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[anewaname]

Well, there is no reason to drag an anchor on the bottom unless you are attempting to cause the damage.

If some ships sink unexpectedly, it should reduce the anchor-dragging incidents simply because there would be fewer mariners willing to take the side gig.

Sometimes you get:
1. Dumbasses who don't know better, use GPS exclusively and don't use charts which list where pipes or lines are, drop anchors, anchors get snagged and then they try force the anchors up thinking it's stuck on seaweed or something
2. The ship is caught in some seriously strong winds and currents whilst at anchor, dragging the ship (and the anchor) along for a ride. Especially vulnerable are ships passing through channels and straits, where you can anchor in calm waters but then tidal currents can change going >10 knots (most bulk shipping vessels go around 15 knots, so the effect can be like dropping anchor whilst at full speed). Places like the Baltic Sea or the English Channel are particularly vulnerable because you get a combination of narrow spaces, shallow seabeds, strong tidal currents, huge volume of traffic and high density of pipes & cables
This case study has an example where a ship was dragged at anchor by a river current of 5 knots

You are accurately describing the currents and tidal effects, but you are not considering that these things were already known when those cables were laid, by communities that have been laying and repairing undersea cables for 200+ years and these people already have experience with ships dragging anchors. Consider that every region has local experts who are tied into multiple military and civilian groups who work that coast and have local knowledge. These experts have already decided where shipping is required to wait when a port has berthing delays, and they have already decided where ships are disallowed, and they clearly would not accept any "international passage" treaty to include "dropping anchor" rights unless they were dictating where that anchor would be dropped.

The Baltic sea has no international waters, so dragging an anchor in the Baltic when your only access to those waters is through an "international passage" treaty, is something you would only do if you wanted to cause damage.

And, I like that "shork" article... it made me think that someday there might be giant toys left out for sharks to bite on because it would help distract them from other underwater infrastructure or help with their dental health.

[Loud Whispers]

You are accurately describing the currents and tidal effects, but you are not considering that these things were already known when those cables were laid, by communities that have been laying and repairing undersea cables for 200+ years and these people already have experience with ships dragging anchors. Consider that every region has local experts who are tied into multiple military and civilian groups who work that coast and have local knowledge. These experts have already decided where shipping is required to wait when a port has berthing delays, and they have already decided where ships are disallowed, and they clearly would not accept any "international passage" treaty to include "dropping anchor" rights unless they were dictating where that anchor would be dropped.

The Baltic sea has no international waters, so dragging an anchor in the Baltic when your only access to those waters is through an "international passage" treaty, is something you would only do if you wanted to cause damage.

“If I had a nickel every time a Chinese tanker dragged an anchor over our cables, I would have two nickels, which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice.” - Lithuanian Foreign Minister

I think it's sus as hell but for a complete picture, I'd feel it negligent not to point out the other very real possibilities too. Legally the baltic sea is effectively open sea governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is why NATO lets sanctioned ships pass through the baltic sea and the English channel amongst other similar bodies of waters. This is particularly disappointing to me, since the UK government takes the view that it will honour the UNCLOS even for Chinese flagged ships, even though China itself does not honour the UNCLOS. One of the Russian tankers that cut cables was also loaded with spy kit.

I hope this doesn't come off as contrarianism, cos Russia and China have been practicing how to cut cables for a long time, mapping where cables are, and now they're being cut

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I just think it's worth clarifying how accidental damage is actually very common. About 40% of damage to cables is done by fishing trawlers or 15% for dragging anchors, and there's lots of reasons why this can happen by accident. Cables are often laid in places that are also ideal places for dropping anchor. In the North Sea, cables are laid down in straits that are amongst the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Even when marked on charts, navigators can deviate from their course, and in the ocean there's little frame of reference if the GPS isn't working or has error. A crew might be inexperienced with the local waters, using out of date charts, not using charts at all, making mistakes from exhaustion or prioritising staying out of the way of other ships. Even when they've done everything properly and factored in their tides accurately, anchored in a designated mooring zone by the right buoys, it's easy for a ship to get taken by surprise if the currents and wind decide to misbehave - it is the north sea. Even just last year a Ukrainian shipping captain anchored off Perth - but was 500m off the designated anchorage. When the wind turned it caused his ship to drag anchor, cutting undersea cables.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: "These navigational charts are appropriate to the voyages they intend undertaking and show all navigational information including the position of sea-bed cables.

"During a storm it is possible that a ship may drag its anchor along the sea bed and it is possible for a vessel to unintentionally cause damage to seabed cabling.

"A prudent ship's master would try to avoid the chances of this ever happening by choosing an appropriate place to anchor and being prepared to raise the anchor and steam away from the area of risk in the case of bad weather."

