> While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Russia, or other unfriendly international actors, states should always be cautious.
This bears repeating. Russia has bee actively engaged in low-intensity warfare with the west for decades, and has single-handledly escalated their aggression towards the west in general but western Europe in particular for the last couple of years to the point they overtly and very publicly threaten the world with all sorts of attacks and global annihilation.
Once Russia tries to casually float a massive bomb right into your doorstep, only a massive moron would not mitigate the risk presented by Russia, even if considered implausible.
Russia found out they had a faulty dangerous explosive ship under their control and instead of safely towing the ship to Russia and unload the Russian cargo they are instead using it to harass NATO countries as part of their hybrid warfare.
The ship has been featured extensively in Danish and Norwegian media. First the Russians attempted to get the explosive ship close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away. The Danish coast guard also had to confront them.
The ship contains several times more Ammonium Nitrate than what caused the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Beirut was 2750 tons. So it's slightly more than 7 times as much. Also, one ton of ammonium nitrate is roughly equivalent to 250kg of TNT. If this shipment actually were to explode all at once, the energy equivalent would be roughly 20x0.25=5 kilotons of TNT. That's one third of the Hiroshima bomb's 15 kilotons.
But these are highly oversimplified number games. For example, it's highly doubtful someone could get this to explode all at once without dispersing most of it - even if they were actively trying to cause maximum damage. Nonetheless it's still a monumental safety risk and any port in their right mind would do well to shoo this piece of crap back to Russia.
No, equal TNT power equivalent can have different effect depending on the nature of the explosive. The heat spreaded from an amonium nitrate blast, like in Beyrut, does not last as long, from [0],
> However even on this basis, comparing the actual energy yields of a large nuclear device and an explosion of TNT can be slightly inaccurate. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. Gas-expansion and pressure-change effects tend to "freeze" the burn rapidly. A large open explosion of TNT may maintain fireball temperatures high enough so that some of those products do burn up with atmospheric oxygen [...]
See also the "Relative effectiveness factor" paragraph [1]
At some point the comparison becomes moot. It's suffice to say that it's big enough to wreck the port, plus some significant percentage of the city around it.
No, it likely wouldn't do as much damage as an airburst nuke. But it would be catastrophic nonetheless.
That's a red herring. No one is looking at the decimal places. The comparison serves to provide a real-world benchmark of the expectable destructive power of the cargo held by this vessel, and a relative comparison of how big it would be. Arguing otherwise is idiotic.
It’s the same mentality of “it’d be really bad if something happened to that nuclear power plant due to an accident” that they approach the Ukraine invasion with the goal genociding their neighbor and taking their land/resources
At the same time, denying access due to the risk also shows that behavior has consequences: if Russia didn't behave like a dangerous, aggressive, untrustworthy bully, they would have an easier time getting their cargo offloaded
Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.
Protecting the borders saps resources from the militaries of these countries.
Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
> I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region:
But you can admit that the IKEA fire example is laughable, right? But even the GPS jamming is questionable when it comes to the motivation. Do they have military reasons for it or is it to "disrupt people’s everyday lives"?
> Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.
This is actually a bit more nuanced than that. We are the ones that want (illegal) migration, it was only a problem when Belarus opened the borders and to be fair they have no obligation to keep them and they were upfront about it. It was a classic case of hypocrisy.
That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem.
It's a problem with our border control and creating unnecessary pull factors.
> Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
I see the exact opposite and mostly retaliation to be honest, but even if you do not agree you can probably agree that the west is also hostile towards Russia. It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it, starting at least with 2008 NATO summit and making it obvious in 2014 Ukraine coup d'état. I don't know what Russia did to the US to warrant this kind of provocation.
> That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem.
Finland has closed the entire land border with Russia in response to Russia ferrying migrants from the other side of the planet to Finnish border and forcing them to illegally cross it, to overwhelm Finnish social services and incite political instability.
> It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it
It is not well received because it is a hollow Russian talking point that has no substance behind it. Might as well bring up the international Jewish conspiracy and lizard people while you're at it.
> It is not well received because it is a hollow Russian talking point that has no substance behind it. Might as well bring up the international Jewish conspiracy and lizard people while you're at it.
Not sure why you are talking about lizards and jews. At least you're not telling anything of substance I could even take as an argument.
You may tell me how it was Russia's fault the US/EU instigated the coup d'état in Ukraine for a change.
The "coup" narrative is a myth. It's just talking point you read somewhere, thought it sounded nifty, and never thought to fact-check or question the logic behind.
In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.
> The "coup" narrative is a myth. It's just talking point you read somewhere, thought it sounded nifty, and never thought to fact-check or question the logic behind.
You never thought for yourself it seems and just throw fact-check around. Janukowytsch was elected president of the country and was forcibly removed from that function. If you like him or not, it's by definition a coup.
> In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.
This is also true for the US and the EU. Why do we fund movements to overthrow foreign governments? It's not even a secret that the US does this all the time. It even got their own name: color revolutions.
> You may tell me how it was Russia's fault the US/EU instigated the coup d'état in Ukraine for a change.
There was no coup in Ukraine. The sitting president was responsible for getting over 100 protestors killed. First he went into hiding as it became clear that had lost all political support in Ukraine and would be facing criminal charges, then Russian secret services helped him escape to Russia.
Ukrainian parlament assembled, voted with 328-vs-0 to hold early elections for a new president. Not even a single member of his own party voted in favor of the Russian puppet who ran away. Elections were held soon thereafter and even Russia recognized its results after a delay.
Calling this a coup indicates lack of knowledge or intentional maliciousness.
Ukrainian president was not "forcibly removed", but replaced through general elections by the people of Ukraine. Early elections are a standard attribute of most parliamentary democracies. 55% voted for Petro Poroshenko, who became the next president. His closest competitor got 13%. Turnout was 60%.
This is the opposite of "illegal seizure of power by a small group", as coup is commonly defined.
Both a NATO summit and Ukraine's popular uprising against a russian-backed ruler are none of russia's business, as are most things that happen outside of russia. You may recall that russia has held a few summits and revolutions of their own, and none of them led to Ukraine attempting to genocide russia.
What russia calls a "provocation" is no excuse for russia's invasion and subsequent 3rd genocide of Ukrainians (the 1st being the russian-perpetrated Holodomor starting in 1932, the 2nd being the russian deportation of Crimean Tatars starting in 1944).
Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist. Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.
The hollow russian talking point the other poster pointed out, is that russia being upset at something that happened in another country which has nothing to do with it, is somehow justification for russia perpetrating a war of genocide. It isn't. That's why nearly every country in the world voted to reject russia's excuses such as the ones you cite, and condemn russia's actions in multiple United Nations votes, and why the ICC issued arrest warrants for putin and his war crimes.
> What russia calls a "provocation" is no excuse for russia's invasion and subsequent 3rd genocide of Ukrainians (the 1st being the russian-perpetrated Holodomor starting in 1932, the 2nd being the russian deportation of Crimean Tatars starting in 1944).
Yeah the liberal use of genocide isn't going to help. Killing thousand civilians per day in east Ukraine by their own people is closer to that. And killing thousands of civilians was also a reason for the NATO to intervene in Serbia.
> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.
The same could be said about the US in Ukraine, but also Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq - just in the recent time, otherwise I have to list most of the world. The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat for the US, but it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.
> Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.
Killing thousand civilians per day in east Ukraine by their own people is closer to that.
You're hallucinating. Total deaths an all sides (civilian and military) are far below 1000, and certainly not ">=2000" as you are explicitly stating.
One could delve further into civilian vs. military distinction and which side is responsible for the bulk of these -- but if you're going to insist on pulling numbers out of the air without making any effort to check them, there's no point in doing so.
> Yeah the liberal use of genocide isn't going to help
Agreed: russia's liberal use of genocide in Ukraine isn't going to help resolve the conflict. Beyond that, denying russia's 3rd genocide of Ukrainians isn't going to help. Especially since nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If russia cared about civilian killing, russia would not have killed so many civilians in their war on Chechnya and their other conquered lands, and russia would stop killing so many civilians in Ukraine, including in Eastern Ukraine.
>> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.
> The same could be said about the US
The same could be said about russia. "Someone else did it" isn't a sufficient excuse, which is why nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If you think other countries' actions are equivalent, you may make your case to the UN, who can decide if they are. If you think other countries did wrong, you may make your case to the ICJ or ICC, who can decide if they did. Note that "invade and genocide" is not an acceptable response.
> 1940? What time is it?
Has russia ever acknowledged that the actions I cite were wrong, apologized, and made reparations? No? They're just doing the same thing again? And russia is surprised the world is reacting to russian actions in the way they are? Such surprise is performative. It is best if russia accepts sooner, rather than later, that if they wish to change the world's reasonable reactions to unreasonable russian behavior, they must first change the unreasonable behavior. This starts with accepting to settle their complaints via multilateral diplomacy, not invasion and genocide. It also means accepting russia doesn't get everything russia wants.
> The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat
Oh, russia has never attacked any countries? They present no threat? If this was true, countries would not seek to join NATO to protect themselves from russian threat. Ukraine sought protection because they felt threatened by russia. They were right: russia attacked them for no good reason.
> it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.
This is an empty, world-rejected talking point. Every country has the right to join NATO if they wish. It only threatens russia's ability to conquer and genocide other countries, which they have no right to do in the first place. As long as russia doesn't attack other countries, there is no problem. A better representation is that russia is an open threat to Ukraine and eastern Europe if the latter are not in NATO. russia proved this to be true with their nazi-like wars of territorial conquest.
Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. The average citizen who is probably reading rhetoric like yours and then going and mowing down migrants because the world told them they’re evil.
aaomidi says "Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. "
Nonsense. The vetting process can be as simple as wading across the Rio Grande and walking 20 miles (or a similar dry-land journey), whereupon the immigrant gains residency automatically.
> Spurning the obvious solution of a return to Russia, where she loaded at Kandalaksha in late August, the damaged vessel embarked on an odyssey of attempted entry to European ports, beginning at the Norwegian anchorage of Tromsø
This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?
From another article [0]:
> Not long after leaving the Russian port of Kandalaksha in late August, the general cargo vessel ran aground in a storm in Norwegian waters and a Port State inspection in Norway confirmed cracks in the hull and damage to the ship’s propeller and rudder.
"Over the weekend, MV Ruby was also denied access to the Strait of Denmark, the entrance to the Baltic which would have allowed it to offload its dangerous cargo at a Russian port.
According to Danish news reports, on Friday a pilot was to be allocated the following day, but when the time came, authorities appeared to have changed tack.
'The ship is not going to have a pilot tonight, and the latest I’ve heard is that it’s in Norwegian waters,' DanPilot press officer Anne Heinze told DR Nyheder over the weekend.
Instead, MV Ruby is apparently making its way toward the Channel, with Malta-flagged anchor handler Amber II maintaining a distance of around one kilometre...
Though the vessel was able to limp some 1,600km around the Norwegian coast, it now faces a fraught voyage through the Channel, past Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar and onward to Malta through two of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
And there are few good choices ahead for the vessel’s crew: should MV Ruby sink, the cargo will likely cause enormous environmental damage, including algal blooms which choke swathes of ocean life, and could lead to a shipping exclusion zone to contain the spread of pollution."
> This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?
The ship ran aground between Norway and Russia, seeked emergency shelter in Tromsø. The ship has damanges on it propellors and rudder. It anchored up near Tromsø for while until the port authorities and governments told the ship to leave due to security concern.
Basically the ship stayed outside a small populated island, and it was determined the island would be blown flat if something happened.
The Norwegian government are likely extra nerveous about this, just a small amount of the same stuff was used to blow up the government quarter in Oslo in the terrorist attack by Anders Brevik.
Presumably the ship tried to get to another port elsehwhere, but got into more mechanical trouble.
The place "near" Tromsø where it anchored is in the middle of the city now.
For this who don't know the place: the city is on an island, facing the mainland. There's a suburb on the mainland, connected to the city with a bridge and a tunnel. The ship anchored between the bridge and the tunnel.
Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?
Of course I have no real info on why but it does seem plausible that returning would be unattractive.
> Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?
Your hypothesis is quickly rejected/proven to be bullshit by the fact that the travel distance that the ship took after being rejected by Norway was greater than the distance it would need to take to get to a Russian port.
