The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

[Vixen]

What, exactly, does that mean?

I did strategic studies courses as part of my degree, as well as Cold War studies and also studies on the former Soviet states in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the USSR.

Do you know the Mitrokhin archive for example?

I have heard of it. What about it?

 

[Steve]

Vixen: NATO ships hundreds of miles away should have jumped on this disaster immediately!

Also Vixen: In the middle of the Baltic, nobody much notices or cares what you get up to.

Repeating what I posted upthread - there is an “I told you so” for any eventuality in this thread. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation Vixen will be able to cherry pick a single post here, ignoring all else, and claim to be correct.

 

[JesseCuster]

Bildt and the JAIC obviously took that view.

(Or at least, that is the view presented to the public.)

You weren't asked what view Bildt and the JAIC took.

You said that the Estonia was sunk in international waters because you are indemnified from "all sorts of things".

Sinking a cruise ferry and killing 850 passengers isn't something you are indemnified against in international waters, so what exactly were the Russians indemnifying themselves against when they supposedly murdered 850 civilians when they sank the Estonia?

 

[JesseCuster]

Bildt and the JAIC obviously took that view.

(Or at least, that is the view presented to the public.)

The view that the JAIC presented to the public was that nations are indemnified against deliberately sinking civilian ships and murdering hundreds of people?

Where in the JAIC is that? (again, you're responding to posts but not even making a basic attempt to actually answer them)

 

[phiwum]

I've been forced to watch six different videos on the sinking, half of them call it a visor, and others call it a hood. All the narrators have British accents so, as an American, I assume they're smarter than me.

Oh man. I've been calling it a hood because Brit accents intimidate you?

Live and learn I guess.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[JesseCuster]

Stockholm is at coordinates: 59°20'N (59.33N) 18° 3' E (17.07E)

Tallinn is at coordinates: 59°26N (58.44N) 24°45'E (24.75E)

The wreck Estonia is at: 59°23'N (59.3E) 21°42'E (21.7E)

So, it had 6°15'E (7.68E) to travel. It only managed 3°03'E (3.05E)- which is roughly half way, bearing in mind it veered off course whilst sinking. (1 minute = 1.5 miles. Half of 6°15'E is 3°075' (3.84E), so you see it is just .045' away from exactly half way point, or, no more than apx half a mile out.

Why didn't you say that the first time you were asked instead of quoting something which said precisely nothing about the Estonia being at its halfway point in its journey?

Ok, so the Estonia was roughly halfway between Stockholm and Tallinn. Why would the Russians want to sink it at the halfway point? What advantage is there to be gained from the sinking happening halfway between the two cities it was travelling between?

 

[junkshop]

Whilst the ship is at its most vulnerable. Most people in bed. One crew member who claimed to be doing the watch of the decks was seen sitting in the Admiral Bar by a witness.

How does the the passengers being in bed make the ship more vulnerable?

*i'm assuming that's who you meant, because if you're referring to the crew, then you would have not understood how shifts work.

 

[JesseCuster]

Whilst the ship is at its most vulnerable. Most people in bed. One crew member who claimed to be doing the watch of the decks was seen sitting in the Admiral Bar by a witness.

So you're claiming that the Estonia was sunk at midnight Swedish time by the Russians to send a message to the Swedes and that also happened to be when shift changed happened and the Russians knew that some members of the crew liked to be in the bar at that time and the passengers were asleep so they could take advantage of those supposed vulnerabilities? Why would passengers being in bed make a ship more vulnerable?

So not an accident involving a collision with an escorting Swedish submarine which was there merely as a formality?

 

[Vixen]

Re time of sinking. The wreck is at 21°42'E. The East European Time Zone starts at coordinate 22°30'E.


(According to the JAIC it veered in a circle westwards and then turned back eastwards on itself.)

 

[Steve]

Re time of sinking. The wreck is at 21°42'E. The East European Time Zone starts at coordinate 22°30'E.


(According to the JAIC it veered in a circle westwards and then turned back eastwards on itself.)

Maybe it collided with itself

 

[Andy_Ross]

For those interested in the use of Estonia to transport military equipment, you can find the official report here. Please forgive me for not bothering to give a summary, but I have only briefly skimmed it and decided I wasn't all that interested in diving deeper. Perhaps someone else would be so interested and can summarize the main findings for us.

Extracts

The investigation carried out in Sweden confirmed that military equipment was shipped onboard of the ferry Estonia on 14 and 20 September 1994. The cargo consisted of military electronic equipment which „had no connection with weapons systems”, according to the report of Johan Hirschfeldt, and which was meant for the Swedish Defence Forces. The investigation revealed no information showing that the Swedish Armed Forces had shipped similar equipment on the ferry Estonia.

