 06, @03:53AM (1 child)
Depends. What's the furthest your wife has driven with the handbrake on while being completely oblivious to the fact?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10, @02:04PM
Confession time: I always drove little sub 2000 lb 4 cylinder (sub 100hp) cars until I bought a 20 year old 5000 lb V8 pickup truck.
First night I parked it on the sloped driveway I put it in park and set the parking brake for good measure.
Next morning I put it in drive and drove 8 of the 10 miles to work before smelling something burning...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 06, @07:01AM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10, @02:00PM
Accident or not, when the SHTF for real there's quick and easy solutions, cheaper and lower tech than this latest iteration:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2024/12/warship-goes-down-a-u-s-navy-f-a-18-fighter-fired-a-stealth-munition/ [19fortyfive.com]
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by quietus on Thursday December 05, @03:53PM
Not necessarily. However implausible it may seem, I remember reading an article a couple of years back about a mutiny aboard a Chinese container vessel which ended with a number of people, including the captain, murdered. That story was based on translated witness statements to the Chinese police.
The picture that emerged was one of men desperate for work, but without any sailing experience at all, apart from a couple of old hands. Panic and mistrust onboard started when they lost sight of land and ended in revolt -- and multiple murders -- long before they even got to their end destination, which was South America.
Anyway, here's a bit of related news: a Russian warship fired signal munitions at a German military helicopter [euractiv.com] over international waters in the Baltic Sea.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Spamalope on Thursday December 05, @12:41PM (8 children)
I owned one sailboat or another for 30 years. If you catch or snag or drag anything on a boat you know it immediately. On a freighter time and fuel are money. Dragging the anchor through the water much less the bottom costs tons of both. You'd know, and you would get that fixed immediately.
If they were able to raise that anchor at all you've passed preponderance of evidence and I haven't heard anything that qualifies as a reasonable doubt yet. Maritime law - their goose is so cooked the meat is falling off the bone.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @04:31PM (6 children)
How big was this sailboat you owned?
On a freighter time and fuel are somebody else's money.
>You'd know, and you would get that fixed immediately.
Unless you're drunk, or just DGAF.
>Maritime law - their goose is so cooked the meat is falling off the bone.
And that's fair enough, malicious or not the damage is the same and the consequences should be the same. How we react diplomatically is something else entirely.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Thursday December 05, @05:45PM (5 children)
Bigger ships have bigger anchors, I doubt very much that they wouldn't have noticed that they were dragging the anchor for that distance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @06:54PM (3 children)
There's a thing called scope of the anchor line, if you drop the anchor straight down and it barely touches bottom it doesn't drag much at all... if you let out 5x the depth in anchor chain, that generally gets a good hook in. There's also a matter of the bottom type, and around there I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's a slimy mucky mud bottom - which is much less noticeable while dragging than rocks / reefs.
Whatever happens on a 9 meter sailboat, if you're awake at all you'll probably notice it. A container cargo ship bumps and creaks a great deal, particularly in heavy seas, and I don't know how big this one is but generally they're in the neighborhood of 300-400 meters long with weights in the range of hundreds of thousands of tons, as opposed to maybe 5 tons on a recreational yacht, even with a lead keel.
The captain isn't any bigger on a cargo ship that's 20,000x heavier than a typical pleasure yacht, and the crew are probably deeper into DGAF mindset than you can possibly imagine. Yeah, the anchor is bigger, but the scales at work are not in most people's common experience.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spamalope on Friday December 06, @04:36PM (2 children)
Drop it in the water and the extremely efficient hull shape is disturbed. And steering will pull to one side.
We're not talking about a small change, even if the anchor weren't on the bottom. If you didn't know the anchor were down, you'd be looking for a steering gear or rudder failure right away as you can die in a storm if those fail even on a large ship - or especially on a large ship (North Atlantic storms are fierce).
Other poster saying 'don't care if I'm just an employee'... if you use more fuel than normal and there is no defect in the ship that's not going to be let slide when you waste 10x your salary or more...
Also, this is a known sabotage vector, it's been done before - this isn't the 1st strike.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 06, @05:17PM
>And steering will pull to one side.
On a 300m cargo ship plying North Atlantic seas with 5-10m waves, the autopilot will be doing the steering, and even a manual helmsman might just not care that there's a bit more right rudder needed on average to stay on course - maybe it's just a shift in the winds...