And instead the ship planted itself where? Right in the middle of the English channel? We're talking about hitting ports from Norway, Lithuania, and now UK/France/Belgium?
I'm not arguing against physical geography - I'm stating that it might in the current political climate be a lot easier to get a European flagged ship repaired somewhere in (political) Europe as opposed to Russia.
I assume the Murmansk ports told them they won't get back in (after all no other port will, why would they?)
What do you think they should do, camp in international waters outside Murmansk in a dead-end of the Arctic, hoping a Russian port authority relents, until winter comes in full force and they're ultrafucked rather than just a bit fucked? Have you looked at a map?
It is also effectively 'natural gas in solid form' - the main input to making ammonium nitrate is natural gas.The main cost is the cost of the natural gas, and there are huge worldwide markets for both natural gas and fertilizer. Therefore, from an economics perspective, natural gas and fertilizer are pretty much tied together.
Same as electricity and aluminium.
Natural gas is hard to ship - whereas fertilizer is easy to ship.
Since Russia has bountiful supplies of natural gas, and sanctions prevent it selling that gas to europe via pipeline, producing fertilizer and selling that to the rest of the world is a workaround.
Ammonia is produced at scale by the Haber-Bosch process, N2 + 3H2 => 2NH3. Most H2 is currently produced by steam reformation of natural gas, CH4 + 2H2O => CO2 + 4H2.
It's not really feasible to turn ammonium nitrate back to natural gas, moreso GP was insinuating it's a way to export (a proxy for) natural gas, eg to bypass sanctions.
The parent does not imply anywhere that you can produce natural gas out of fertiliser.
* They state that natural gas is an input to the fertiliser product
* They state that with sanctions on natural gas from Russia, converting it to fertiliser evades the sanctions, albeit by transforming it into a different but saleable product.
I don't entirely follow the logic of the trip (but I know nothing about shipping). Tromso on the Norwegian Sea, then Klaipeda on the Baltic, now off the shore of Kent? That's very roundabout.
It's easy to come up with explanations involving bad will. There must be some legit ones too. What are they trying to achieve? Did they buy some ammonium nitrate and are trying to offload it for a buyer, but successive ports are saying no? Surely whoever paid and loaded the cargo needed some idea of where and how they will offload it.
I agree also that news report are missing to report on what is the most interesting part to understand the problem:
What was intended with this shipment in the first place? who is responsible for it? Regarding current international sanction, what was this ship doing loading or unloading in Russia and then going to any cost in Europe.
Also, wouldn't it possible to unload it by smaller units with smaller boats why at the see?
Bad weather is a reason to avoid bad weather. On the scale of a long voyage, weather is "local" and can be avoided either by picking a different route, or a different time (potentially hiding in a man-made or natural harbor where the ship is less exposed to the waves and weather due to the surrounding terrain).
I don't know much about CEPA (this is the first time I've come across them) but I don't think they're the best source for news.
This article is extremely inflammatory, frames the entire story around Russia and seems to be extremely selective with which details were included. The article is stuffed with problems but I'll point out just a couple of examples:
> Maltese-registered cargo ship
This appears to be a deliberate attempt to cast doubt as to the "true" operator or entity controlling the vessel.
The ship is "Maltese-registered" because it's owned by a Maltese company, 'Ruby Enterprise'.
It's destination is Malta.
> Spurning the obvious solution of a return to Russia,
Is this obvious?
As the article admits, the vessel is seaworthy.
Why would a seaworthy ship carrying some exported product return to the origin port?
I think this BBC article[0] offers a much more balanced take on the events.
This is pretty much a non-point. In the age of off-shore, ownership-obfuscated, tax avoiding company proliferation, any country "owning" a vessel means very little. To give an example, technically most "mining" companies in the world are Canadian. What that means in practice is they rent a desk in one of a handful of office towers in Vancouver to set their legal/financial headquarters in the country to access services and the TSX. They are certainly not "Canadian" in the true sense. I see news articles sometimes mentioning X Canadian mining company operating in South America, Africa, or SE Asia. If the true owners are not Canadian, the operations are not Canadian, the office workers, leadership team, and financial flows never touch Canada, it's not Canadian.
That said, I do agree it's inflammatory and probably not the best source.
The article contains an interesting note at the end: "Eitvydas Bajarūnas is an ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, and currently a Center for Europe Policy Analysis (CEPA) Visiting Fellow. Assessments and views expressed in the article are those of the author and should not be treated as the official position of the MFA of the Republic of Lithuania."
That may suggest bias, but also an unusual level of insight (and there is the possibility that it is an official position pushed through a "side channel" to make it look less official).
And according to the BBC article, it's destination isn't Malta, at least not until they figure out where else to unload the cargo, because Malta won't let them in with the cargo on board. That in itself is noteworthy. Especially since the "it might leak" claim sounds like it might just be an intentionally-transparent pretext.
Astonishing amount of critical thinkers here in this thread who have to highlight that the ship is Maltese because it's flying a Maltese flag as if this matters in international shipping.
Sure. I thought though that it might need spelling out to some of the audience here who are far removed from that part of the world. I myself didn't know it until I visited Malta and Cyprus.
I love the word 'megabomb' as much as the next guy, and I'm about all threat escalation, but isn't ammonium nitrate also fertiliser?
Since this is one of the main (and historic) exports from Russia, I would imagine that one or two cargo ships have carried the stuff before.
A little more info on how it is stored/transported and under which eventualities the cargo would become bomb-like would give me a sense of journalistic satisfaction as an accompaniment to my sense of impending doom.
It's probably a fertiliser shipment, but if it were to explode while unloading the intended use does not matter much. If you've seen some footage from the Beirut port explosion in 2020, calling something 7 times as large a 'megabomb' is not inappropriate.
There are or were this kind of fertilizer shipments from other dates or countries that weren’t cataloged as megabombs? Maybe even bigger. A weapon is a weapon no matter who holds it. If coming from other sources, maybe in even bigger amounts, it is seen as something normal, then we are not talking about the ship.
I think the fact that the ship is damaged, making the fertilizer much more likely to explode, is why they’re calling it a megabomb. Circumstances have made the cargo more hazardous, and pushed the “explosive substance” part of its dual nature to the front of everyone’s minds
Experts have said in Swedish media that no such risk exists due to how it's packed/stored, unless someone intentionally mixes it with "organics" or stores it with fireworks (as in Beirut).
Organics such as fuel oil, which the ship likely has on board and might also refuel. If it accidentally or "accidentally" leaks into the AN, you get ANFO, "a widely used bulk industrial high explosive".
If Russia wants to nuke an European port city without using an actual nuke and while being able to at least leave some doubt whether it may have just been an accident, this certainly looks like a plausible way.
Who cares, it's quite enough to reason to refuse a ship to dock in port. The Beirut ship also had a Russian owner. The AN was bound to Mozambique to be used for explosives.
> A little more info on how it is stored/transported and under which eventualities the cargo would become bomb-like would give me a sense of journalistic satisfaction as an accompaniment to my sense of impending doom.
I agree. In fact the premise of the article - that this should be treated as a threat from Russia - hangs on the understanding that there is a legitimate reason a European port would accept a ship carrying this cargo. So how many such shipments are regularly made from Russia to Europe? What ports are designated to accept them? What safety measures do they have to handle the cargo? In what way is this particular ship different from those legitimate ones? Without this information, the article is incomplete.
If there are no such legitimate shipments the article cannot claim there is any ambiguity about the threat posed by this ship.
No, Russia is deliberately using this ship to harass NATO countries. The ship was recently unusually close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away.
Here in Denmark the Danish coast guard also had to confront the ship.
The ship has enough Ammonium Nitrate to cause an explosion several times the size of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Basically any other country with a faulty ship full of dangerous explosive material would tow the ship back and fix their own mess.
Russia is instead using it as hybrid warfare against geopolitical adversaries.
This is quite possible, equally though, what is stopping all these countries from simply refusing access to territorial waters for this ship. It seems to be travelling for thousands of miles just fine, so can't claim emergency shelter, and even then the danger to third parties seems to justify any refusals. The crew is likely tiny and easy to rescue if need be.
I can imagine this being a simple ruse to annoy NATO countries and their navies too, that wouldn't be out if character, but beyond that... That would be a very petty hybrid risk.
Or maybe Russia is just trying lots of things just to see what sticks..?
From my side, while I think using a semi damaged ship as a hybrid threat would be within the Russian MO, it also seems like an easy one to protect against.
I get that, and it is odd. Though Russia can also wash its hands off of that ship. IIRC it is Maltese-flagged, owned by a Maltese company, and the crew is international. It "just so happens" that it contracts for Russian cargos. Russia may perhaps (?) be the ultimate beneficiary but it's also not strictly speaking Russian.
Back to my question: can all these justifiably concerned countries not simply refuse access for this ship, end of story?
> can all these justifiably concerned countries not simply refuse access for this ship, end of story
Pretty much. Entire crews can be (and are) abandoned in international waters for years at a time if the company decides they don't want to deal with the ship any more.
Which makes some sense as to why the crew would bring the ship down to the North Sea from the far northern Norwegian coast (weather this week: down to 2 degrees C, wind up to 40mph). If you think you might be abandoned in late September, and ports in Murmansk and Arkangelsk could also decide not to admit you, do you want to overwinter at sea in the Arctic, or go literally anywhere else? And that's if the company does forsake them, which is also a hypothetical. More likely, the company also would probably rather the ship is not at risk of being disabled in the Arctic considering they presumably couldn't get a guarantee readmittance to the port of origin and decided to at least get to relative safety down south with better weather and near countries that at least plausibly would lift a finger if the ship really was at risk.
The ship started in Murmansk. How would it have gotten to Lithuania (or Kaliningrad, St Petersburg or anywhere in the Baltic) if it's not allowed though the passage by Denmark?
For those who downvote the above, yes it presents speculation as if verified fact, but what it puts forth is actually plausible when you see how Russian military efforts tend to make use of uncertainty.
If you are going to dismiss it: dismiss it with facts and arguments. Don't just lazily downvote it.
Just to be clear, you want HN users put effort into a rebuttal of the factless speculation presented as a fact? This isn't how discussions work, this is flamebait (just like the article itself) and has no place on HN. This doesn't contribute to the discussion, and should be downvoted and flagged.
The two last statements of the post are indeed speculation. What was said up until that point can be verified. However, the speculation should be seen in light of recent history. Russia does have a history of shady maritime dealings covered by deniability. For instance you have probably heard of cables that have been mysteriously cut in the northern regions.
As for you accusing me of posting flame-bait: that's not very nice. I presume you have some way of proving your speculation?
The interesting thing is that ship was damaged almost immediately after leaving the port, had a chance to stop in Russian ports along the way but instead is doing a tour near EU countries.
The crew is either amazingly incompetent or malicious/complicit.
You don’t put a ship that can blow up near: a. Gas&oil terminals, b. military air base
...said the Filipino deck hand to the Egyptian navigator, no less.
(I don't know what nationalities the ship's crew has, but based on the ship's ownership, it would be pretty unlikely to be all Russian unless they've already disposed of and replaced the entire crew).
So not only is there now a suicidal crew of mad Russians, but they also killed the old crew. They just keep getting more dastardly! They probably caused the bad weather too! Andøya is usually so lovely this time of year!
Actually this rampant speculation thing is quite fun. I should sell this stuff to whoever is running the Tom Clancy estate.
This is a relatively constant factor along the Norwegian coast and has been for many years. In recent years the behavior has become a bit more aggressive with communication cables at sea going missing.
This tends to not make international news as this activity isn't exceptional. It just varies in intensity and scope over time.
That is true, but given the current level of trust between Russian and 'Western' authorities, would it not be prudent to assume the vessel is indeed a threat and keep it away from infrastructure and the general population if at all possible?
In the case of Arctic Norway, there are plenty of unpopulated, sheltered fjords. No need to dock it in a commercial port in an urban area.
If this were a threat, how would the Russians coerce a ship full of sailors to not surrender or abandon the ship rather than choose between vaporisation or arrest or death by navy when trying to escape the aftermath (assuming they even have boats that can get away from the blast)?
> (...) how would the Russians coerce a ship full of sailors to not surrender or abandon the ship rather than choose between vaporisation or arrest or death by (...)