Lots of ship crews will be told to brave a storm because their boss wants to save $$$

I think it's also worth mentioning though in the Russian case, the drag marks on the ocean floor are DOZENS OF KILOMETERS LONG which yeah, is not someone being pushed around by bad weather. It's someone driving under power with their anchor dragging along the seafloor on purpose

And, I like that "shork" article... it made me think that someday there might be giant toys left out for sharks to bite on because it would help distract them from other underwater infrastructure or help with their dental health.

We must play with the shorks to save the internet

[King Zultan]

Gonna have to start sacrificing babies to keep the sharks from eating the internet cables.

[anewaname]

I understand that there are accidents, but when it comes to shipping vessels, they simply don't drop anchor unless they are waiting for port access and have been ordered where to drop anchor. That Ukrainian captain was off by 500m and the shore should have told them they were parking in the wrong place. They have radar.

The UNCLOS treaty is just the newest treaty and its uniformity makes it easier on all ships than the variety of previous individual treaties. These treaties all offered some form of "innocent passage" clause, for trade and such, but they all essentially mean "move along in an orderly fashion and look innocent or you may be detained". Being within the EEZ isn't different, you have rights to passage under certain conditions and if you appear to violate those conditions they may attempt to board. This is why I said the Baltic has no international waters, it is all territorial and EEZ waters and travel through those waters is allowed conditionally.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I remember this one where 1.5 KM of cable just disappeared and it just happened to be part of a surveillance system.

[Loud Whispers]

I understand that there are accidents, but when it comes to shipping vessels, they simply don't drop anchor unless they are waiting for port access and have been ordered where to drop anchor. That Ukrainian captain was off by 500m and the shore should have told them they were parking in the wrong place. They have radar.

IDK if the baltic does more micromanaging but in French and British waters no one tells you where to anchor up. There are places designated on charts and marked in the ocean by buoys that are out of the way of traffic lanes near harbours & away from cables or pipelines, but there's nothing stopping ship captains from anchoring up anywhere for any reason beside a fear of being sued to death or running aground. I like the UK regs where they make it pretty clear "there is no legal protection if you did not follow the rules and caused a collision. There is no legal protection if you followed the rules, and in doing so caused a collision." Basically making it clear duty > protocol. Enforcement typically happens after the fact because ocean big patrol ships few. There are plenty of reasons why shipping vessels drop anchor anywhere. Most common besides logistic reasons is just the weather's changed, so plans have had to change on short term notice. Or problems with the engine, crew sick, crew on strike, shortage of harbour/straits pilotage e.t.c.
I sympathise a lot with the Ukrainian captain because drifting 500m off course is pretty damn easy to do if you're navigating by chart and the currents weren't kind enough to agree with your trigonometry, or you were operating a behemoth of a ship as he was. But he made a gaffa and it's really not fair to pin that on harbour staff, since it's not their job to monitor what ships are doing, nor is it practical (the ocean is stupidly vast. Even in fair weather with no noise, the idea of trying to monitor every single ship captain within range of an over the horizon radar in case they do something stupid would make it an impossible, hair loss inducing job. Even if they could see them on radar, there would be nothing to indicate the Maersk was at anchor without physically sending someone over there to inspect it in the middle of rough weather).

The UNCLOS treaty is just the newest treaty and its uniformity makes it easier on all ships than the variety of previous individual treaties. These treaties all offered some form of "innocent passage" clause, for trade and such, but they all essentially mean "move along in an orderly fashion and look innocent or you may be detained". Being within the EEZ isn't different, you have rights to passage under certain conditions and if you appear to violate those conditions they may attempt to board. This is why I said the Baltic has no international waters, it is all territorial and EEZ waters and travel through those waters is allowed conditionally.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gotta disagree, UNCLOS offers significant protections to all foreign ships right of transit, even warships. "Look innocent or you may be detained" implies states can just detain whatever ship for whatever reason, but countries don't do this because then other countries will (see Iran and their stupid tit for tat abduction of foreign tankers). It's also illegal, for what that's worth. Coastal jurisdiction is restricted to banning the movement of prohibited goods (weapons, drugs e.t.c.), in international waters enforcing certain regulations (against piracy, human trafficking, environmental) and ships threatening the use of force. Denmark itself has areas of territorial waters that under the Copenhagen treaty, are treated as international waters for innocent passage (hence why there are still Russian outbound tankers sailing through Danish waters unimpeded). Similar to how the Bosphorous straits are Turkish territorial waters, but for legal purposes its sovereignty is restricted by the Montreaux convention. And the EEZ is not the same as territorial waters. Territorial waters are sovereign, EEZs are claims - with the latter conferring no legal umbrella to subject foreign ships to the law of the EEZ's nation. This has already been the issue with the cases of one of the Chinese tankers:

The ship now sits idle in international waters but inside Denmark's exclusive economic zone, closely watched by Danish military vessels.
"From the Swedish side we have had contact with the ship and contact with China and said that we want the ship to move towards Swedish waters," Kristersson told a press conference, adding it would help facilitate the investigation.