Conclusion
To the knowledge of the Committee the export of the military equipment on board the ferry Estonia from the territory of the Republic of Estonia to the Kingdom of Sweden took place on 14 and 20 September 1994. The export was carried out by the Swedish Military Intelligence (MUST). The Committee ascertained that Estonian state agencies and officials were not aware of the export of military equipment on board the ferry Estonia to the Kingdom of Sweden which took place on 14 and 20 September 1994. According to the data available to the Committee Estonian state agencies first received confirmation about the above-mentioned export in January 2005 when the Information Board was so informed by representatives of Swedish special services.

During the visit of the Committee of Investigation to Sweden on 1-2 June 2006 Major General Erik Rosander, the then Head of the Swedish Military Intelligence MUST, confirmed to the delegation that the information about the afore-mentioned military equipment was provided to Swedish special services by „a representative of the Estonian side” whereas logistic and transportation support related to the shipment of the cargo to Sweden was taken care of by the Swedish side. Allegedly, Sweden forwarded the Estonian representative a memorandum describing the contents of the cargo. The Committee has not identified the addressee of the memorandum. The Committee of Investigation has not been able to confirm that any of the currently or previously employed officials or other persons in the Republic of Estonia knew or abetted the export of military equipment or confirmed the information provided by Major General Rosander. These export activities in 1994 did not take place in the framework of a secret intelligence operation carried out in cooperation between the Estonian and Swedish authorities. The Committee finds that where these military equipment export activities are Immediately prior to the publication of the report of Johan Hirschfeldt on 21 January 2005. concerned, the Kingdom of Sweden carried out its intelligence operations on the territory of the Republic of Estonia unbeknownst to the latter.
The Committee ascertained that the representatives of the Kingdom of Sweden did not follow the customs procedures when exporting military equipment from the territory of the Republic of Estonia in September 1994.
The Committee is not able to estimate whether the export of military equipment from the territory of the Republic of Estonia to the Kingdom of Sweden in 1994 on the ferry Estonia was in conflict or in conformity with the interests of the Republic of Estonia.

 

[Vixen]

The view that the JAIC presented to the public was that nations are indemnified against deliberately sinking civilian ships and murdering hundreds of people?

Where in the JAIC is that? (again, you're responding to posts but not even making a basic attempt to actually answer them)

JAIC clearly states that NOBODY IS RESPONSIBLE.

Yet it did not even investigate half the things the public and the relatives of the deceased wanted them to investigate. How do you think the relatives of 556 Swedes and 226 Estonians (iirc) felt, together with the other fifteen nationalities, when it took the Swedish democratic government another ten years to even admit it had used the same passenger ferry for military/space espionage smuggling?

Or do you think, 'One must not ask questions'?

 

[Mojo]

Anyway, why would the Russians want the ship to be at exactly its halfway point in its journey in order to sink it?

Or at its "last point in international waters" before sinking it?

What advantage is there to either of sinking it at either of those

I also don't understand sinking it at midnight to "send a message". What message does that send?

Also, how did the Russians contrive to have the Estonia be at its halfway point in its journey and its last point in international waters happen at midnight Swedish time?

Anyone setting up a conspiracy has to leave obvious clues so that people can unravel the conspiracy. It’s part of international law, or maybe a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

Think of it as being like the supervillain always taking the time to explain his plan to Bond before killing him.

 

[Vixen]

Why didn't you say that the first time you were asked instead of quoting something which said precisely nothing about the Estonia being at its halfway point in its journey?

Ok, so the Estonia was roughly halfway between Stockholm and Tallinn. Why would the Russians want to sink it at the halfway point? What advantage is there to be gained from the sinking happening halfway between the two cities it was travelling between?

It indicates precision. Of the military kind.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Whilst the ship is at its most vulnerable. Most people in bed. One crew member who claimed to be doing the watch of the decks was seen sitting in the Admiral Bar by a witness.

What is the 'watch of the decks'?

Which decks?

Was he on or off duty at the time?

If he was supposed to be on duty isn't that more evidence for the poor quality of the crew and command of the ship?

5 o'clock in the morning is the time I would choose to attack a ship.

I wouldn't do it when a watch is changing as that is the time that twice as many crew are up and about.

 

[LondonJohn]

It says Russian hardware was being smuggled out of Estonia to Sweden, and The Estonia was one of the ships used.

Exactly. There was nothing special about the Estonia in this respect. In fact, if one was in the business of smuggling arms out of the former Soviet Union to an unaligned neighbour, this was one of the few logical and feasible ways to do it.

The real question goes back to the good old "cui bono?" angle. First off, we can state with certainty (and it's been stated and explained in this thread more than once already) that neither the Swedish nor Estonian States would have had any reason whatsoever to want/need aging & inferior USSR-era military equipment/ordnance for their own ends or purposes (nor for the purposes of any of its western allies).