Have you paid any attention to Russia's meatwave tactics in Ukraine that so far already piled up half a million of Russian casualties?
If you did, you wouldn't be considering this scenario implausible, because we see videos of said Russians needlessly marching towards their deaths on a daily basis.
Are the sailors actually Russian military? Or are there suicidal commissars on board along with them to put a gun in their backs 1000km from home?
I'm not saying it not possible, but the fact that there isn't a rather more concerted response involving, say, the SBS or an encounter with an Astute within the last several weeks while it's been tooling around the North Sea implies that the intelligence services don't consider it as much of an actual active threat as the media circus wants it to be.
Certainly if there was even a breath of Russian military on the ship, I don't think "hey sure, just drop anchor outside Margate and chill next to these other ships and right by the Thames and Channel shipping lanes" would be the call they'd make.
The people Russia is sending to their deaths in their meat wave tactics aren't exactly Russian military either. They are at best civilians under contract and moved to front lines weeks if not days after being hired.
Then there are the civilians pressed into service such as unsuspecting immigrants and Ukrainians who found themselves in occupied territories.
The key factor is complete disrespect for those under your control, and willingness to sacrifice themselves for the smallest reason.
Kind of seems like climbing onto or sending a message to the anchor hoy currently alongside and requesting asylum from the murderous Russians would be the obvious way out of that one.
Margate may not be luxurious, but it's not a Ukrainian front line.
The only evidence that it's anything other than a damaged ship in a shit situation (even shitter than your average Syrian/UAE cargo ship, which is probably saying something) with a very low chance of a very big explosion, trying to find somewhere to put in, is that the word "megabomb" makes good headlines and people want to have exciting things happen, even if "it" is blowing up a town, no matter how dreary, from 12 miles away with what would presumably be the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history.
“The [Ukrainian] commanders estimated that 50 to 70 per cent of new infantry troops were killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.“
The same way Russia coerces soldiers to go into the meat grinder against Ukraine - money, assurances their families will be cared after (well it might be with a sack of potatoes, but the poor fools can't know that).
Do not underestimate the importance of drugs cocktails in the meat wave tactics employed by Russia. Also the running Buryat and other ethnic-minorities from the east of the empire aren't told that IR scopes can see through smoke-grenade clouds, and seem not to be told that the trenches in front are not full of friendlies.
If the plan was to deliberately detonate the ship rather than just be an annoyance that can't be ignored, then it seems like a very obvious option to rig it with a timer and have the crew escape during the night. Risk of arrest for sure but they'd have a chance, and the west has shown no shortage of willingness in the past to exchange assassins for hostages. People take on worse missions all the time.
I'd far rather be crew on this ship than on HMS Campbeltown.
And if that were remotely on the cards, even within a shadow if a doubt, there'd be an exclusion zone around the ship. And there isn't. There are ships going right past it, right now.
Combine that story with the recent, substantial reports about hapless pseudo-mercenary "disposable agents" bought by Russian intelligence, and the whole thing feels even more icky. Have that ship dock somewhere, and some idiot assets who don't know what they got themselves into infiltrate it to start a fire or something, for a few hundred bucks.
> Russia is waging a war of sabotage against the West. Initially with graffiti, now with arson attacks. The perpetrators are young men who have no idea who they are serving.
Is it unfeasible to ship these kinds of things in smaller loads? Why would you put any kind of dangerous material that would "obliterate the center of any port city" in the same place without strong guarantees that nothing will go wrong? A boat does not seem like that kind of place.
Just leave it offshore then? I’m fairly certain ‘outside of territorial waters’ is equivalent to ‘more than 25km from shore’. It can safely explode there. If the crew want to get taken off their sinking ship they are more than welcome.
Is this your general view on all ships carrying fertiliser? Do you know how many people would starve to death if we stopped shipping fertiliser around the world?
Only ships owned by countries we are more or less at war with and have a rich history of sabotage and assassinations. I think this is fairly self-evident.
Sorry, but this stinks to high heaven, and what it stinks of is bullshit.
If the cargo is Russian and you legitimately want to dock for repairs, then why try Tromsø, Klaipėda, and then anchor the ship off the UK coast?
If you legitimately need to dock for repairs why not dock at Kaliningrad? The cargo is after all Russian so let them deal with the problem.
You have to literally sail past Kaliningrad to get to the English channel in any case, so it's hardly surprising that people port authorities are cautious if not outright suspicious.
Because it was damaged in northern Norway, and requested permission to go to Klaipeda, in the Baltic. Lithuania said no, unless it unloads first. The Lithuanians said, two weeks ago, they'd found a port in Norway that agreed to unload, near where it was stopped. Presumably that fell though and thus the permission was withdrawn. Then Denmark refused access to the Baltic, and Gothenburg also then said no. The ship never entered the Baltic as far as I can tell.
The implication is that the ship didn't want to go back to Murmansk. Possibly it was also denied entry, or doesn't want to get stuck there over winter if the Russians can't or won't repair the ship. It's not a Russian ship, it might not even be Russian-owned cargo any more, depending on the INCOTERMS, why would they make the effort if no one else will?
Is there something to be said for “consumable” deep water off shore ports for contents that are “sensitive” like this?
Diplomatically one can say “yes you can dock here and unload cargo, but we demand that it be off shore and away from otherwise sensitive infrastructure”
This would allow such cargo to be offloaded safely in desperate circumstances while still maintaining the integrity of key infrastructure.
Offload the cargo at sea to another boat? Barring that, flood it compartment by compartment and pump the fluid into other boats (to be later dried and re-packaged) or into the ocean (the ocean is big). Then bring the ship in to repair the hull or to salvage it.QED.
This can all be done at sea. Of course, someone has to pay.
One thing that's only lightly touched upon in the article: Is this journey unusual and where is the fertilizer usually unloaded? The way the article is written, the ship's operators may with plausible deniability be deliberately targeting ports where a blast would be most debilitating for NATO. But where are other ships with this fertilizer unloading? It must be a common operation in European ports. Are there special ports for this, and the captain is spurning them? Ostensibly because they want to dock for repairs?
Now that I think about it, while it could be hard to sell that much fertilizer from a port where it wasn't ordered to, transfering it to another vessel not in need of repairs would solve the whole situation overnight wouldn't it? That's expensive but should be normal procedure I'd expect. So yeah what are the operators up to?
Ships and their crews can‘t be cheap. Who paid to put the ammonium nirate on the ruby? Who paid for the ship to go somewhere? What was the original deal involving the ammonium nitrate? Did someone in another country originally plan to buy it but the deal was later cancelled?
The ammonium nitrate cargo alone is worth several million us dollar.
> It is then expected to continue through the Channel with its destination listed as Marsaxlokk in Malta. The authorities in Malta said that they would only accept the vessel if it got rid of its cargo beforehand.
There are no sanctions on Russian fertilizers. Europe's fertilizer production is down due to high natural gas prices (I wonder what happened) and import from Russia is up.
Do you want to provide sources for these claims? I see Germany's fertilizer exports are down by 10%, while its fertilizer imports from Russia fell by 80%. Fertilizer production seems to be up, but this metric is tracked by value only.
"For some types of fertiliser, such as urea, imports have even increased since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The cheap fertiliser has helped European farmers, but the region’s own fertiliser producers have been struggling to compete.
“We are right now being flooded by fertilisers from Russia, which are significantly cheaper than our fertilisers, for the simple reason that they pay peanuts for natural gas in comparison to us European producers,” said Petr Cingr, chief executive of SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, Germany’s largest producer of ammonia.
“If politicians will not act,” he warned, Europe’s production capacity “will disappear”.
...
A third of EU imports of urea, the cheapest form of nitrogen-based fertiliser, come from Russia, with the amount imported in 2023 close to record levels, Eurostat data shows. Poland’s imports of Russian urea climbed to almost $120mn in 2023, up from just over $84mn in 2021, for example, according to customs data.
...
Other big players are leaving the market. BASF, the world’s largest chemicals group, has shrunk its operations in Europe over the past few years, including its fertiliser business, and instead focused new investments in the US and China, where costs are lower." [0]
> Lithuania refused because of the dangerous nature of the cargo. If 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate were to detonate, it would obliterate the center of any port city — the blast would be equal to a third of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb. That would be a repeat of the devastating explosion of the same substance in Beirut in 2020, although Ruby is carrying seven times more ammonium nitrate.
You should've quoted the next paragraph too. There would be no need for it if the danger of fertilizer was enough to justify the refusal.
"While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Russia, or other unfriendly international actors, states should always be cautious."
And then the article goes on trying to justify that by saying that Russia has set on fire an IKEA warehouse (wat?) and is jamming GPS. Sure, this means that Russia is going to murder tens of thousands civilians by detonating its ship with fertilizer.
> On 4 August 2020, a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut in the capital city of Lebanon exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. A cargo of 2,750 tonnes of the substance (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years after having been confiscated by Lebanese authorities from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus.
This ship carries considerably more. You can critique the framing and language used if you want, but I doubt many officials would be happy to take that risk.
"Norway’s Maritime Authority told the BBC the vessel was inspected by DNV Group to ensure it met safety and environmental standards.
The group found damage to its hull, propeller and rudder, but the Ruby was still deemed “seaworthy”.
As a precaution, DNV Group, and the Maltese flag registry, insisted that a tug escort the vessel for the remainder of its journey.
The ship was bound for Klaipeda, in Lithuania, according to ship tracking firm MarineTraffic.
But despite being deemed seaworthy, the ship was denied entry to Klaipeda. Algis Latakas, the port authority's chief executive, told the BBC that this was "because of its cargo"." [0]
Seems a reasonable move having in mind the number of times that Russia said lately that they want Lithuania "returned" to them. And we all know what on Russia "liberate" means "laminate". Not helping the people that wants you dead is wise
"In the second case, the explosion results from a fire that spreads into the ammonium nitrate (AN) itself (Texas City, Brest, Tianjin, Beirut) or to a mixture of an ammonium nitrate with a combustible material during the fire. The fire must be confined at least to a degree for successful transition from a fire to an explosion (a phenomenon known as "deflagration to detonation transition", or DDT). Pure, compact AN is stable and very difficult to initiate.
Ammonium nitrate decomposes in temperatures above 169 °C (336 °F). Pure AN is stable and will stop decomposing once the heat source is removed, but when catalysts are present, the reaction can become self-sustaining (known as self-sustaining decomposition, or SSD). This is a well-known hazard with some types of NPK fertilizers and is responsible for the loss of several cargo ships."
No not really. You need an explosion or energetic impact to trigger it, and potentially a fire too. But it might become unstable by heat and more so if it's contaminated by oil.
One early industrial disaster and the biggest explosion of it's time happened because the workers in a production plant in Germany regularly used Dynamite to clear out stuck ammonium nitrate in silos. The last time they tried, the plant was obliterated together with most of the nearby town.
IANAEE, but I think you are mixing potasium nitrare and ammonium nitrate.
Looking in Wikipedia, in the danger warning square, in the yellow part potasium nitrare has a 0 and ammonium nitrate has a 3.
Don't try this at home ...
Potasium nitrate has a lot of oxygens but nothing to burn with it. So it's only explosive when mixed with some fuel.
Ammonium nitrate has the oxygen and also the hidrogens that can be combined and release energy. It has also some spare oxygen, it is probably more dangerous mixed with fuel.
Fuel oil… or any combustible basically. A famous combustible to mix with is sugar. Cheap and mis wert well with it, still stable if no heat source. I hardly imagine how an inspector can "look" if there’s any king of combustible hidden in the lower layers of the ship cargo.
A sampler on a stick is used, which can be poked down to the bottom to get a sample from the bottom - useful for contaminants which are heavy or liquids.
Ammonium nitrate is explosive by itself. It doesn’t need fuel or oxidizer. By adjusting its pH level the breakdown reaction can be prevented and the compound stabilized, but it decays over time or when improperly stored.
Only happens spontaneously at high temperature/pressure. But of course being an explosive reaction, once it starts in a little pocket of material, all the neighboring material experiences a lot of heat and pressure, and blows up. And then the next layer, and the next layer, etc.
If improperly stored, pockets form with different pH values that cause it to spontaneously occur at lower temperatures. Or a spark, or a compressive event in an unstable patch, etc.
