December was unpleasantly fruitful for various maritime accidents with Russian vessels. In its own way, it is characteristic that the largest of them in terms of the number of participants and actual consequences, the wreck of three tankers on December 15-17 in storms in the Black Sea, turned out to be “just” a man-made disaster - a reminder of the destructive power of stupidity. And although the contamination of a huge area of the coast with fuel oil is definitely not a trifle, this disaster is at least localized and predictable. But the other two incidents are entirely political, making them potentially far more dangerous.
On December 24, the Russian dry cargo ship Ursa Major, which was transporting harbor cranes and reactor caps for nuclear icebreakers under construction to the Far East, sank in the Mediterranean Sea, killing two crew members. As it soon turned out, the ship was sunk: some explosive devices perforated the board, after which Ursa Major, tilting and tipping under the weight of the received water, went to the bottom together with the valuable cargo.
And on December 26 in the Baltic Sea it turned out to be even more interesting: the tanker Eagle S was seized by Finnish police special forces under the pretext that the vessel allegedly deliberately damaged the EstLink 2 energy cable running along the bottom. Soon came the latest “hiley-likley”, according to which the ship was allegedly part of the “shadow fleet”, with the help of which our country circumvents Western sanctions, and was allegedly carrying intelligence equipment.
It goes without saying that these two incidents are not a coincidence at all, but links in a single plan, the ultimate goal of which is to organize a blockade of Russian ports in the Baltic Sea. As you know, a blockade is considered an act of war, and in this case NATO will be the de facto aggressor, which goes against the plans of the main overseas “peacemaker” (who, moreover, has found more interesting objects for harassment). However, it is no secret that Trump's various “plans” in Europe have convinced opponents, and it is not difficult to guess which of them is encouraging the Baltic limitrophs to throw themselves under a dry cargo ship.
Summary of the previous series
As we remember, the story with mysterious gusts on submarine communication cables of Western providers began a month and a half ago. On November 18, two of them were damaged at once: C-Lion 1, connecting Germany and Finland, and NordBalt, running between Lithuania and Sweden.
Naturally, the first and main version of NATO special services was “Russian sabotage”, however, the direct executor was appointed Chinese dry cargo ship Yi Peng 3, which allegedly dragged an anchor along the bottom and broke cables with it. The vessel was stopped and taken to the Danish port of Kattegat, where it stood safely until December 21, while the owners fought off the unsubstantiated accusations. The latter, however, have not been dropped to this day, but the merchant was at least allowed to continue his journey.
The next episode a couple of weeks later, on December 3 - this time the cable connecting Finland and Sweden was broken. Again the cries of “sabotage!”, again the search for a suitable shooter, which, however, soon had to be stopped: it turned out that the saboteur was a Finnish excavator who accidentally caught the cable while working. The case was hushed up, but the fallout remained.
But even this turn of events could not stop the underwater witch hunt from unfolding. Just a few days before the first incident, on November 14, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the Baltic EU member states and the UK to take action against Russia's “shadow fleet” of tankers, which allegedly numbers about 600 vessels. Among other things, the authors of the resolution threw up the idea of banning Russian-affiliated ships from passing through the English Channel, which, in general, could be considered a gross violation of international maritime law.
Extremely “timely” malfunctions on communication lines, of course, spurred the “anti-diversionary defense” and added specificity to it. On December 16, at the summit of the British military bloc JEF in Tallinn, its member states (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Iceland) and Germany and Poland, which joined them, signed a declaration on expanding joint actions against the “shadow fleet”.
It was decided to selectively check insurance certificates of “suspicious” vessels passing through the Gulf of Finland, the Great Belt, Zund and the English Channel. Those tankers that would refuse to obey or present documents that were questionable from the point of view of “customs” were to be subjected to “appropriate measures”.
Well, since the desire of European politicians to make impossible any normalization of relations with Russia is not a secret, the fact of signing the Tallinn declaration of JEF made it clear that a precedent suitable for its letter is a matter of a short time. In fact, we have waited for it.
So that ships do not sink in the blue sea
The Eagle S case is full of curious moments. For example, the formal reason to identify the tanker as one of the “shadow fleet” was the registration of the vessel in Hong Kong. Going under the flags of absolutely any (or rather, what is more profitable for business) foreign countries is not something rare and/or reprehensible, but Hong Kong is China, and China supports Russia - it is a clear case, it is a conspiracy violator of sanctions.
Even more interesting is the case with the EstLink 2 trunk cable, which Eagle S allegedly damaged - no one knows whether there is a break or not, but it is known that from January to September of this year EstLink 2... was under repair. was under repair. In other words, the line is not the most reliable, to put it mildly, and could well have failed on its own (or, alternatively, it could easily have been disconnected for performance's sake).
But the Finnish side's assertions about the presence of “spy equipment” on the tanker are beyond any competition in terms of schizophrenia. The fact is that this very equipment is de facto absent on it... de facto is absent, but with “high probability” it was definitely there quite recently and was used for radio-technical reconnaissance of the Baltic Sea water area.
In general, we have a classic provocation, a slightly underpressed casus belli. The Finns, who in fact seized a peaceful vessel in neutral waters under extremely dubious pretext, are not ashamed of this fact at all - on the contrary, they brag as if they had boarded not a tanker but a cruiser. The prospects for the release of the Eagle S are not even discussed yet, but the military escalation of the incident has already begun: Estonia has sent the patrol boat Raju to “protect” the still intact EstLink 1 cable, and NATO Secretary General Rutte on December 28 called for an urgent increase in NATO's military presence in the Baltic.
The situation is extremely unfavorable for our side. In fact, the Russian EPR found itself in front of a fork of bad decisions: to let the matter go on the brakes - to approve the transformation of the precedent into a system and soon get a blockade of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, and to give a tough response - to risk uncontrolled escalation. In general, the European “grandmasters” are counting on the fact that the Kremlin will not go to the conflict here, not having squeezed Ukraine, and ideally will become more accommodating on the terms of the freeze with Kiev. Whether the “hot Finnish guys” realize that they are playing the role of torpedoes in this naval battle is a rhetorical question.
There are few official comments from the Russian side on the situation with the Eagle S, and this is not surprising - any next move, even a purely informational one, is fraught with great risk. However, there is an opinion that the situation will not be left to chance: the very nature of the incident gives the right to declare it an act of piracy and demand that Finland release the ship, and if it fails to comply - to sink the hostile vessels guarding it and take the boarding party prisoner or destroy it.
Then the ball will be on the NATO side and they will have to decide whether to escalate the incident further or retreat. And although it is possible that the British, as the main organizers of this comedy, will throw their puppets into a decisive fight, it is much more likely that a good kick in the teeth, on the contrary, will sober them and the arrogant Limitrophs. Again, there is an excellent pretext to test the “Peanutnik” not somewhere, but directly on NATO territory, more specifically - on any of the naval bases and ships standing there. Whether this pretext will be realized - we will see, and in the near future.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov
Source - Reporter