Therefore, the only feasible thing that was going on here was that the Russian gear was being smuggled out of Estonia for the purposes of being sold (or, less plausibly, given away for ideological reasons) to terrorist organisations.

And that being the case, one must then try to figure out who the actors and beneficiaries in this trade were most likely to have been. For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the end-recipients of the gear were the IRA. In that case, what possible motivation could either the Estonian or Swedish States have for supplying/brokering illicit arms to this sort of paramilitary terrorist organisation? (The correct answer is "none"). What's far more likely - to the point of being a near-certainty - is that what was going on here was that rogue actors who had access to this Soviet-era gear were transporting said gear to (eg) the IRA in return for (metaphorical or literal) briefcases full of paper money.

And if that is the case, then the last matter to address is that of who these rogue operatives were most likely to have been. Now, even though Estonia seceded from Russia in 1991, large numbers of Russian troops and materiel remained in Estonia right up until - not-coincidentally - 1994 (though of course the Russians repatriated their Estonia-based nuclear arms very quickly after Estonian independence)

It's therefore perhaps not altogether difficult to theorise that the people in Estonia between 1991-1994 with a) the most (& the easiest) access to the Soviet military hardware that was still located within Estonia, b) the most need for western-denominated hard currency, and c) the fewest scruples about passing arms to terrorist organisations, were...... the Russian soldiers who'd remained in Estonia, and who were in charge of these very arms.

What's more, I suggest that any Russian intelligence officer worthy of the name (and the Russians of this era were rather good at this sort of state intelligence....) must surely have come to the same conclusion: ie that it was Russian troops remaining within Estonia who were clearly the most likely culprit(s) for smuggling out arms and selling them on to terrorist groups. Which - obviously - would render ridiculous the very idea of the Russian State ramming/torpedoing/blowing up/otherwise sabotaging a vessel such as the Estonia.

On top of plenty else, why would Russia have risked a major diplomatic/geopolitical incident (with all the ramifications that this implies), when all it would have had to do - assuming it even wanted to expose and shut down this illegal trade in any case - would have been to 1) identify which troop(s) was/were behind the trades, then 2) quietly "repatriate" the guilty party/parties to St Petersburg/Moscow (then send them a good way further east to a Siberian gulag....)?

The report also says that the commission doing the investigation questions if the Estonia had actually passed all of her inspections, and was in fact seaworthy on the night of the sinking.

It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if in the years between 1991 and 1994 the relevant regulatory/standards body in Estonia which was responsible for assessing the seaworthiness of Estonian-flagged vessels..... had been either lax, incompetent or corrupt. And that this had resulted in the Estonia being improperly declared seaworthy.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Re time of sinking. The wreck is at 21°42'E. The East European Time Zone starts at coordinate 22°30'E.


(According to the JAIC it veered in a circle westwards and then turned back eastwards on itself.)

If my bows fell off I would turn away from the waves.
If a ship is not under command it will turn broadside on to the waves.
If power is lost it will turn broadside to the waves and drift downwind.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It indicates precision. Of the military kind.

How does it do that?

If the ship had sailed on time or made a different speed because of conditions or the wind and waves had been with it instead of against it then it would have been at a different position at midnight.

Would they then have sunk it at midnight or at a different time when it was half way?

 

[LondonJohn]

How does it do that?

If the ship had sailed on time or made a different speed because of conditions or the wind and waves had been with it instead of against it then it would have been at a different position at midnight.

Would they then have sunk it at midnight or at a different time when it was half way?

I dunno. Maybe Vixen's claims about the significance of the time was based upon it being the "Witching Hour" (perhaps coupled with the idea of Russia wanting to make a grandiloquent, grandstanding statement: "We can retaliate with impunity at a time of our own request - so don't mess with us or any of our stuff, or else the same thing will happen to you").

Either way (and none), it still makes no sense for the Russians to have taken down the ferry.

 

[Vixen]

What is the 'watch of the decks'?

Which decks?

Was he on or off duty at the time?

If he was supposed to be on duty isn't that more evidence for the poor quality of the crew and command of the ship?

5 o'clock in the morning is the time I would choose to attack a ship.

I wouldn't do it when a watch is changing as that is the time that twice as many crew are up and about.

You can read the JAIC summary of this 'able seaman' here. He describes in detail his round. Then have a look at one of his witness statements, reproduced here. https://www.estoniaferrydisaster.net/pdf/Enclosure16.pdf

You can see why the interrogators didn't believe a word he said. He claimed they tried to pressure him into changing the time. More likely they caught him out lying more than once.

Yes, it is the JAIC's star witness, Silver Linde. I challenge you to read through this latest witness statement 2002, without scepticism curling your lip. I think he was actually interviewed in a Helsinki prison, where he was serving time for drug-smuggling. The prosecutor in 1996 wanted eleven years, which shows how serious and extensive his criminal activities must have been.