Or, if the ship is indeed being used as a weapon, a "small" hidden charge of military explosives that will be hard to find after a kiloton-scale explosion.
Yes the fire was required to set off the ammonium nitrate. But that’s just to initiate the explosion, and there are many ways it could have been initiated. A single spark would have done the job.
But you do not need to mix fuel with the fertilizer to activate it. It provides its own fuel.
Its an interesting scenario.
because if the ship suddenly decided to turn around and head for the closest, most densely populated costal city... what can they do about it?
Blow it up? its ALREADY close enough to cause significant damage.
Somehow sink it without detonating it? The environmental damage alone would be devistating to the econcomy...
if this is a russian plot, it's already increadibly successfull.
Nukes aren't a perfect model for a ship full of explosive fertilizer, but a reasonable enough approximation/upper bound for which we can easily find formulas/calculators online. A 15 kiloton nuke has a 1 psi radius of about 3 km according to https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/#
So a possible solution would indeed be stopping it by any means necessary somewhere between the 22 km mark (where it enters territorial waters) and the 3 km mark where it becomes a serious hazard.
I'd say, bring it as far as you can from any human being, and detonate the shit out of it, it has like 7 times more shit on it than the one in Beirut? And you want to dock it somewhere?
Since what happened in Beirut, how do we allow to have so much explosive on a single ship?
I mean, it's a great solution right now to detonate it away from humans, but I was more wondering to disallow loading that much explosive in the first place, because I think long term it's not great for sealife to detonate 20k tons of explosive every now and then :D
I hope they evacuate the crew and bomb it in the middle of the ocean so we can film the explosion in 4K. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen.
Dropping normal bombs on it is highly identifiable and attributable, and not very damaging. Also, a normal bomber or cruise missile might actually get shot down. There would be no doubt about Article 5 and the need for a military response.
Dropping a nuke on it is equally or more damaging, but likewise highly identifiable and attributable, and would force an even bigger reaction, likely even by China. Also, again, might be shot down.
An explosion of a cargo ship is just as damaging as a small nuke, but cannot be immediately identified as an attack - even if people suspect it, it's hard to conclusively prove that it wasn't an accident. This makes it hard to muster a unified and strong response.
> Dropping normal bombs on it is highly identifiable and attributable, and not very damaging. Also, a normal bomber or cruise missile might actually get shot down.
How are they going to drop a bomb on it? Bomber? Rocket?
If a ship explodes, Putin will deny everything, and grudgingly everyone will accept it, because you can't be certain, and we don't want war. But if a long-range bomber leaves Russia, flies to Liverpool and drops a bomb, it's an open declaration of war.
The world is full of complexities and often misunderstood events. Applying higher-order thinking, such as realpolitik and game theory, can provide a more nuanced understanding of global dynamics. After centuries of dismissing concerns as mere "conspiracy theories" it's important to recognize that this may not be a theory, but rather a potential warning.
The only Western asset that has been sabotaged was Nordstream, by either the U.S. or the Ukrainians (now the official story is that Zalushny ordered it).
"European energy security and the continent’s critical infrastructure are the core pillars of Transatlantic security. Safeguarding them is fundamental to ensuring democratic resilience and stability."
In light of Nordstream, this is hypocritical and offensive to Western Europeans who suffer the economic consequences.
Yes, the Russian invasion is bad, yes, they should get out of Ukraine, but repeatedly manufacturing additional stories is counterproductive.
What about it? "ammo depo sabotaged" does not yield any meaningful search results. If it were confirmed, certainly The Telegraph and the New York Times would shout it from the rooftops.
The GPS jamming is classified by the Finnish transport agency as a "side effect of Russia's anti-drone activities":
"Jamming GPS signals over the Baltic Sea is “most likely” a side effect of Russia's anti-drone activities, Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, said today.
“The interference intensified when Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure began in January 2024,” Traficom said in a press release.
Estonia also blames Russia for the signal jamming, but the Finnish agency doesn't agree with the Tallinn government in defining the interference as a hybrid attack."
I am wasting my time to repsond for others that might read ehre, not sure hpow incompetent you must be not to find soemthign with Google or not to be aware by the sabotages that happened.
But let me assume good faith and you are a poor Ruzzian kid with soviet mentality due to bad parents/grandaprents
you can do a Google search like putting this text in the input box
use Google and find more, though I am 100% sure you will balme CIA and Israel as a good soviet of fabricating the evidence.
You have enough evidence with names and photos of Ruzzian agents and their movement. You have evidence from Russians that Putin tried to blow up apparments in Russia to achieve his goals and then you act surprised that Putin could do something bad in Europe, like his crimes are limited ot only Ruzzia and their exUSSR territories.
Sinking a ship into a river to screw over a country is a typical soviet thing to do, same with abandoning a ship with explosives in a NATO port and blowing it up months later, you need to know the soviet mindset and then you will not be confused that they could think and act upon such terroristic plans.
Yeah, and for HN, this accounts created a few seconds before they start defending a terrorist regime should be flagged, the IP should be blocked for a month.
The guy might claim he does not want to lose karma for his support of terrorist regime but IMO if you support terrorists then you should be "alpha" enough so your ego can resist some karma hits.
> While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Russia, or other unfriendly international actors, states should always be cautious.
This bears repeating. Russia has bee actively engaged in low-intensity warfare with the west for decades, and has single-handledly escalated their aggression towards the west in general but western Europe in particular for the last couple of years to the point they overtly and very publicly threaten the world with all sorts of attacks and global annihilation.
Once Russia tries to casually float a massive bomb right into your doorstep, only a massive moron would not mitigate the risk presented by Russia, even if considered implausible.
Russia found out they had a faulty dangerous explosive ship under their control and instead of safely towing the ship to Russia and unload the Russian cargo they are instead using it to harass NATO countries as part of their hybrid warfare.
The ship has been featured extensively in Danish and Norwegian media. First the Russians attempted to get the explosive ship close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away. The Danish coast guard also had to confront them.
The ship contains several times more Ammonium Nitrate than what caused the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
7x Beirut or 1/3 power of Hiroshima according to the article (although would it cause as much damage as a nuke detonated in the air?)
Beirut was 2750 tons. So it's slightly more than 7 times as much. Also, one ton of ammonium nitrate is roughly equivalent to 250kg of TNT. If this shipment actually were to explode all at once, the energy equivalent would be roughly 20x0.25=5 kilotons of TNT. That's one third of the Hiroshima bomb's 15 kilotons.
But these are highly oversimplified number games. For example, it's highly doubtful someone could get this to explode all at once without dispersing most of it - even if they were actively trying to cause maximum damage. Nonetheless it's still a monumental safety risk and any port in their right mind would do well to shoo this piece of crap back to Russia.
No, equal TNT power equivalent can have different effect depending on the nature of the explosive. The heat spreaded from an amonium nitrate blast, like in Beyrut, does not last as long, from [0],
> However even on this basis, comparing the actual energy yields of a large nuclear device and an explosion of TNT can be slightly inaccurate. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. Gas-expansion and pressure-change effects tend to "freeze" the burn rapidly. A large open explosion of TNT may maintain fireball temperatures high enough so that some of those products do burn up with atmospheric oxygen [...]
See also the "Relative effectiveness factor" paragraph [1]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effect...
At some point the comparison becomes moot. It's suffice to say that it's big enough to wreck the port, plus some significant percentage of the city around it.
No, it likely wouldn't do as much damage as an airburst nuke. But it would be catastrophic nonetheless.
> At some point the comparison becomes moot.
That's a red herring. No one is looking at the decimal places. The comparison serves to provide a real-world benchmark of the expectable destructive power of the cargo held by this vessel, and a relative comparison of how big it would be. Arguing otherwise is idiotic.
It’s the same mentality of “it’d be really bad if something happened to that nuclear power plant due to an accident” that they approach the Ukraine invasion with the goal genociding their neighbor and taking their land/resources
At the same time, denying access due to the risk also shows that behavior has consequences: if Russia didn't behave like a dangerous, aggressive, untrustworthy bully, they would have an easier time getting their cargo offloaded
[flagged]
I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region: https://rntfnd.org/2024/05/10/hobbyists-zero-in-on-kaliningr...
Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.
Protecting the borders saps resources from the militaries of these countries.
Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
> I think the GPS jamming is fairly clearly a Russian operation. Not sure if this is a good source, but just eyeballing where the disruptions are, they centre around Kaliningrad region:
But you can admit that the IKEA fire example is laughable, right? But even the GPS jamming is questionable when it comes to the motivation. Do they have military reasons for it or is it to "disrupt people’s everyday lives"?
> Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.
This is actually a bit more nuanced than that. We are the ones that want (illegal) migration, it was only a problem when Belarus opened the borders and to be fair they have no obligation to keep them and they were upfront about it. It was a classic case of hypocrisy.
That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem.
It's a problem with our border control and creating unnecessary pull factors.
> Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.
I see the exact opposite and mostly retaliation to be honest, but even if you do not agree you can probably agree that the west is also hostile towards Russia. It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it, starting at least with 2008 NATO summit and making it obvious in 2014 Ukraine coup d'état. I don't know what Russia did to the US to warrant this kind of provocation.
> That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem.
Finland has closed the entire land border with Russia in response to Russia ferrying migrants from the other side of the planet to Finnish border and forcing them to illegally cross it, to overwhelm Finnish social services and incite political instability.
https://raja.fi/en/restrictions-at-the-border-crossing-point...
> It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it
It is not well received because it is a hollow Russian talking point that has no substance behind it. Might as well bring up the international Jewish conspiracy and lizard people while you're at it.
> It is not well received because it is a hollow Russian talking point that has no substance behind it. Might as well bring up the international Jewish conspiracy and lizard people while you're at it.
Not sure why you are talking about lizards and jews. At least you're not telling anything of substance I could even take as an argument.
You may tell me how it was Russia's fault the US/EU instigated the coup d'état in Ukraine for a change.
The "coup" narrative is a myth. It's just talking point you read somewhere, thought it sounded nifty, and never thought to fact-check or question the logic behind.
In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.
> The "coup" narrative is a myth. It's just talking point you read somewhere, thought it sounded nifty, and never thought to fact-check or question the logic behind.
You never thought for yourself it seems and just throw fact-check around. Janukowytsch was elected president of the country and was forcibly removed from that function. If you like him or not, it's by definition a coup.
> In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.
This is also true for the US and the EU. Why do we fund movements to overthrow foreign governments? It's not even a secret that the US does this all the time. It even got their own name: color revolutions.
Janukowytsch was elected president of the country and was forcibly removed from that function. If you like him or not, it's by definition a coup.
That's not what a coup d'état is. Check the definition please, and try again.
It's also not correct to say he was simply forcibly removed from that function.
> You may tell me how it was Russia's fault the US/EU instigated the coup d'état in Ukraine for a change.
There was no coup in Ukraine. The sitting president was responsible for getting over 100 protestors killed. First he went into hiding as it became clear that had lost all political support in Ukraine and would be facing criminal charges, then Russian secret services helped him escape to Russia.
Ukrainian parlament assembled, voted with 328-vs-0 to hold early elections for a new president. Not even a single member of his own party voted in favor of the Russian puppet who ran away. Elections were held soon thereafter and even Russia recognized its results after a delay.
Calling this a coup indicates lack of knowledge or intentional maliciousness.
> Calling this a coup indicates lack of knowledge or intentional maliciousness.
Elected president gets forcibly removed -> coup. It's the definition of the word.
edit: I am not even sure how this can be malicious in any context.
So I can just make a threat of life to my national leader and make an early election and that is not a coup?
Ukrainian president was not "forcibly removed", but replaced through general elections by the people of Ukraine. Early elections are a standard attribute of most parliamentary democracies. 55% voted for Petro Poroshenko, who became the next president. His closest competitor got 13%. Turnout was 60%.
This is the opposite of "illegal seizure of power by a small group", as coup is commonly defined.
was the russian revolution a coup?
Are all subsequent russian rulers illegitimate?
Early elections are not a coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snap_election
Both a NATO summit and Ukraine's popular uprising against a russian-backed ruler are none of russia's business, as are most things that happen outside of russia. You may recall that russia has held a few summits and revolutions of their own, and none of them led to Ukraine attempting to genocide russia.