>you'd be looking for a steering gear or rudder failure right away
I would, you would, a night shift helmsman third class who is more interested in his tinder matches for the next port?
>as you can die in a storm if those fail even on a large ship
True, but people who sign up to work cargo ships often have very different perspective about risk and longevity compared to you and I.
> if you use more fuel than normal and there is no defect in the ship that's not going to be let slide when you waste 10x your salary or more...
Which the owner might possibly care about, the crew who are basically getting paid as little as possible to entice them onboard? Earliest possible repercussions would be getting ejected from the crew at the next port... if those tinder matches were looking good...
> this is a known sabotage vector, it's been done before - this isn't the 1st strike.
Yep, which is why doing this on purpose is kinda like throwing toilet paper in the trees at the Mayor's house... sure, anybody can do it, but why bother? How is it really going to impact things? It's a little pain in the ass to fix it up, certainly costly, but actual impact? If function of the cables is getting critical, pretty much any airforce in the western world can respond a fighter or three to the probable location of every hostile controlled freighter in the region in minutes, and at least disable possibly sink the ship with a missile strike or two...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 07, @08:02PM
For the conspiracy/retaliation minded:
A Chinese vessel has been hijacked off the Somali coast, officials say
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/chinese-vessel-hijacked-off-somali-coast-officials-116522356 [go.com]
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday December 06, @03:58AM
I'm too lazy to do the maths but something like a 150,000 ton vessel driven by 100,000 horsepower engines moving at speed could pass through moderate land masses without even noticing (assuming the hull held up).
(Score: 2) by corey on Thursday December 05, @09:49PM
I like this, never heard it before - thanks for a new saying. :)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by helel on Thursday December 05, @02:03PM (9 children)
From the article:
They turned off their transponder, dropped anchor while moving, cut two cables, raised anchor again, and then continued on their way. I don't know if it's enough for a court of law but that seems pretty damning.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by janrinok on Thursday December 05, @03:01PM (5 children)
I would imagine that any vessel going dark in the Baltic will soon find itself looking at a warship to escort it in the future, or a maritime patrol aircraft (which are busy in the Baltic already so it will not be a major additional task) will be tracking it on its radar so they know exactly which ship was where if future breaks occur.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pkrasimirov on Thursday December 05, @03:25PM (1 child)
> looking at a warship to escort it
I hope the warship will not only escort it but also leave marks on it
It's an attack and must be defended against and retaliated.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 05, @11:39PM
Don't worry, Trump will fix the cable in less than 24 hours.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10, @02:07PM (2 children)
If it's a serious situation there are much faster and more efficient solutions than surface ships intercept:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2024/12/warship-goes-down-a-u-s-navy-f-a-18-fighter-fired-a-stealth-munition/ [19fortyfive.com]
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday December 10, @02:28PM (1 child)
Only if you are certain that 1. It has cut the cable maliciously, 2. You are prepared to commit a potential act of war, and 3. Somebody much higher up is taking full responsibility.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10, @03:01PM
> You are prepared to commit a potential act of war
Oh, sinking ships with plane-launched torpedoes is almost definitely an act of war, but also very do-able during the time interval between when a suspected bad actor cargo ship has "gone dark" and before they can travel another 100 miles.
If the current intervention is ineffective and we feel the need to communicate more clearly without an outright act of war, the missile could "paintball" a bad actor cargo ship as a demonstration of response times, but generally speaking you _don't_ want to give that information away any sooner than absolutely necessary.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Thursday December 05, @05:00PM (1 child)
As far as I know, the transponder ceased sending data after the first cable was stopped passing traffic, and restarted sending data before the second cable stopped traffic.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=62701&page=1&cid=1382830#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Now, this means little, as AIS signals can easily be set up to contain incorrect information. If anything, 'going dark' will light you up on various non-public surveillance systems, whereas sending subtly incorrect data will not. If someone is capable of looking, then having your AIS track not match your actual track would be a cause for investigation, but it is not that easy to track a ship once it is over the radio horizon, beyond the reach of coastal maritime traffic radar.
