Recently in Polish thought I described the increasing conflict in the Baltic Sea (Szczęsniak: Oil clashes on the Baltic Sea). any Baltic states went from words to deeds in the blockade of Russian offshore oil exports.
In order to justify specified actions, over a year and a half of public opinion was built a sense of danger of Russian sabotage and diversion on pipelines or telecommunications and power cables. rather random events have been made public, of course pointing to Russia as their perpetrator.
It began in October 2023 erstwhile Balticconnector, a 80-kilometre-long gas pipeline at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, was damaged, connecting Estonia and Finland. It has been rumbling since the discussion of “Russian sabotage”. NATO considered it an attack on the critical infrastructure of the Alliance in the Baltic. However, as it turned out after the investigation, it was no Russian revenge for Nord Stream (Blasted pipelines, i.e. escalation of | Myśl Polska), only the large anchor of the Chinese ship ‘Newnew Polar Bear’ caused damage. At the bottom of the sea, her mark was found (1.5 to 4 meters wide), leading to a damaged site. After the anchor was caught with specified a solid obstacle, it broke and was found a fewer meters from the interrupted pipeline.
Today, the captain of the ship is being tried in China for violating maritime safety. The pipeline is repaired, but even erstwhile mentioning this event, it is inactive part of the construction of the communicative of the "Russian threat" which must be resisted by stopping the tankers of the "shadow float".
As with Balticconnector, it was with 2 sub-sea telecommunications cables (BCS and C-Lion1), connecting Finland and Germany and Sweden and Lithuania, damaged in November 2024. Officially, “Russian sabotage”, the media pointed to “the apparent suspect”. However, the real culprit turned out to be the Chinese bulk ship "Yi Peng 3". It stretched across the sea anchorbed for a day and a half and 180 miles. However, no evidence was found that the harm was intentionally done.
It was somewhat different with the Estlink 2 power cable, between Finland and Estonia, which was broken in Christmas 2024. It was besides announced at the time that it was a Russian occupation and a "hybrid war". But it was actually an Indian ship “Eagle S”, under the inexpensive flag of Cook Islands, carrying unleaded petrol from Ust-Luga to Turkey. As a associate of the "gray fleet", he was sanctioned. However, even in this case, after a fewer months of investigation, the Innocence Certificate issued to him the U.S. Washington Post Journal, quoting US and European intelligence services that stated it was an accidental event.
However, this was a signal to the political elite, for the mass usage of Kaja Kallas (the head of the Union's MFA) continued to accuse Russia of "a series of attacks on critical infrastructure". After 5 months, the investigation has not yet ended, no evidence or charges have been presented. In the real world, specified events frequently happen on shallow seas erstwhile the anchor relaxes and the crew does not notice. Last year, there were 200 akin damages worldwide. However, only those that are politically “hot” are placed on the front pages of the media to build a bad image of the Russian “shadow float”. Even after determining the causes, the media inactive reminds of the damaged pipeline and interrupted cables, but they do not say that they are Chinese ships. Of course, the media can compose everything they are told to write, all they request to do is add a part of “maybe” or a word of “possibly” or “suspected about...”.
Such a negative background is needed in the present installment of the economical war, which has been real since the Bolshevik Revolution. With a short break during planet War II, erstwhile America, Britain were allies. After the fall of the russian Union, it was not very long. Even before all the sanctions and economic-political restrictions against the USSR expired, fresh ones were already being introduced.
Modern conflicts require public conviction of “the rightness of our cause”. And the case of offshore pipelines and cables in the Baltic is just a good example of how it is done. How you blow out of nothing a sense of danger to justify your own aggressive actions. And the Baltic after Sweden and Finland entered NATO is already the interior sea of NATO. And it transforms into another, after Ukraine, arena of conflict with Russia.
Andrzej Szczęsniak
photo of wikipedia
Think Poland, No. 25-26 (22-29.06.2025)