What russia calls a "provocation" is no excuse for russia's invasion and subsequent 3rd genocide of Ukrainians (the 1st being the russian-perpetrated Holodomor starting in 1932, the 2nd being the russian deportation of Crimean Tatars starting in 1944).
Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist. Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.
The hollow russian talking point the other poster pointed out, is that russia being upset at something that happened in another country which has nothing to do with it, is somehow justification for russia perpetrating a war of genocide. It isn't. That's why nearly every country in the world voted to reject russia's excuses such as the ones you cite, and condemn russia's actions in multiple United Nations votes, and why the ICC issued arrest warrants for putin and his war crimes.
> What russia calls a "provocation" is no excuse for russia's invasion and subsequent 3rd genocide of Ukrainians (the 1st being the russian-perpetrated Holodomor starting in 1932, the 2nd being the russian deportation of Crimean Tatars starting in 1944).
Yeah the liberal use of genocide isn't going to help. Killing thousand civilians per day in east Ukraine by their own people is closer to that. And killing thousands of civilians was also a reason for the NATO to intervene in Serbia.
> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.
The same could be said about the US in Ukraine, but also Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq - just in the recent time, otherwise I have to list most of the world. The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat for the US, but it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.
> Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.
1940? What time is it?
Killing thousand civilians per day in east Ukraine by their own people is closer to that.
You're hallucinating. Total deaths an all sides (civilian and military) are far below 1000, and certainly not ">=2000" as you are explicitly stating.
One could delve further into civilian vs. military distinction and which side is responsible for the bulk of these -- but if you're going to insist on pulling numbers out of the air without making any effort to check them, there's no point in doing so.
> Yeah the liberal use of genocide isn't going to help
Agreed: russia's liberal use of genocide in Ukraine isn't going to help resolve the conflict. Beyond that, denying russia's 3rd genocide of Ukrainians isn't going to help. Especially since nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If russia cared about civilian killing, russia would not have killed so many civilians in their war on Chechnya and their other conquered lands, and russia would stop killing so many civilians in Ukraine, including in Eastern Ukraine.
>> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.
> The same could be said about the US
The same could be said about russia. "Someone else did it" isn't a sufficient excuse, which is why nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If you think other countries' actions are equivalent, you may make your case to the UN, who can decide if they are. If you think other countries did wrong, you may make your case to the ICJ or ICC, who can decide if they did. Note that "invade and genocide" is not an acceptable response.
> 1940? What time is it?
Has russia ever acknowledged that the actions I cite were wrong, apologized, and made reparations? No? They're just doing the same thing again? And russia is surprised the world is reacting to russian actions in the way they are? Such surprise is performative. It is best if russia accepts sooner, rather than later, that if they wish to change the world's reasonable reactions to unreasonable russian behavior, they must first change the unreasonable behavior. This starts with accepting to settle their complaints via multilateral diplomacy, not invasion and genocide. It also means accepting russia doesn't get everything russia wants.
> The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat
Oh, russia has never attacked any countries? They present no threat? If this was true, countries would not seek to join NATO to protect themselves from russian threat. Ukraine sought protection because they felt threatened by russia. They were right: russia attacked them for no good reason.
> it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.
This is an empty, world-rejected talking point. Every country has the right to join NATO if they wish. It only threatens russia's ability to conquer and genocide other countries, which they have no right to do in the first place. As long as russia doesn't attack other countries, there is no problem. A better representation is that russia is an open threat to Ukraine and eastern Europe if the latter are not in NATO. russia proved this to be true with their nazi-like wars of territorial conquest.
> (...) we should still assume that most media are just propaganda (...)
Is the ship filled with the same Beirute port explosion compound? Yes or no?
Is the ship refusing to turn to Russian ports and instead is aimlessly trying to get into strategic EU/NATO ports?
Even the captain failed to address any kind of repair while at Port.
Only a moron does not consider this a threat worth mitigating.
When you have a Russian ship carrying this much ammonium nitrate, it’s prudent to assume the worst, even without evidence.
Russia has made their bed, and now they must sleep in it.
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In what way is this relevant, let alone an elephant in the room when talking about a ship of explosives.
As if an ammo warehouse didn't blow up in Czechia by two of these, an ammo factory didn't explode in Germany under mysterious circumstances.
Not trusting a Russian ship is easy. How easy is trusting an ANFO-laden truck is not getting parked near a busy shopping mall right now?
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-beh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
Stanislov Petrov? The "man who saved the world"?
Thank goodness for Stanislov Petrov!
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/18/551792129...
Source for hundreds of thousands naturalised?
Blatant xenophobia lol.
Jesus Christ the state of this world.
Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. The average citizen who is probably reading rhetoric like yours and then going and mowing down migrants because the world told them they’re evil.
Maybe in your country.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-released-over-435-000-...
aaomidi says "Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. "
Nonsense. The vetting process can be as simple as wading across the Rio Grande and walking 20 miles (or a similar dry-land journey), whereupon the immigrant gains residency automatically.
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> Spurning the obvious solution of a return to Russia, where she loaded at Kandalaksha in late August, the damaged vessel embarked on an odyssey of attempted entry to European ports, beginning at the Norwegian anchorage of Tromsø
This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?
From another article [0]:
> Not long after leaving the Russian port of Kandalaksha in late August, the general cargo vessel ran aground in a storm in Norwegian waters and a Port State inspection in Norway confirmed cracks in the hull and damage to the ship’s propeller and rudder.
[0] https://theloadstar.com/baltic-ports-bar-damaged-ruby-now-in...
That article fills in a lot of blanks for me:
"Over the weekend, MV Ruby was also denied access to the Strait of Denmark, the entrance to the Baltic which would have allowed it to offload its dangerous cargo at a Russian port.
According to Danish news reports, on Friday a pilot was to be allocated the following day, but when the time came, authorities appeared to have changed tack.
'The ship is not going to have a pilot tonight, and the latest I’ve heard is that it’s in Norwegian waters,' DanPilot press officer Anne Heinze told DR Nyheder over the weekend.
Instead, MV Ruby is apparently making its way toward the Channel, with Malta-flagged anchor handler Amber II maintaining a distance of around one kilometre...
Though the vessel was able to limp some 1,600km around the Norwegian coast, it now faces a fraught voyage through the Channel, past Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar and onward to Malta through two of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
And there are few good choices ahead for the vessel’s crew: should MV Ruby sink, the cargo will likely cause enormous environmental damage, including algal blooms which choke swathes of ocean life, and could lead to a shipping exclusion zone to contain the spread of pollution."
> This needs more explanation, does this mean the captain refused? Or Russian port authorities refused? Or they just... chose to limp in a particular direction?
The ship ran aground between Norway and Russia, seeked emergency shelter in Tromsø. The ship has damanges on it propellors and rudder. It anchored up near Tromsø for while until the port authorities and governments told the ship to leave due to security concern. Basically the ship stayed outside a small populated island, and it was determined the island would be blown flat if something happened.
The Norwegian government are likely extra nerveous about this, just a small amount of the same stuff was used to blow up the government quarter in Oslo in the terrorist attack by Anders Brevik.
Presumably the ship tried to get to another port elsehwhere, but got into more mechanical trouble.
The place "near" Tromsø where it anchored is in the middle of the city now.
For this who don't know the place: the city is on an island, facing the mainland. There's a suburb on the mainland, connected to the city with a bridge and a tunnel. The ship anchored between the bridge and the tunnel.
It was allowed entry to Tromsø and stayed there for a few days without repairs.
Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?
Of course I have no real info on why but it does seem plausible that returning would be unattractive.
> Would you want to be a captain of an EU registered ship stuck in Russia for an indeterminate amount of time with limited ability to pay for (sanctions) repairs of an uncertain nature?
Your hypothesis is quickly rejected/proven to be bullshit by the fact that the travel distance that the ship took after being rejected by Norway was greater than the distance it would need to take to get to a Russian port.
And instead the ship planted itself where? Right in the middle of the English channel? We're talking about hitting ports from Norway, Lithuania, and now UK/France/Belgium?
So the ship is legitimately damaged in a grounding in a storm.
The ship goes to nearest port for repairs. But when the nature of the cargo is understood, it is asked to leave.
It chooses to head south to Russia via the Baltic instead of north into the artic. A reasonable safer course.
Then Denmark denies it passage through the straights into the Baltic, so it now has to either head north again or carry on.
It arranges to get to Malta, a place that makes its business in ship repairs.
Seems reasonable actually.
I'm not arguing against physical geography - I'm stating that it might in the current political climate be a lot easier to get a European flagged ship repaired somewhere in (political) Europe as opposed to Russia.
I assume the Murmansk ports told them they won't get back in (after all no other port will, why would they?)
What do you think they should do, camp in international waters outside Murmansk in a dead-end of the Arctic, hoping a Russian port authority relents, until winter comes in full force and they're ultrafucked rather than just a bit fucked? Have you looked at a map?
Notably, ammonium nitrate is fertilizer.
It is also effectively 'natural gas in solid form' - the main input to making ammonium nitrate is natural gas.The main cost is the cost of the natural gas, and there are huge worldwide markets for both natural gas and fertilizer. Therefore, from an economics perspective, natural gas and fertilizer are pretty much tied together.
Same as electricity and aluminium.
Natural gas is hard to ship - whereas fertilizer is easy to ship.
Since Russia has bountiful supplies of natural gas, and sanctions prevent it selling that gas to europe via pipeline, producing fertilizer and selling that to the rest of the world is a workaround.
CH4 vs NH4NO3, where does the carbon go? Don't you need the carbon to recover the energy?
Ammonia is produced at scale by the Haber-Bosch process, N2 + 3H2 => 2NH3. Most H2 is currently produced by steam reformation of natural gas, CH4 + 2H2O => CO2 + 4H2.
It's not really feasible to turn ammonium nitrate back to natural gas, moreso GP was insinuating it's a way to export (a proxy for) natural gas, eg to bypass sanctions.
You make it sound as if you can produce natural gas out of a fertilizer.
The parent does not imply anywhere that you can produce natural gas out of fertiliser.
* They state that natural gas is an input to the fertiliser product
* They state that with sanctions on natural gas from Russia, converting it to fertiliser evades the sanctions, albeit by transforming it into a different but saleable product.
I think they mean because of that part
>It is also effectively 'natural gas in solid form'
Would it be necessary if they could burn it in a controlled way that extracts an acceptable amount of energy?
(Pure speculation of course, as I know nothing about the matter)
I think it's because gas wells can't just be turned off. Gas comes out of the ground and they have to do something with it.
Yeah you just put it on grass then wait for cows to munch on the grass and burp.
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I don't entirely follow the logic of the trip (but I know nothing about shipping). Tromso on the Norwegian Sea, then Klaipeda on the Baltic, now off the shore of Kent? That's very roundabout.
It's easy to come up with explanations involving bad will. There must be some legit ones too. What are they trying to achieve? Did they buy some ammonium nitrate and are trying to offload it for a buyer, but successive ports are saying no? Surely whoever paid and loaded the cargo needed some idea of where and how they will offload it.
I agree also that news report are missing to report on what is the most interesting part to understand the problem:
What was intended with this shipment in the first place? who is responsible for it? Regarding current international sanction, what was this ship doing loading or unloading in Russia and then going to any cost in Europe.
Also, wouldn't it possible to unload it by smaller units with smaller boats why at the see?
That ship is only 183m long. If it was in an emergency, there were plenty of ports near Tromsø that can handle that. Even Murmansk isn't far away.
Marine Traffic says it's under way to Malta.
> That's very roundabout.
Perhaps due to poor weather conditions in the past 14 days, especially given it has a cracked hull.
Again, I'm ignorant about seafaring, but isn't bad weather a reason to avoid long trips?
Bad weather is a reason to avoid bad weather. On the scale of a long voyage, weather is "local" and can be avoided either by picking a different route, or a different time (potentially hiding in a man-made or natural harbor where the ship is less exposed to the waves and weather due to the surrounding terrain).
The vessel is looking for a port to berth in but keeps being turned away.
Yeah I was thinking the same. Must have passed the Sont bridge (connecting Malmö to Kopenhagen) twice.
Might have been a way of implying: whatever threats Ukraine may put on the Kerch bridge... well we obviously have means to retaliate "the west".