From a surveillance point of view, a polar-orbit satellite with a suitable tuned synthetic aperture radar will be able to keep a reasonably close watch on marine traffic. Large vessels won't go far within the orbital period of such satellites.
https://digital-library.theiet.org/doi/book/10.1049/sbra521e [theiet.org]
It's reasonably certain that someone has a good idea of the actual track of the vessel, but is unlikely to publicise non-publicly available data - not least, because they will not want opponents to know their actual capabilities of vessel tracking.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @08:02PM
>not least, because they will not want opponents to know their actual capabilities of vessel tracking.
See, this is (closely related to) why I don't think that a calculated diplomatic action would "tip their hand" like this... it's like sending a letter to the CEO of your insurance company threatening to shoot him before you actually do it... yes, it's "natural" and even "common" behavior, but most larger nation states just aren't collectively that dumb.
Saber rattling with nuclear launch platforms, sure, that's diplomacy. Sending warships into uncomfortable positions for your adversaries, SOP.
Openly actually doing something that everybody knows you can then denying it was done on purpose, wink wink? I don't see the point, unless it's a double rouse and the Chinese are actually warning the West to be vigilant for such things in hopes that the West is better prepared for them when the S actually HTF...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday December 06, @03:45PM
Hum. If the ship lost power, would that turn the transponder off? I can see a single power incident causing everything. Probably some guy flipping breakers to get it back, dropping the anchor, etc.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @04:28PM (6 children)
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Do interdict the incompetence, the damage they do is indistinguishable from damage done by malice, but don't assume they're smarter than they act.
I can totally picture the captain and crew of a cargo ship steaming on unaware that they are dragging an anchor for 100 miles or more.
It's not like they need to test the theory of whether or not this can cut cables, it happens all the time. Now, if their commercial vessel tracking beacon also "malfunctioned" while they were dragging anchor, there's a point at which incompetence itself needs to be punished as if it were perpetrated in malice.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday December 05, @06:07PM (2 children)
It's not uncommon for malice to be intentionally disguised as incompetence. It's called "plausible deniability."
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @07:00PM (1 child)
Yes, and lacking deeper insight or information beyond what has reached me through the Western press, that seems pretty likely here.
The ship has been stopped, the appropriate civil fines should be levied, and the shipping company and its relatives should expect to be watched rather closely for a long time from now.
I was looking for an older example, but here's a new one:
https://safety4sea.com/drunk-captain-gets-arrested-in-greece-following-vessel-collision/ [safety4sea.com]
this is the one I was looking for:
https://maritimecyprus.com/2019/04/06/flashback-in-maritime-history-sea-diamond-sinking-at-santorini-5-april-2007-2/ [maritimecyprus.com]
similar stupidity happens on large vessels all the time.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday December 05, @11:10PM
I would love it if someone who knows a little about maritime law could give a brief explainer about what the situation is. It might even be that it is up to China (the flag state) to prosecute any misdemeanours.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday December 05, @06:36PM (2 children)
It's not about "testing a theory", it's about reminding people that they can and will do this if they want.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 05, @07:04PM (1 child)
> it's about reminding people that they can and will do this if they want.
Probably so. It's not like everyone else isn't playing those same games recently:
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-nuclear-submarine-surfaces-off-norway-in-rare-flex-2024-6 [businessinsider.com]
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/30/world/video/smr-putin-threatens-ukraine-nuclear-missiles [cnn.com]
Still, the incompetent captain and crew theory does hold a good bit of water - though coincident with their tracker going dark I'm leaning toward a "who, us? we would never (wink wink)" scenario.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06, @12:33AM
And they're trying to see if others can figure that out AND reveal it (after all the US military might figure it out but still keep it a secret).
e.g. if the submarine did it, and others accuse the submarine of doing it, they go no it really was the ship.
And try to make the sub stuff better.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday December 05, @11:06AM (2 children)
In other words, full of shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 05, @04:48PM
+1 Wonderful
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday December 06, @02:46PM
Them Duke boys [youtube.com]...
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday December 05, @05:38PM
A lot of people are pointing out that cut cables did not cause much disruption, but it very well could have been a "proof of concept" to show people that they could, if they wanted to.
(Score: 3, Informative) by quietus on Friday December 06, @06:20PM
On December 5, ESA launched the Sentinel-1C satellite into orbit, using a Vega-C rocket [avio.com].