Sink the Yantar! (Russian spy and internet sabotage ship)

The BBQ Pit
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The Yantar (Янтарь - amber) is a Russian ship, ostensibly for marine research. As such, of course, it has the ability to launch mini-subs.

In the last year, this ship has been known to be mapping (and hovering over) underwater cables, which are rather well known for real maritime purposes.

Some months ago, a Captain sailing a cargo ship out of the Neva River in St. Petersburg, “neglected” to lift his anchor and thus his dragging anchor tore up a lot of cables between Estonia, Finland and Sweden.

If you choose to believe that was an accident, then you’ll believe the Yantar is just the Russian version of Jacques Cousteau doing real-science maritime research.

If you’re less likely to believe that, you might consider that these mini-subs are planting sabotage devices (radio-activated underwater grenades would be a start) on these cables so Putin can basically shut off the internet in Europe and Europe’s connection to the USA. Can either my guess what they’re really up to or Putin’s control, and if it happens, his guilt be proven? Nope.

However, of late, this “science ship” has been laser-lighting UK military plane cockpits, and today was trying to jam GPS for all UK ships.

They’ve been warned by the UK defence minister and maybe Starmer too. Putin is pushing the limit. Well, the latter actions are a big “Fuck You” to the UK.

I don’t tend to be belligerent, yet if I say, “Quit it” and there’s no other means, do what you feel is necessary.

I reckon this ship is maybe one “trick” away from being sunk. Or captured. Both probably acts or threats of Acts of War. So be it.

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self-reported for typo in title

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Typo fixed.

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Thanks. As I said, I have no proof of sabotage, and officially, the UK isn’t saying anything, but they’re watching it.

The main cables to the USA from Europe come from the UK and Ireland. I reckon the anchor-dragging was a test of failover. And to do so intentionally are themselves, well if not “Acts of War” then “quit it”.

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One key point is it’s entered British “exclusive economic zone” which is not the same, I think, as “British waters”, an important distinction if (and it’s a big if) military intervention is being considered

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It did? The articles I read only mentioned jaming the GPS of the frigate following it:

Not that I think this is a poor Russian research vessel being victimised by the evil western militarists, but this is the Dope, let’s get our facts straight

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Russia only respects aggression, so blow the fucking thing up.

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Indeed. I am unsure how trying to jam one particular ship’s GPS doesn’t easily scale up to blocking whatever craft you wish to deploy it on. It also seems an unusual thing to have and deliberately use to study underwater life. I reckon there’s no specific law against it.

Russian spy ship enters British waters and shines lasers at military pilots

Oh, those Teenage Youth Sailors we brought along were told specifically not to shine lasers into military planes, only British Airways! We’ll try and make sure it doesn’t happen again!

Or they don’t say that. Deny, deny, lie, then deny again and finally say, “What are you going to do about it?”

I don’t know the maritime law and particulars about British/international waters, yet if there isn’t a specific law against this, does there need to be? I live in a part of the UK, not in any particular passenger plane flight path, yet if a helicopter flew over right now, and I aimed my green laser at it, how long will it take before I’m in front of the Old Bailey?

Let’s jump to the question of: What does Russia do if the ship is captured (more likely) or sunk? International incident or Act of War, and some number of Russian submarines rain some hell on parts of the UK? (Let’s assume at least initial UK air superiority).

Trump’s 28 points for peace in Ukraine could be held up to a light with a Google translation of Putin’s demands and match word-for-word. The UK no longer has a military ally in the USA - call it “special relationship” all you want. All he’s done is take Russia’s demands and turn them into a surrender ultimatum for Ukraine. Europe is mainly mentioned in what NATO will not do and in Putin’s promises not to invade Europe.

Trump has made it clear that maybe the USA will participate in an Article 5 invasion in Europe, and I suppose the UK has to wait till this maritime “research” vessel fires whatever passes for a hellfire missile in Russia, else the UK started it, and they can get out of it.

Russia has a modicum of a surface fleet in Kaliningrad and Kronstadt. Yet a number of submarines. Yet so too does the UK, and lots of working floating ships. Aid from the rest of Europe, perhaps particularly Finland and Germany, would be swell. I await the day Putin’s “cat that just ate the mouse” smirk is wiped off his face.

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Russia’s only being mischievous while studying fish. The defence minister oddly (IMO) said they better not move south. There’s lots of International water in the Irish Sea so not sure how he’d back it up.

If Russia does get aggressive, or a southerly transgression needs to be met with an “or else what” just capture the damn thing. If it does then defend itself with missiles, then we have a shooting war on hand.

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There is very little chance if this happening IMO. They would need to cause enough damage to the world Internet infrastructure to actually damage the world economy significantly (or sink or short down a NATO vessel/plane) for that to be considered. That is how wars start

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I’m not sure that is more likely. They presumably don’t have much more weapons than small arms, if NATO decided to capture it any reasonable sized NATO warship would be able to give the captain a very compelling reason to surrender. I don’t think Russia inspires the same level of suicidal fanaticism in its military as places like North Korea

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In the case of the supposedly drunk captain of the container ship dragging anchor across the Eastern Baltic and tearing up fiber optic cables, there was enough redundancy to re-route traffic and perhaps only a measurable time of fail over, yet nothing noticeable one presumes.

Even if it was unintentional, it’s not difficult to have apparatus in place to trace the IP’s that my data from Tallinn, Estonia to Helsinki, Finland for instance, changed from and to. A well laid-out network ought to be able to handle such situations.

