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Cont: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine part 9

The countries in that area have tended to ignore the shadow fleet. No more. Russia's shadow fleet is going to find out a lot harder to navigate and operate now.
Not being an expert on international maritime trade law, I don't know how, in specific, actionable terms, Russia's shadow fleet may face impediments to its sailings?
What, specifically, is who going to do about it now?
You see, you cannot just hold up cargo ships in international waters, and I have a feeling that there exists treaties governing the safe and unimpeded passage of the straights between Denmark, Sweden, Germany and what have you, similar to how the Montreux Convention guarantees "complete freedom" of passage for all civilian vessels in times of peace to and from the Black Sea via Bosporus and Dardanelles. Is there a war in the Baltic Sea that would justify blocking the shadow fleet?
 
Not being an expert on international maritime trade law, I don't know how, in specific, actionable terms, Russia's shadow fleet may face impediments to its sailings?
What, specifically, is who going to do about it now?
You see, you cannot just hold up cargo ships in international waters, and I have a feeling that there exists treaties governing the safe and unimpeded passage of the straights between Denmark, Sweden, Germany and what have you, similar to how the Montreux Convention guarantees "complete freedom" of passage for all civilian vessels in times of peace to and from the Black Sea via Bosporus and Dardanelles. Is there a war in the Baltic Sea that would justify blocking the shadow fleet?
Small European states, such as Denmark, face daily the threat of an environmental Armageddon, as dozens of decrepit, single-hulled, barely insured Russian oil tankers wend their way through the narrowest of straits to the open seas. Often they don’t even have local pilots to help them navigate the treacherous waters, let alone proper paperwork, further raising the consequences of a disastrous oil spill.


What makes this traffic especially galling is that it is done illegally, in circumvention of near-universal sanctions, and in service of a criminal state whose oil exports serve to underwrite the extermination of a neighboring country. The United States and, most recently, the United Kingdom have sanctioned a handful of those tankers, but the trade continues. On paper, coastal states could—and might yet—take action to stop that trade. In practice, Russia is a very big country that brandishes nuclear threats with abandon.


“The question is, what risk does that traffic pose? As a person living just down the hill from the strait, that of course poses an environmental risk if we have a problem,” said Kristina Siig, a Danish resident of the straits, and, as it happens, an expert on maritime law.

 
Just use the coastguard to escort them through,
What coast guard? Denmark has been busy equipping its army to fight in foreign countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, but neglected protection of its home waters because it was generally thought that there was no threat. A ship sent to Yemen was found to have defective defences, and old ships patrolling the Arctic have been partly without functioning weapons, and no equipment to detect submarines.
It is only recently that the gravity of the situation has dawned upon Danish politicians, and it will take years to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, a lot of the defence budget is earmarked to help Ukraine …
 
Your reply to my question essentially re-states that there are problems, but I asked what the solution would look like. Your entire reply boils down to this sentence in the quote:
"On paper, coastal states could—and might yet—take action to stop that trade."

Well, WHAT action, specifically? By what law would what action by whom be covered?
 
Just use the coastguard to escort them through,
Well, a_unique_person had claimed: "Russia's shadow fleet is going to find out a lot harder to navigate and operate now."

And I asked how, and under what legel framework, is who going to enact what specific measures to indeed make it "a lot harder to navigate and operate" the Baltic for the shipwrecks of the shadow fleet.

Just escorting them doesn't make anything particularly hard to navigate and operate now, or does it? How? I picture that all this changes is that shadow fleeters and coast guarders will exchange friendly handwaving - or the coast guard vessel just gets ignored.

Then what?
 
Well, a_unique_person had claimed: "Russia's shadow fleet is going to find out a lot harder to navigate and operate now."

And I asked how, and under what legel framework, is who going to enact what specific measures to indeed make it "a lot harder to navigate and operate" the Baltic for the shipwrecks of the shadow fleet.

Just escorting them doesn't make anything particularly hard to navigate and operate now, or does it? How? I picture that all this changes is that shadow fleeters and coast guarders will exchange friendly handwaving - or the coast guard vessel just gets ignored.

Then what?


If they are just transiting then nothing.

If they interfere with any undersea cables etc then you can board them as has already happened.

What do you have in mind?
 