I don't know much about CEPA (this is the first time I've come across them) but I don't think they're the best source for news. This article is extremely inflammatory, frames the entire story around Russia and seems to be extremely selective with which details were included. The article is stuffed with problems but I'll point out just a couple of examples:
> Maltese-registered cargo ship
This appears to be a deliberate attempt to cast doubt as to the "true" operator or entity controlling the vessel. The ship is "Maltese-registered" because it's owned by a Maltese company, 'Ruby Enterprise'. It's destination is Malta.
> Spurning the obvious solution of a return to Russia,
Is this obvious? As the article admits, the vessel is seaworthy. Why would a seaworthy ship carrying some exported product return to the origin port?
I think this BBC article[0] offers a much more balanced take on the events.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62g95721leo
This is pretty much a non-point. In the age of off-shore, ownership-obfuscated, tax avoiding company proliferation, any country "owning" a vessel means very little. To give an example, technically most "mining" companies in the world are Canadian. What that means in practice is they rent a desk in one of a handful of office towers in Vancouver to set their legal/financial headquarters in the country to access services and the TSX. They are certainly not "Canadian" in the true sense. I see news articles sometimes mentioning X Canadian mining company operating in South America, Africa, or SE Asia. If the true owners are not Canadian, the operations are not Canadian, the office workers, leadership team, and financial flows never touch Canada, it's not Canadian.
That said, I do agree it's inflammatory and probably not the best source.
If Malta choses to give a ship a flag, they should bear some level of consequence for that action.
The article contains an interesting note at the end: "Eitvydas Bajarūnas is an ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, and currently a Center for Europe Policy Analysis (CEPA) Visiting Fellow. Assessments and views expressed in the article are those of the author and should not be treated as the official position of the MFA of the Republic of Lithuania."
That may suggest bias, but also an unusual level of insight (and there is the possibility that it is an official position pushed through a "side channel" to make it look less official).
And according to the BBC article, it's destination isn't Malta, at least not until they figure out where else to unload the cargo, because Malta won't let them in with the cargo on board. That in itself is noteworthy. Especially since the "it might leak" claim sounds like it might just be an intentionally-transparent pretext.
> Why would a seaworthy ship carrying some exported product return to the origin port?
Why would a seaworthy ship carrying some dangerous explosive material, that multiple ports have now refused entry, return to the origin port?
I mean at this point - is there in fact a port it can go to that is not the port of origin that will accept them?
It seems there isn't, so why travel around making moves towards other ports unless as a form of aggression. (no question mark)
Astonishing amount of critical thinkers here in this thread who have to highlight that the ship is Maltese because it's flying a Maltese flag as if this matters in international shipping.
Yeah, cause Russians couldn't afford a front in Malta of all places, or play the crew blind.
A Russian front in a small corruptible EU state in the Mediterranean (e.g. Malta, Cyprus) would not be a surprise at all.
See many news articles e.g.
https://www.eureporter.co/world/malta/2023/08/09/malta-has-a...
https://www.icij.org/investigations/cyprus-confidential/cypr...
That is exactly my point.
Sure. I thought though that it might need spelling out to some of the audience here who are far removed from that part of the world. I myself didn't know it until I visited Malta and Cyprus.
I love the word 'megabomb' as much as the next guy, and I'm about all threat escalation, but isn't ammonium nitrate also fertiliser?
Since this is one of the main (and historic) exports from Russia, I would imagine that one or two cargo ships have carried the stuff before.
A little more info on how it is stored/transported and under which eventualities the cargo would become bomb-like would give me a sense of journalistic satisfaction as an accompaniment to my sense of impending doom.
It's probably a fertiliser shipment, but if it were to explode while unloading the intended use does not matter much. If you've seen some footage from the Beirut port explosion in 2020, calling something 7 times as large a 'megabomb' is not inappropriate.
There are or were this kind of fertilizer shipments from other dates or countries that weren’t cataloged as megabombs? Maybe even bigger. A weapon is a weapon no matter who holds it. If coming from other sources, maybe in even bigger amounts, it is seen as something normal, then we are not talking about the ship.
I think the fact that the ship is damaged, making the fertilizer much more likely to explode, is why they’re calling it a megabomb. Circumstances have made the cargo more hazardous, and pushed the “explosive substance” part of its dual nature to the front of everyone’s minds
Experts have said in Swedish media that no such risk exists due to how it's packed/stored, unless someone intentionally mixes it with "organics" or stores it with fireworks (as in Beirut).
Organics such as fuel oil, which the ship likely has on board and might also refuel. If it accidentally or "accidentally" leaks into the AN, you get ANFO, "a widely used bulk industrial high explosive".
If Russia wants to nuke an European port city without using an actual nuke and while being able to at least leave some doubt whether it may have just been an accident, this certainly looks like a plausible way.
Looks like some experts in Sweden disagreed, Ruby was denied entry to Gothenburg.
Are you saying Beirut was intentional?
Who cares, it's quite enough to reason to refuse a ship to dock in port. The Beirut ship also had a Russian owner. The AN was bound to Mozambique to be used for explosives.
> ... but isn't ammonium nitrate also fertiliser?
That too, see the Beirut port explosion incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
Going by the article, the ship carries an order of magnitude more ammonium nitrate then the amount that detonated in Beirut
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO
Simple to become a powerful explosive
https://www.thebarentsobserver.com/industry-and-energy/cargo...
I guess the key is that after a few days in Tromsø, the authorities still didn't know what kind of repair was needed, and called bullshit.
Yeah it seems to be taking quite a tour for a faulty ship…
> A little more info on how it is stored/transported and under which eventualities the cargo would become bomb-like would give me a sense of journalistic satisfaction as an accompaniment to my sense of impending doom.
I agree. In fact the premise of the article - that this should be treated as a threat from Russia - hangs on the understanding that there is a legitimate reason a European port would accept a ship carrying this cargo. So how many such shipments are regularly made from Russia to Europe? What ports are designated to accept them? What safety measures do they have to handle the cargo? In what way is this particular ship different from those legitimate ones? Without this information, the article is incomplete.
If there are no such legitimate shipments the article cannot claim there is any ambiguity about the threat posed by this ship.
There are many shipments of that cargo. What's unusual is to declare an emergency and then not order repairs quickly.
No, Russia is deliberately using this ship to harass NATO countries. The ship was recently unusually close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away.
Here in Denmark the Danish coast guard also had to confront the ship.
The ship has enough Ammonium Nitrate to cause an explosion several times the size of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Basically any other country with a faulty ship full of dangerous explosive material would tow the ship back and fix their own mess.
Russia is instead using it as hybrid warfare against geopolitical adversaries.
This is quite possible, equally though, what is stopping all these countries from simply refusing access to territorial waters for this ship. It seems to be travelling for thousands of miles just fine, so can't claim emergency shelter, and even then the danger to third parties seems to justify any refusals. The crew is likely tiny and easy to rescue if need be.
I can imagine this being a simple ruse to annoy NATO countries and their navies too, that wouldn't be out if character, but beyond that... That would be a very petty hybrid risk.
Or maybe Russia is just trying lots of things just to see what sticks..?
From my side, while I think using a semi damaged ship as a hybrid threat would be within the Russian MO, it also seems like an easy one to protect against.
> This is quite possible, equally though, what is stopping all these countries from simply refusing access to territorial waters for this ship.
Note that for the ship to travel between Lithuania and Norway/UK, it needs to pass by Kaliningrad. For some reason the ship didn't stop there.
The ship also didn't went from Lithuania to st Petersburg. Why was that?
I get that, and it is odd. Though Russia can also wash its hands off of that ship. IIRC it is Maltese-flagged, owned by a Maltese company, and the crew is international. It "just so happens" that it contracts for Russian cargos. Russia may perhaps (?) be the ultimate beneficiary but it's also not strictly speaking Russian.
Back to my question: can all these justifiably concerned countries not simply refuse access for this ship, end of story?
> can all these justifiably concerned countries not simply refuse access for this ship, end of story
Pretty much. Entire crews can be (and are) abandoned in international waters for years at a time if the company decides they don't want to deal with the ship any more.
Which makes some sense as to why the crew would bring the ship down to the North Sea from the far northern Norwegian coast (weather this week: down to 2 degrees C, wind up to 40mph). If you think you might be abandoned in late September, and ports in Murmansk and Arkangelsk could also decide not to admit you, do you want to overwinter at sea in the Arctic, or go literally anywhere else? And that's if the company does forsake them, which is also a hypothetical. More likely, the company also would probably rather the ship is not at risk of being disabled in the Arctic considering they presumably couldn't get a guarantee readmittance to the port of origin and decided to at least get to relative safety down south with better weather and near countries that at least plausibly would lift a finger if the ship really was at risk.
The ship started in Murmansk. How would it have gotten to Lithuania (or Kaliningrad, St Petersburg or anywhere in the Baltic) if it's not allowed though the passage by Denmark?
For those who downvote the above, yes it presents speculation as if verified fact, but what it puts forth is actually plausible when you see how Russian military efforts tend to make use of uncertainty.
If you are going to dismiss it: dismiss it with facts and arguments. Don't just lazily downvote it.
Just to be clear, you want HN users put effort into a rebuttal of the factless speculation presented as a fact? This isn't how discussions work, this is flamebait (just like the article itself) and has no place on HN. This doesn't contribute to the discussion, and should be downvoted and flagged.
The two last statements of the post are indeed speculation. What was said up until that point can be verified. However, the speculation should be seen in light of recent history. Russia does have a history of shady maritime dealings covered by deniability. For instance you have probably heard of cables that have been mysteriously cut in the northern regions.
As for you accusing me of posting flame-bait: that's not very nice. I presume you have some way of proving your speculation?
>As for you accusing me of posting flame-bait
Grandparent, not you. I'm not speculating about anything, please re-read my comment.
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The interesting thing is that ship was damaged almost immediately after leaving the port, had a chance to stop in Russian ports along the way but instead is doing a tour near EU countries.
The crew is either amazingly incompetent or malicious/complicit.
You don’t put a ship that can blow up near: a. Gas&oil terminals, b. military air base
And it must be run be a suicide crew. These crazy Russians!
Perhaps the crew was not given a choice.
And they were like "ok, we'll die for Mother Russia"
...said the Filipino deck hand to the Egyptian navigator, no less.
(I don't know what nationalities the ship's crew has, but based on the ship's ownership, it would be pretty unlikely to be all Russian unless they've already disposed of and replaced the entire crew).
So not only is there now a suicidal crew of mad Russians, but they also killed the old crew. They just keep getting more dastardly! They probably caused the bad weather too! Andøya is usually so lovely this time of year!
Actually this rampant speculation thing is quite fun. I should sell this stuff to whoever is running the Tom Clancy estate.
You don’t know that, this is pure speculation.
Didn’t they try to dock in two infrastructure-critical ports with a damaged vessel? How about the order of the docking?
There must be some sort of remote outport where it can dock without the fear of obliterating critical infrastructure.
Chances are it docks, it gets abandoned because there’s no money to fix it, and it stays conveniently parked until an “unfortunate” fire happens.
Plausible deniability is the modus operandi of Russian operations. Borderline Personality Disorder-style scorched earth retaliation is more so.
They've been wandering close to the Danish and Swedish coasts not that long ago with "research ships" that had armed personnel on board.
I would be less inclined to believe if such strategies weren't as commonly employed. But, they are.
This is a relatively constant factor along the Norwegian coast and has been for many years. In recent years the behavior has become a bit more aggressive with communication cables at sea going missing.
This tends to not make international news as this activity isn't exceptional. It just varies in intensity and scope over time.
Seems pretty accurate, no ? The ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut was 2,750 tonnes, this ships is carrying about 20,000 tonnes
It's not the same. Storage conditions matter.
That is true, but given the current level of trust between Russian and 'Western' authorities, would it not be prudent to assume the vessel is indeed a threat and keep it away from infrastructure and the general population if at all possible?
In the case of Arctic Norway, there are plenty of unpopulated, sheltered fjords. No need to dock it in a commercial port in an urban area.
> Storage conditions matter.
…only if it hasn’t been deliberately sabotaged. It’s had opportunities to return to Russian ports and just sailed right by them.
Why is it desperate to dock in a Western port?