The Chinese vessel the Yi Peng 3 very safely transited the baltic sea, Denmark's straits and then sailed to Egypt monitored but unmolested by European warships because of this. It ties into what I mentioned earlier where I am annoyed that we afford Chinese vessels all of the protections of the UNCLOS, whilst they themselves are not enforcing it, illegally laying claim to the SCS

I remember this one where 1.5 KM of cable just disappeared and it just happened to be part of a surveillance system.

They should add a livestream cam to the cables, catch them red handed 

[Il Palazzo]

I'm listening to Zelenskyy's interview with Lex Friedman. The amount of pandering to Trump's ego would be embarrassing, if it weren't necessary.

[EuchreJack]

I'm listening to Zelenskyy's interview with Lex Friedman. The amount of pandering to Trump's ego would be embarrassing, if it weren't necessary.

It's still embarrassing that it is necessary...

[Great Order]

It's embarrassing for the US, not Ukraine.

[EuchreJack]

It's embarrassing for the US, not Ukraine.

Indeed

[martinuzz]

Zelensky has offered Kim Jong Un to exchange North Korean prisoners of war for Ukrainians held in Russia.

The Ukrainian army has managed to capture two North Koreans alive. Which is hard. The North Korean soldiers have orders to detonate themselves if they are at risk of capture. Both North Korean and Russian soldiers have orders to kill wounded North Koreans, and to burn off the faces of North Korean dead, to prevent identification.
South Korean and US intelligence estimate that one third of the 10k troops sent by North Korea are already killed or incapacitated.

[Starver]

I imagine it's a performative offer, as I'm doubtful that they'll get two Ukrainians for them. Or, indeed, a commensurately fractional number of 'western' captives, of which I'm sure there'll be at least one kept as a hidden ace-in-the-sleeve (on top of the known non-combatant ones arrested and detained for supposed-spying).

And it would be against the interests of the two captives, as they likely won't exactly be treated as returning heroes. They'll probably get longer and nicer lives (even during any extended stint in captivity, hopefully transfered to SK) if they stay unswapped, unless they're very clever about the intelligence/insights they can provide, and haven't burnt their bridges by at least one of them not staying schtum when captured[1], and at least the one with apparently damaged hands perhaps "easily forgivable" for not being able to pull a pin on his 'last grenade'.

All in all, I feel instincively happier (relatively speaking) for those two as they are now, possibly even compared to when they were back home. But it's complicated, and they might well have different ideas (both from what they've been told and what they've experienced), if it's not further complicated by various non-obvious details.


[1] Probably against Geneva protocols, dear Ukraine, but I suppose that can be balanced against more blatant disregard by 'their side' (and I imagine far worse, in both sides, if you were to forensically tot up every record, allegation and scrap of uncovered evidence with the doggedness and observance of a whole battalion of third-party Columbos/Holmeses). If that were a technically allowable mitigation...

[martinuzz]

Gazprom is billions in the red and needs to fire half of it's staff.
Don't worry about the workers, they'll have a new job in the trenches soon enough.

[martinuzz]

I understand that bombing oil refineries and fuel depots and such is strategic thing to do and the Russian supply must be broken. But man. The CO2. The climate.

Please Ukraine, can't you instead of causing huge oil fires just bomb the cities surrounding those, where the workers of the oil refineries live with their families? At some point they must run out of qualified engineers to operate them (hint: those are much harder to replace than trench warfare meatbags).
That's less bad for the environment and thus better for humanity.

[Il Palazzo]

You have some proper weird priorities in your head. Would you tell a drowning man to watch out for disturbing the riverine environment as they scramble for the shore?
Besides, all that fuel ends up burned one way or another. If not set ablaze by Ukrainian drones, it'll end up in your car, in your electricity, in your baubles. Or in the Black Sea, looking at recent-ish events.

[Strongpoint]

Sadly, we don't have a fleet of bombers (somehow immune to air defense) to do USA-WW2-style warfare. Also, if we did, there would be far more interesting targets than civilian houses. Also, deliberately targeting civilian specialists is a war crime under Geneva conventions - just letting you know. Just because Russia does it, I don't think the world will be too lenient to Ukraine.


Drones carry a small charge and they are effective only because this shit burns well.  It is a very asymmetric warfare at this point.  We can effectively strike only very soft targets.