... Meanwhile, a lot of the defence budget is earmarked to help Ukraine …
Under the theory that a decisive victory by Ukraine against Russia - or Russia bleeding out over years - prevents the spread of Russian aggression for several years at least, that could still be short-term money well spent. As long as the majority of military aid to UA is in the form of middle-aged hardware, that aid makes the necessary modernization of the home-side military cheaper by eliminating some of the cost of waste disposal.

Meanwhile, what's lacking is not just well-equipped coast guard ships. More importantly, a strategy to contain and police malfeasance by (what's essentially false flag) foreign vessels in our backyard seems to be elusive. The old fear of escalation, I suspect.
 
What coast guard? Denmark has been busy equipping its army to fight in foreign countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, but neglected protection of its home waters because it was generally thought that there was no threat. A ship sent to Yemen was found to have defective defences, and old ships patrolling the Arctic have been partly without functioning weapons, and no equipment to detect submarines.
It is only recently that the gravity of the situation has dawned upon Danish politicians, and it will take years to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, a lot of the defence budget is earmarked to help Ukraine …
How can Denmark fund all that and repel a US invasion of Greenland too?
 
If they are just transiting then nothing.

If they interfere with any undersea cables etc then you can board them as has already happened.

What do you have in mind?
Nothing. I have no idea what NATO neighbors can, may and should do.
I was under the impression that a_unique_person wanted to wholesale reign in the shadow fleet. The primary purpose of which is not to rip up utility infrastructure, but to circumvent sanctions.

I assume that there is at any time quite a lot of ships running up and down the Baltic, with many calling St. Petersburg eventually.
Here is a page that tracks ships in and out of the Port of Saint Petersburg: https://www.vesselfinder.com/ports/RULED001
So far today, about a dozen cargo ships have arrived, and a similar number has departed. So for any day's worth of sailing, there are two dozen ships potentially loading sanctioned cargo travelling the Baltic Sea. Several more, adding the non-cargo ships, could potentially be on an evil mission to cut yet another line of communication or energy.

It's not impossible, I presume, but possibly not plausible to escort them all.

Again, I know very little about maritime traffic and law, coast guarding, etc.
I am just questioning whether there was much thought behind statements such as yours or a_unique_person's.
It's easy and cheap to call for more policing.

Ya know, like, "why haven't THEY thought of it yet"?
 
Nine countries have Baltic coasts, and only one of them is Russia. I kinda think that an eight-nation league could quickly sign a Convention to protect their waters and shores from sloppy shipping practices.

For starters, they could require all vessels clearing St. Pete's Burg to travel in convoy and submit to Convention orders until released. (Payment of a small supervisory fee would expedite release and help Convention members meet the cost of operations. How small? Oh, quite modest! Based on a ship's laded tonnage, perhaps? Subject to boarding and inspection, of course.)

Captains who attempt to evade or -- heaven forbid! -- resist orders from a Convention warship will be declared pirates and dealt with according to maritime tradition.
 
Not being an expert on international maritime trade law, I don't know how, in specific, actionable terms, Russia's shadow fleet may face impediments to its sailings?
What, specifically, is who going to do about it now?
You see, you cannot just hold up cargo ships in international waters, and I have a feeling that there exists treaties governing the safe and unimpeded passage of the straights between Denmark, Sweden, Germany and what have you, similar to how the Montreux Convention guarantees "complete freedom" of passage for all civilian vessels in times of peace to and from the Black Sea via Bosporus and Dardanelles. Is there a war in the Baltic Sea that would justify blocking the shadow fleet?
Why does there need to be a war? Many nations are sanctioning the Russian economy. Certainly they have the right to enforce that sanction, to the extent they are able to do so.

Your objection only makes sense if you think nations aren't allowed to blockade sanctioned commerce.
 
Why does there need to be a war? Many nations are sanctioning the Russian economy. Certainly they have the right to enforce that sanction, to the extent they are able to do so.
Enforcing a sanction with force is a military act bound to be a cause of war. You’ll effectively start a war if you prevent ships from leaving Russia. So far Russia’s hybrid war against Europe is done under cover of “plausible deniability”, no matter how implausible that may sound. No treaties are broken officially, but if we blocked the Belts to Russian vessels, treaties would be broken.
Your objection only makes sense if you think nations aren't allowed to blockade sanctioned commerce.
You can sanction your own businesses from trading with Russia, but you can’t force Russian businesses not to trade with you.
 