I don’t know but it’s easy to imagine why an international crew would chose to be stranded in the west instead of Russia.
If this were a threat, how would the Russians coerce a ship full of sailors to not surrender or abandon the ship rather than choose between vaporisation or arrest or death by navy when trying to escape the aftermath (assuming they even have boats that can get away from the blast)?
> (...) how would the Russians coerce a ship full of sailors to not surrender or abandon the ship rather than choose between vaporisation or arrest or death by (...)
Have you paid any attention to Russia's meatwave tactics in Ukraine that so far already piled up half a million of Russian casualties?
If you did, you wouldn't be considering this scenario implausible, because we see videos of said Russians needlessly marching towards their deaths on a daily basis.
Are the sailors actually Russian military? Or are there suicidal commissars on board along with them to put a gun in their backs 1000km from home?
I'm not saying it not possible, but the fact that there isn't a rather more concerted response involving, say, the SBS or an encounter with an Astute within the last several weeks while it's been tooling around the North Sea implies that the intelligence services don't consider it as much of an actual active threat as the media circus wants it to be.
Certainly if there was even a breath of Russian military on the ship, I don't think "hey sure, just drop anchor outside Margate and chill next to these other ships and right by the Thames and Channel shipping lanes" would be the call they'd make.
> Are the sailors actually Russian military?
The people Russia is sending to their deaths in their meat wave tactics aren't exactly Russian military either. They are at best civilians under contract and moved to front lines weeks if not days after being hired.
Then there are the civilians pressed into service such as unsuspecting immigrants and Ukrainians who found themselves in occupied territories.
The key factor is complete disrespect for those under your control, and willingness to sacrifice themselves for the smallest reason.
Kind of seems like climbing onto or sending a message to the anchor hoy currently alongside and requesting asylum from the murderous Russians would be the obvious way out of that one.
Margate may not be luxurious, but it's not a Ukrainian front line.
The only evidence that it's anything other than a damaged ship in a shit situation (even shitter than your average Syrian/UAE cargo ship, which is probably saying something) with a very low chance of a very big explosion, trying to find somewhere to put in, is that the word "megabomb" makes good headlines and people want to have exciting things happen, even if "it" is blowing up a town, no matter how dreary, from 12 miles away with what would presumably be the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history.
“The [Ukrainian] commanders estimated that 50 to 70 per cent of new infantry troops were killed or wounded within days of starting their first rotation.“
https://www.ft.com/content/b9396112-585a-4f7e-9628-13d500c99...
http://archive.today/WKqxz
The same way Russia coerces soldiers to go into the meat grinder against Ukraine - money, assurances their families will be cared after (well it might be with a sack of potatoes, but the poor fools can't know that).
Do not underestimate the importance of drugs cocktails in the meat wave tactics employed by Russia. Also the running Buryat and other ethnic-minorities from the east of the empire aren't told that IR scopes can see through smoke-grenade clouds, and seem not to be told that the trenches in front are not full of friendlies.
Maybe they don't know they are used.
If the plan was to deliberately detonate the ship rather than just be an annoyance that can't be ignored, then it seems like a very obvious option to rig it with a timer and have the crew escape during the night. Risk of arrest for sure but they'd have a chance, and the west has shown no shortage of willingness in the past to exchange assassins for hostages. People take on worse missions all the time.
I'd far rather be crew on this ship than on HMS Campbeltown.
And if that were remotely on the cards, even within a shadow if a doubt, there'd be an exclusion zone around the ship. And there isn't. There are ships going right past it, right now.
What if Russia cut the normal radio with a crew of dispensable third-worlders dummies like you suffer from a DEFICIT OF IMAGINATION
How would they have been turned away from ports, or even hope to get into a port, without a working radio (but still a working AIS)?
There's a difference between a lack of imagination and a lack of credulity for any breathless headline.
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Here’s its current location:
https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:16...
Combine that story with the recent, substantial reports about hapless pseudo-mercenary "disposable agents" bought by Russian intelligence, and the whole thing feels even more icky. Have that ship dock somewhere, and some idiot assets who don't know what they got themselves into infiltrate it to start a fire or something, for a few hundred bucks.
See this article from German newspaper ZEIT (auto-translated using Google Translate): https://www-zeit-de.translate.goog/2024/41/russische-sabotag...
> The disposable agents
> Russia is waging a war of sabotage against the West. Initially with graffiti, now with arson attacks. The perpetrators are young men who have no idea who they are serving.
Original German-language article at https://www.zeit.de/2024/41/russische-sabotage-wegwerf-agent...
Archived at https://archive.ph/20240926105720/https://www.zeit.de/2024/4...
The great sort of news you want to hear while drinking your morning coffee and living in Kent to the east of London.
How far are you from the SS Richard Montgomery? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery
Be careful, if the coffee is too hot.. :D
Grab some popcorn instead
Is it unfeasible to ship these kinds of things in smaller loads? Why would you put any kind of dangerous material that would "obliterate the center of any port city" in the same place without strong guarantees that nothing will go wrong? A boat does not seem like that kind of place.
This fertilizer is very difficult to detonate accidentally. Quite a few things need to go wrong. It's also used in huge quantities.
It is very easy to detonate on purpose though. Perhaps by contaminating it with fuel oil from the ship itself. “By accident”.
Hey, if you’re already packing ‘world destroying’ amounts of explosives and taking all the precautions, then why not make it 3x the amount?
Just leave it offshore then? I’m fairly certain ‘outside of territorial waters’ is equivalent to ‘more than 25km from shore’. It can safely explode there. If the crew want to get taken off their sinking ship they are more than welcome.
Exactly my point of view, detonate it far away and let the insurance pay
Is this your general view on all ships carrying fertiliser? Do you know how many people would starve to death if we stopped shipping fertiliser around the world?
Only ships owned by countries we are more or less at war with and have a rich history of sabotage and assassinations. I think this is fairly self-evident.
It’s quite similar to a trojan horse.
Are all ships carrying fertiliser damaged?
I'm no starving expert, but is all fertiliser explosive?
A lot of the useful ones are nitrate based. So, “sometimes”.
Russia sent a tugboat to Cuba. They can easily rescue the ship if they wanted.
I'm assuming this is the ship? https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:16...
Anyone have a Marine Traffic account and can tell us about its movements?
No account required: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?imo=9626390
That just tells me where it is now. You need an account to see where it has been for the last N days.
Ah true, not exactly what you are looking for but according to this article [1] :
Kandalaksha
Tromsø
Klaipeda
Gothenburg
[1] https://theloadstar.com/baltic-ports-bar-damaged-ruby-now-in...
Sorry, but this stinks to high heaven, and what it stinks of is bullshit.
If the cargo is Russian and you legitimately want to dock for repairs, then why try Tromsø, Klaipėda, and then anchor the ship off the UK coast?
If you legitimately need to dock for repairs why not dock at Kaliningrad? The cargo is after all Russian so let them deal with the problem.
You have to literally sail past Kaliningrad to get to the English channel in any case, so it's hardly surprising that people port authorities are cautious if not outright suspicious.
Because it was damaged in northern Norway, and requested permission to go to Klaipeda, in the Baltic. Lithuania said no, unless it unloads first. The Lithuanians said, two weeks ago, they'd found a port in Norway that agreed to unload, near where it was stopped. Presumably that fell though and thus the permission was withdrawn. Then Denmark refused access to the Baltic, and Gothenburg also then said no. The ship never entered the Baltic as far as I can tell.
The implication is that the ship didn't want to go back to Murmansk. Possibly it was also denied entry, or doesn't want to get stuck there over winter if the Russians can't or won't repair the ship. It's not a Russian ship, it might not even be Russian-owned cargo any more, depending on the INCOTERMS, why would they make the effort if no one else will?
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2358770/ship-with-r...
Is there something to be said for “consumable” deep water off shore ports for contents that are “sensitive” like this?
Diplomatically one can say “yes you can dock here and unload cargo, but we demand that it be off shore and away from otherwise sensitive infrastructure”
This would allow such cargo to be offloaded safely in desperate circumstances while still maintaining the integrity of key infrastructure.
This is how I found out that Russia is burning down IKEA warehouses in Europe xD
I'm unclear where the ammonium nitrate was meant to be shipped to. You'd think they could continue to there, possibly with the aid of tugs.
Offload the cargo at sea to another boat? Barring that, flood it compartment by compartment and pump the fluid into other boats (to be later dried and re-packaged) or into the ocean (the ocean is big). Then bring the ship in to repair the hull or to salvage it.QED.
This can all be done at sea. Of course, someone has to pay.
One thing that's only lightly touched upon in the article: Is this journey unusual and where is the fertilizer usually unloaded? The way the article is written, the ship's operators may with plausible deniability be deliberately targeting ports where a blast would be most debilitating for NATO. But where are other ships with this fertilizer unloading? It must be a common operation in European ports. Are there special ports for this, and the captain is spurning them? Ostensibly because they want to dock for repairs?
Now that I think about it, while it could be hard to sell that much fertilizer from a port where it wasn't ordered to, transfering it to another vessel not in need of repairs would solve the whole situation overnight wouldn't it? That's expensive but should be normal procedure I'd expect. So yeah what are the operators up to?
Can't it be dragged to the Kaliningrad port? That would be the perfect place to store the ammonium nitrate.
Ships and their crews can‘t be cheap. Who paid to put the ammonium nirate on the ruby? Who paid for the ship to go somewhere? What was the original deal involving the ammonium nitrate? Did someone in another country originally plan to buy it but the deal was later cancelled?
The ammonium nitrate cargo alone is worth several million us dollar.
Its a maltese ship headed to Malta. https://archive.ph/jFtD7#selection-1429.111-1429.116
> It is then expected to continue through the Channel with its destination listed as Marsaxlokk in Malta. The authorities in Malta said that they would only accept the vessel if it got rid of its cargo beforehand.
Ships are registered in Malta as a matter of convenience. See: they don't want the cargo either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
There’s a book capitalism and the sea that goes into more detail on this. It’s mostly a means for shipping companies to skirt regulations.
Perhaps it was someone trying to get around sanctions on Russian imports, was found out and refused entry/ abandoned?
There are no sanctions on Russian fertilizers. Europe's fertilizer production is down due to high natural gas prices (I wonder what happened) and import from Russia is up.
Do you want to provide sources for these claims? I see Germany's fertilizer exports are down by 10%, while its fertilizer imports from Russia fell by 80%. Fertilizer production seems to be up, but this metric is tracked by value only.
"For some types of fertiliser, such as urea, imports have even increased since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The cheap fertiliser has helped European farmers, but the region’s own fertiliser producers have been struggling to compete. “We are right now being flooded by fertilisers from Russia, which are significantly cheaper than our fertilisers, for the simple reason that they pay peanuts for natural gas in comparison to us European producers,” said Petr Cingr, chief executive of SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, Germany’s largest producer of ammonia. “If politicians will not act,” he warned, Europe’s production capacity “will disappear”.
...
A third of EU imports of urea, the cheapest form of nitrogen-based fertiliser, come from Russia, with the amount imported in 2023 close to record levels, Eurostat data shows. Poland’s imports of Russian urea climbed to almost $120mn in 2023, up from just over $84mn in 2021, for example, according to customs data.
...
Other big players are leaving the market. BASF, the world’s largest chemicals group, has shrunk its operations in Europe over the past few years, including its fertiliser business, and instead focused new investments in the US and China, where costs are lower." [0]
[0] https://archive.is/20240630042149/https://www.ft.com/content...
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> Lithuania refused to help to spite Russia.
This was explained in the article:
> Lithuania refused because of the dangerous nature of the cargo. If 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate were to detonate, it would obliterate the center of any port city — the blast would be equal to a third of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb. That would be a repeat of the devastating explosion of the same substance in Beirut in 2020, although Ruby is carrying seven times more ammonium nitrate.
That's hardly spite.
You should've quoted the next paragraph too. There would be no need for it if the danger of fertilizer was enough to justify the refusal.
"While Lithuanian authorities announced there was no evidence of malicious intent against the country’s national security, they noted that when dealing with Russia, or other unfriendly international actors, states should always be cautious."
And then the article goes on trying to justify that by saying that Russia has set on fire an IKEA warehouse (wat?) and is jamming GPS. Sure, this means that Russia is going to murder tens of thousands civilians by detonating its ship with fertilizer.