I don’t know the coastal defences in the UK as well as I know the US Coast Guard. The latter would take a very dim view of any vessel laser penning/spotlighting the cockpit of any aircraft.

I reckon the kind the Yantar was using was no different than mine, not quite 2cm in radius and perhaps 25 cm long. It is rather remarkable how tight the beam is (laser after all) and you could use it to point out stars to a group of people, one of its intended civil uses.

I don’t know the exact aircraft the UK is using to “watch” this spy ship, yet I’ll reckon something like the USA E2C Hawkeye with the dish on top - not Typhoon fighters. Yet any military aircraft (and likely British Airways airplanes) have some counter measures against amateur grade lasers “painting” their cockpits. They do not like it, will try and pinpoint it, and generally arrest someone who thought they were doing no harm.

So that could be the Yantar crew’s excuse. Just having some fun in between researching fish. Now why they would have a device capable of jamming GPS (or at least attempting to) is quite a bit more suspicious. Russia has their own GPS-type satellite called GLONASS (and it was kind of cool to have an app on my 15 year old Russian bought Samsung that could locate using either system) so I highly doubt they could make a case this device was just some curious plaything and a bit of playful mischief.

Finally, these submersibles could be (I have no proof - maybe MI5 does) planting remote grenades of some type, and there’s only so far under the surface you can send a signal so you tend to want to do this in shallow waters near coastlines. And, at will, be able to “cut” any and all such pre-mined cables you wish.

My point is to say this ship is up to no good is an understatement. Yet lets say MI-5 Naval divers discover some devices like this and Starmer calls up the White House. Trump will reply with whatever Putin told him (or tells him).

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Yeah except when the individual in question is a member of a foreign navy on board a nuclear armed nation’s naval vessel that’s not an option. None of this stuff is innocent research activities, its all clearly Russian military activity.

But none of it comes close to being something that will trigger a military escalation (at least something as extreme as attempting to capture the ship, I’m sure other more subtle stuff is happening)

To actually make Stamer or any other NATO leader push the button and capture or attack the Yantar would require them to do something much more serious than this.

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Unlikely as MI5 deals with counter intelligence (i.e. catching spies) within the UK, they would be significantly out of their depth (literally and figuratively) in the north Atlantic.

MI6 has occasionally hired divers but it’s not gone so well…

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Another aspect of this, that needs to considered is all these statements from the British Defense Secretary are part of the lead up to the UK budget…

The defence secretary on Wednesday repeated government plans to increase defence spending and work with NATO allies to bolster European security

Not that it makes all the claims untrue, but it does suggest that maybe the timing is more to do with the UK budget rather than some impending massive escalation on the part of Yantar.

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‘In a regrettable accident, the Russian research vessel Yantar was sunk during a routine test of British defence systems. The ship was inadvertently targeted by British anti-ship missile guidance systems. No missile was intended to be launched. The government of the UK call the accident regrettable, and are following up on shortcomings in their weapons security.’

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Wow, that was a thing? I know Shannon (SNN) airport in Ireland allows any country to land any plane, including military, so long as they are not armed. And MIG’s have been seen there, and of course in the 50’s Khrushchev flew through there to fuel up, as did many other Eastern countries.

ETA: I just remembered the Russian merchant who would travel to wherever in Scotland Local Hero was set, this being the early 80’s.

Yet I meant some elite division more akin to Navy Seals than Army Rangers, yet have no clue if either exist so I assumed they’d stick the elite into MI-5/6 so they could be “advisors” as the USA calls spies who are really military oriented.

Neither country needs to play the “Nuclear Card” for every little thing. If I remember WarGames correctly, it iterates through many conflicts (oddly not Russia -v- Ukraine) and I’m sure in there is a USSR -v- UK and every conflict ends up in Total Thermonuclear War.

I don’t see how the UK couldn’t capture this ship and turn it upside down and shake it all around on their budget. A war with Russia will only make the USA rich as they’re not going to be part of it.

The UK did “intercept” two other vessels. I assume if they were boarded, that would be mentioned. Likely, as in air interceptions, it’s a kindly reminder, “You are going the wrong way! Go that way!”

As for the Yantar, the last thing I heard the Defense Minister say was “Do not go southwards,” as I’m going to guess there are no international waters between Scotland and Northern Ireland. I believe Russia has to let it be known if they’re taking the Eastern way south in the North Sea past Dover into the English Channel. It may be that the UK can say “No,” and that is the area where these ships were intercepted.

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Ha! The maritime patrol aircraft the UK uses - from a base in Northern Scotland is the https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircraft/current-aircraft/poseidon-mra11/

A Boeing 737 with enhanced maneuverability and from wiki:

The P-8 operates in anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-surface warfare (ASUW), and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles. It is armed with torpedoes, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and other weapons, and can drop and monitor sonobuoys.

I read there is a bit of international waters between Northern Ireland and Scotland around the Northern Channel, though how one navigates there I can’t fathom (pun intended). If there’s a way, the Yantar punks are going there.

It was unintentional to launch a harpoon missile at this target, yet our pilots were blinded by powerful lasers.

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Ha! Works for me!

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If this is not a Russian military vessel, then capturing it and arresting the crew for lasing aircraft in British waters is not an act of war.

If this is a Russian military vessel, then it’s already committing acts of war.

Make Russia commit to one side or the other, and then act either way.