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

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Vixen said:
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.
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What happened to respecting the survivors and believing their testimony?
 
LondonJohn said:
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....)?






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.
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What everybody seems to be overlooking is one other important reason the CIA and the west might want to smuggle out Russian/FSU state secrets: it is to see what the Russians are up to, re defence, space programmes, its strategy towards Iran and Palestine, for example. It is not called espionage for nothing.


When I was a kid I had a bedroom on the ground floor and I kept it locked because I knew my nosey sister loved to rummage around when I wasn't there. One day, I walked in, just in time to see her climbing in through the sash window via the garden. Follows much sisterly screaming and chasing. :D

Nobody likes being snooped on.
 
Vixen said:
What everybody seems to be overlooking is one other important reason the CIA and the west might want to smuggle out Russian/FSU state secrets: it is to see what the Russians are up to, re defence, space programmes, its strategy towards Iran and Palestine, for example. It is not called espionage for nothing.


When I was a kid I had a bedroom on the ground floor and I kept it locked because I knew my nosey sister loved to rummage around when I wasn't there. One day, I walked in, just in time to see her climbing in through the sash window via the garden. Follows much sisterly screaming and chasing. :D

Nobody likes being snooped on.
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Hard to tell the difference between your sister and the CIA, isn’t it.
 
LondonJohn said:
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.
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If that was the message the Russians wanted to send wouldn't' they have to tell someone they did it though?
 
Vixen said:
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.
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How does that answer my question?
 
Vixen said:
They issued two formal warnings according to the NEW STATESMAN.
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They issued a formal warning that they were going to sink a ferry at midnight in the Baltic?

Can we see these 'formal warnings'?
 
Vixen said:
I had to do 'strategy' to get chartered.
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What does that even mean? Again, how much of this have you actually studied, properly?

Vixen said:
Military History.
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What do you mean by this though? How have you "studied" military history? What eras? Have you read Clausewitz? Sun-Tzu? What wars have you studied? Any specific battles you focused on?
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
They issued a formal warning that they were going to sink a ferry at midnight in the Baltic?

Can we see these 'formal warnings'?
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From the said NEW STATESMAN:

The evidence now points to Russian responsibility for the explosion. The Russian media have been investigating the story for years. One television report claimed that the Russian-Estonian mafia had placed a limpet mine on the hull – using a miniature submarine – to warn the shipping company that it should pay protection money. Other Russian journalists who tried to get to the bottom of the story, and who raised questions about the involvement of the Russian government, were warned by the authorities to back off. Russia, like Britain, has signed the agreement that prevents divers from exploring the wreck.

The most likely explanation is that British intelligence was behind the smuggling operation, working with the Swedes, and that a mine was placed by people acting for the Russian government in an attempt to stop them. The Russian mine was designed to prevent the Estonia from completing its journey, to damage it and force it back to port. The aim was to stop the specific shipment or the smuggling operation in general – or possibly just to issue a warning to western intelligence agencies. But the operation went wrong and the mine caused more damage than was intended, possibly because of the poor state of repair of the locks on the bow door. The ship sank and 852 people died.
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https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2005/05/death-in-the-baltic-the-mi6-connection

The 'two warnings':

“My source at MI6 told me about these smuggling operations six years before the Swedes admitted it. MS Estonia was used to move electronics that were tied to the ballistic missiles program from Russia to the west. The collapse of the Soviet Union caused a so-called open season during which former Soviet army secrets flowed to the west. The Brits, Swedes and Estonians got a piece of the action,” Davis said.

He believes it is possible that the Russians were told about the weapons smuggling by Herman Simm who was caught as a traitor a full decade later.

Two warnings

“The Russians could not just look on as their secrets flowed westward and delivered two warnings for these activities to be ceased. They sent a warning to the Estonian government through diplomatic channels in 1993 but it was ignored,” Davis said.

The journalist’s information suggests that the Russians delivered a new warning in 1994, a month before the sinking of MS Estonia, directly to the MI6 this time. “The Russians said don’t do it or else, without specifying what that meant. The warning was ignored once more. If you are using a passenger ferry with over 900 people on board, you can think of them as a guarantee or a human shield for that shipment,” Davis said.
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Postimees
 
Vixen said:
It indicates precision. Of the military kind.
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How does sinking a ship at the halfway point of its journey indicate precision? Of the military kind?

Is this a thing militaries are known to do?

Is there an advantage to sinking a ship when it's halfway between its source and destination ports?

Is this a thing you made up or do you have sources, cites and references for how this is a thing that indicates military precision?
 
Vixen said:
They issued two formal warnings according to the NEW STATESMAN.
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Are you pathologically incapable of answering questions?

You were asked how sinking a ship at midnight sends a message and your answer is about formal warnings given to the New Statesman?

How does sinking a ship at midnight send a message?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
So no 'formal warnings' from the Russian government that it would sink a ferry at midnight in the Baltic?
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It is hardly going to own up to it.

But the message was clear. Unlike the two Al-Quaeda terrorists who thought they could blow up the USS Cole simply by ramming a small ship into it with 400lbs - 700lbs of explosives - the people behind the Estonia knew exactly how to ensure it would go no further.

The timing, the location, the signal jamming of international distress Channel 16, the sheer speed of sinking: a coincidence?
 
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