Why does there need to be a war? Many nations are sanctioning the Russian economy. Certainly they have the right to enforce that sanction, to the extent they are able to do so.

Your objection only makes sense if you think nations aren't allowed to blockade sanctioned commerce.
No. Just does not follow.
Just because you decide on sanctions does not mean you can do everything and anything to enforce that otherwise would be illegal or impractical.
 
No. Just does not follow.
Just because you decide on sanctions does not mean you can do everything and anything to enforce that otherwise would be illegal or impractical.
Like I said, they have a right to enforce the sanctions however they can. I didn't say they had to go that far. If they think detaining vessels is impractical for whatever reason, they don't have to do it. But if they have the right to do it if they want.

Also, illegal according to whom? If the parties agree they're not going sanction each other, for blockading Russian commerce, or seizing Russian ships wherever they might be found, what's illegal?

Especially as I'm sure the various treaties and conventions provide for the seizure of foreign vessels in various circumstances.
 
Looked up the exchange rate for the Ruble about 6 hrs. ago @109,5 RUB/USD. At this moment it's 113,5 RUB/USD. I think it's going to get much, much worse (if you're ruzzian) in the near future.
 
Well the Ruble dropped below a penny (US) way back in the summer so I suspect we're still watching a downward drift with a fair bit of jitter, rather than a death plunge. Would be nice to be wrong but...
 
Any Russian or Chinese vessel caught in the act of cutting cables or damaging key infrastructure should be seized and taken as a prize of war.
Then auctioned in a prize court and the proceeds splits between repairing the damage it caused and rewarding the crew of the vessel that did the seizing.
 
The captains of those ships aren't military and they're not at war. Treat them as they deserve. Throw them in jail for a long stretch and the appeal of big Russian cash payments for acts of sabotage will look less appealing to others.
 
Prize Rules still exist in UK law.

As usual Drachinifel covered it in one of his Drydock Q&A videos.
 
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That might come in handy if some bit of blatant sabotage happens in British waters. We have plenty of infrastructure crossing the seabed; internet fibres, power interconnects, gas, wind farms...

I might be letting it show, but I just watched an Anders Puck Nielsen video where he predicts this Russian sabotage/provocation will only get worse as things go worse for Russia.
 
Can you blame them? All they likely have to look forward to is a trip back to the front lines.
They look a bit more relaxed and cheerful at the end. Do you suppose her pep talk convinced them they're not going straight to a punishment battalion for the crime of being captured?
 
Other signs of economy problems from ChrisO_Wiki


I work in the Pharma industry (supplying it, not in research or production). Our company initially had a policy to continue to provide consumables and media for vaccine production following humanitarian guidelines. We were not providing any new hardware or spares. We brought out those that wanted to leave from our regional office, unfortunately those that stayed were made redundant. About 10 months ago we wrapped up everything and they are not receiving any support now.
 
Gas prices. And the effect of stopping gas Russian lines to Europe. Sobering report.


Germany really needs to restart it's nuclear plants.
 
Gas prices. And the effect of stopping gas Russian lines to Europe. Sobering report.


Germany really needs to restart it's nuclear plants.
Shutting them down was stupid to begin with.
The problem I have with the whold Green political movement is it often has a "if reality clashes wiht ideology, reality must be disposed of: attitude toward issues.
 
That's fair. While Sky News in the UK is indeed the spawn of the Murdoch empire it's a beacon of balance compared to the comically biased GB News.
 
Meanwhile the meat waves continue and Russia grinds on in the East.

Russia claims that its forces have captured the front-line town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region.

Of course just because Russia claim it, doesn't mean that it's the case but we're now a couple of weeks away from Trump being sworn in. IMO it's likely that US support for Ukraine will cease and that if anything, the US will start to support Russia.
 
Meanwhile the meat waves continue and Russia grinds on in the East.



Of course just because Russia claim it, doesn't mean that it's the case but we're now a couple of weeks away from Trump being sworn in. IMO it's likely that US support for Ukraine will cease and that if anything, the US will start to support Russia.
If I am reading the map correctly, they should have pulled out of Kurakhove weeks ago. I hope those troops in there managed to escape.
 
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