Caution feels like the right choice regardless:
> On 4 August 2020, a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut in the capital city of Lebanon exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, as well as leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. A cargo of 2,750 tonnes of the substance (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years after having been confiscated by Lebanese authorities from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus.
This ship carries considerably more. You can critique the framing and language used if you want, but I doubt many officials would be happy to take that risk.
And what is the risk, exactly?
"Norway’s Maritime Authority told the BBC the vessel was inspected by DNV Group to ensure it met safety and environmental standards.
The group found damage to its hull, propeller and rudder, but the Ruby was still deemed “seaworthy”.
As a precaution, DNV Group, and the Maltese flag registry, insisted that a tug escort the vessel for the remainder of its journey.
The ship was bound for Klaipeda, in Lithuania, according to ship tracking firm MarineTraffic.
But despite being deemed seaworthy, the ship was denied entry to Klaipeda. Algis Latakas, the port authority's chief executive, told the BBC that this was "because of its cargo"." [0]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62g95721leo
Seems a reasonable move having in mind the number of times that Russia said lately that they want Lithuania "returned" to them. And we all know what on Russia "liberate" means "laminate". Not helping the people that wants you dead is wise
>the number of times that Russia said lately that they want Lithuania "returned" to them
Zero?
> Ammonium nitrate is highly explosive, especially when exposed to fire
Is that true? It seems, from a pedestrian perspective, if just fire could trigger it, they wouldn’t be transporting it in such amounts.
From the Wikipedia article [1]:
"In the second case, the explosion results from a fire that spreads into the ammonium nitrate (AN) itself (Texas City, Brest, Tianjin, Beirut) or to a mixture of an ammonium nitrate with a combustible material during the fire. The fire must be confined at least to a degree for successful transition from a fire to an explosion (a phenomenon known as "deflagration to detonation transition", or DDT). Pure, compact AN is stable and very difficult to initiate. Ammonium nitrate decomposes in temperatures above 169 °C (336 °F). Pure AN is stable and will stop decomposing once the heat source is removed, but when catalysts are present, the reaction can become self-sustaining (known as self-sustaining decomposition, or SSD). This is a well-known hazard with some types of NPK fertilizers and is responsible for the loss of several cargo ships."
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ammonium_nitrate_inc...
No not really. You need an explosion or energetic impact to trigger it, and potentially a fire too. But it might become unstable by heat and more so if it's contaminated by oil.
One early industrial disaster and the biggest explosion of it's time happened because the workers in a production plant in Germany regularly used Dynamite to clear out stuck ammonium nitrate in silos. The last time they tried, the plant was obliterated together with most of the nearby town.
I had to find more details. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion
> Indeed, nothing extraordinary had happened during an estimated 20,000 firings, until the fateful explosion on September 21 [1921].
Just shaking it too much can trigger it, if stored improperly.
If it gets wet or packed too tightly.
Ah interesting. Yeah trusting Russian inspectors that they did their job is not a good idea.
> if it was so unsafe, they wouldn’t be transporting it in such amounts.
You'd think so, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
A classic example of how reasoning from logic alone is no match actual knowledge of reality.
Or perhaps, in this specific case, the unsafeness is the point: it's intended to harass.
They store it next to fireworks. And then proceed to weld near where the fireworks are stored.
Sounds like a classic job for the CIA. Uh, I mean, ‘accident’.
For the non-boaters, “heaves to” means “has stopped” in this context.
TIL you could wreck the whole international economy/market/political order with a few well placed shipwrecks
Not even a few. Just one. In the Suez.
ammonium nitrate is safe till you accidentally mix it with something like fuel oil.
It would be trivial for an inspector to go look and see if such mixing has occurred... and if it has not, let it into port to sell the cargo.
IANAEE, but I think you are mixing potasium nitrare and ammonium nitrate.
Looking in Wikipedia, in the danger warning square, in the yellow part potasium nitrare has a 0 and ammonium nitrate has a 3.
Don't try this at home ...
Potasium nitrate has a lot of oxygens but nothing to burn with it. So it's only explosive when mixed with some fuel.
Ammonium nitrate has the oxygen and also the hidrogens that can be combined and release energy. It has also some spare oxygen, it is probably more dangerous mixed with fuel.
Fuel oil… or any combustible basically. A famous combustible to mix with is sugar. Cheap and mis wert well with it, still stable if no heat source. I hardly imagine how an inspector can "look" if there’s any king of combustible hidden in the lower layers of the ship cargo.
A sampler on a stick is used, which can be poked down to the bottom to get a sample from the bottom - useful for contaminants which are heavy or liquids.
Ammonium nitrate is explosive by itself. It doesn’t need fuel or oxidizer. By adjusting its pH level the breakdown reaction can be prevented and the compound stabilized, but it decays over time or when improperly stored.
In my humble understanding among I’m nitrate is a oxidizer (or a precursor of it). Am I wrong ? How would it explode without a fuel ?
2NH₄NO₃ (s) → 2N₂ (g) + O₂ (g) + 4H₂O (g)
Only happens spontaneously at high temperature/pressure. But of course being an explosive reaction, once it starts in a little pocket of material, all the neighboring material experiences a lot of heat and pressure, and blows up. And then the next layer, and the next layer, etc.
If improperly stored, pockets form with different pH values that cause it to spontaneously occur at lower temperatures. Or a spark, or a compressive event in an unstable patch, etc.
Or, if the ship is indeed being used as a weapon, a "small" hidden charge of military explosives that will be hard to find after a kiloton-scale explosion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion suggests that pure AN is also explosive.
As far as I know, the explosion that leveled part of Beirut was mostly assumed to be caused by uncontaminated AN too.
It was stored in the same warehouse with fireworks, and in the videos you can see them explode shortly before the big explosion.
Yes the fire was required to set off the ammonium nitrate. But that’s just to initiate the explosion, and there are many ways it could have been initiated. A single spark would have done the job.
But you do not need to mix fuel with the fertilizer to activate it. It provides its own fuel.
Let it sink!
Its an interesting scenario. because if the ship suddenly decided to turn around and head for the closest, most densely populated costal city... what can they do about it?
Blow it up? its ALREADY close enough to cause significant damage.
Somehow sink it without detonating it? The environmental damage alone would be devistating to the econcomy...
if this is a russian plot, it's already increadibly successfull.
Nukes aren't a perfect model for a ship full of explosive fertilizer, but a reasonable enough approximation/upper bound for which we can easily find formulas/calculators online. A 15 kiloton nuke has a 1 psi radius of about 3 km according to https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/#
So a possible solution would indeed be stopping it by any means necessary somewhere between the 22 km mark (where it enters territorial waters) and the 3 km mark where it becomes a serious hazard.
> head for the closest, most densely populated costal city.
London actually.
You just use tugboats to push it away, and protect the tugboats with coast guard vessels.
The only environmental damage would be from the ship fuel. The fertilizer is not a problem, maybe it would cause a short term algae boom.
I'd say, bring it as far as you can from any human being, and detonate the shit out of it, it has like 7 times more shit on it than the one in Beirut? And you want to dock it somewhere?
Since what happened in Beirut, how do we allow to have so much explosive on a single ship?
It’s having the problems it’s having because no one allows a ship in with that much explosives on it anymore haha!
I mean, it's a great solution right now to detonate it away from humans, but I was more wondering to disallow loading that much explosive in the first place, because I think long term it's not great for sealife to detonate 20k tons of explosive every now and then :D
Then get ready for the raise of the prices on agricultural products in Europe. What's explosive for you is fertilizer for the farmers.
Curiously no one say who have bought the fertilizer... Ask yourself why, to ask yourself why the war in the first place.
[dead]
I hope they evacuate the crew and bomb it in the middle of the ocean so we can film the explosion in 4K. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen.
Sadly true. It will likely be 720p vertical.
And shaking horizontally, with a bit of rotational wobble.
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.
The hybrid war angle is wild conspiracy theorising. If the Russians wanted to blow up an English city they might as well drop bombs on it directly.
I still wouldn't want to be near a fertiliser ship though so it'd be reasonable to tell it to go somewhere else.
Blowing up a ship offers way more plausibility. It’s not hard to imagine it would leave NATO without response. Not so much with the actual bombs.
Dropping normal bombs on it is highly identifiable and attributable, and not very damaging. Also, a normal bomber or cruise missile might actually get shot down. There would be no doubt about Article 5 and the need for a military response.
Dropping a nuke on it is equally or more damaging, but likewise highly identifiable and attributable, and would force an even bigger reaction, likely even by China. Also, again, might be shot down.
An explosion of a cargo ship is just as damaging as a small nuke, but cannot be immediately identified as an attack - even if people suspect it, it's hard to conclusively prove that it wasn't an accident. This makes it hard to muster a unified and strong response.
> Dropping normal bombs on it is highly identifiable and attributable, and not very damaging. Also, a normal bomber or cruise missile might actually get shot down.
Submariners would like a word.
How are they going to drop a bomb on it? Bomber? Rocket?
If a ship explodes, Putin will deny everything, and grudgingly everyone will accept it, because you can't be certain, and we don't want war. But if a long-range bomber leaves Russia, flies to Liverpool and drops a bomb, it's an open declaration of war.
The world is full of complexities and often misunderstood events. Applying higher-order thinking, such as realpolitik and game theory, can provide a more nuanced understanding of global dynamics. After centuries of dismissing concerns as mere "conspiracy theories" it's important to recognize that this may not be a theory, but rather a potential warning.
The only Western asset that has been sabotaged was Nordstream, by either the U.S. or the Ukrainians (now the official story is that Zalushny ordered it).
CEPA is a propaganda site:
https://cepa.org/article/wake-up-nato-its-sabotage/
"European energy security and the continent’s critical infrastructure are the core pillars of Transatlantic security. Safeguarding them is fundamental to ensuring democratic resilience and stability."
In light of Nordstream, this is hypocritical and offensive to Western Europeans who suffer the economic consequences.
Yes, the Russian invasion is bad, yes, they should get out of Ukraine, but repeatedly manufacturing additional stories is counterproductive.
What about Eastern Europe, some ammo depo sabotaged by Ruzzians? Sabotaging GPS that affected air traffice ?
What about it? "ammo depo sabotaged" does not yield any meaningful search results. If it were confirmed, certainly The Telegraph and the New York Times would shout it from the rooftops.
The GPS jamming is classified by the Finnish transport agency as a "side effect of Russia's anti-drone activities":
https://www.politico.eu/article/gps-jamming-is-a-side-effect...
"Jamming GPS signals over the Baltic Sea is “most likely” a side effect of Russia's anti-drone activities, Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, said today.
“The interference intensified when Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure began in January 2024,” Traficom said in a press release.
Estonia also blames Russia for the signal jamming, but the Finnish agency doesn't agree with the Tallinn government in defining the interference as a hybrid attack."
I am wasting my time to repsond for others that might read ehre, not sure hpow incompetent you must be not to find soemthign with Google or not to be aware by the sabotages that happened.
But let me assume good faith and you are a poor Ruzzian kid with soviet mentality due to bad parents/grandaprents you can do a Google search like putting this text in the input box
>ammo depo "sabotage" "bulgaria" "russia"
https://www.novinite.com/articles/221906/First+Russian+Sabot...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...
use Google and find more, though I am 100% sure you will balme CIA and Israel as a good soviet of fabricating the evidence.
You have enough evidence with names and photos of Ruzzian agents and their movement. You have evidence from Russians that Putin tried to blow up apparments in Russia to achieve his goals and then you act surprised that Putin could do something bad in Europe, like his crimes are limited ot only Ruzzia and their exUSSR territories.
Sinking a ship into a river to screw over a country is a typical soviet thing to do, same with abandoning a ship with explosives in a NATO port and blowing it up months later, you need to know the soviet mindset and then you will not be confused that they could think and act upon such terroristic plans.
We have to keep these people out of the EU. It is getting tiresome.
Yeah, and for HN, this accounts created a few seconds before they start defending a terrorist regime should be flagged, the IP should be blocked for a month. The guy might claim he does not want to lose karma for his support of terrorist regime but IMO if you support terrorists then you should be "alpha" enough so your ego can resist some karma hits.