Unfortunately, there'll be no meaningful repercussions until a large swathe of Moscow and the Oligarchs suffer such inconveniences...

They never will suffer from inconveniences due to this special military operation (as intended: not a war; and no mass mobilization of conscripts from Moscow and St. Petersburg). I fear most of them still have a Plan B, a bought EU citizenship (e.g. from Cyprus) or Israeli one (many rich Russians even counterfeited (corruption) Jewish heritage until Israel became aware of this scam). Real estate in Western Europe...

But it's the large industrial cities far from Moscow and St. Petersburg who will suffer the most. As opposed to the rural people in small towns and villages who still know how to survive a crumbling government which reduces or cuts supplies, payments, pensions... They never gave up their small gardens to grow essentials, potatoes, vegetables, chickens... (to not rely on their insufficient payments or pensions for food) nor have they abolished the primitive food pantries inherited from their ancestors, built underground between houses for cooling.

The Russian human will survive every colapsing government, asteroid impact or nuclear war. But the Homo Sovieticus (urban dependent worker/employee) will die without a functioning central government. It's them who will 'complain' first.

When unrest starts in distant cities across the country, e.g. over food prices or a collapsing infrastructure, it will indicate the end of Putins's reign. The Rosgvardia (Putin's loyal Praetorian Guard) eventually can suppress unrest in one or two cities, but never in many at the same time in this vast country. In the Internet age, communication links within the country can no longer be effectively cut off in case of organized uproar. Interesting times ahead.

This show just how bad Russia's oil fleet really is and why other countries are worried about them.

Russian tanker splits in half and sinks during heavy storm as oil spills into the Black Sea.

A Russian tanker carrying thousands of tonnes of oil products split in half and one person died during a heavy storm in the Kerch Strait in the Black Sea.

Russian investigators said on Sunday that two criminal cases have been opened into possible safety violations after the 136-metre Volgoneft 212 tanker, which had 15 people on board at the time of the storm, was destroyed and the vessel's bow sank.

The boat was built in 1969 and was significantly damaged before running aground, according to Russian officials.

"There was a spill of petroleum products," Russia's water transport agency, Rosmorrechflot, said.

A second Russian-flagged ship, the 132-metre Volgoneft 239, was left drifting after sustaining damage in the weather, Russia's emergency ministry said. That tanker has a crew of 14 people and was built in 1973.

Both vessels have a loading capacity of about 4,200 tonnes-worth of oil products and issued distress signals during the storm.

Official statements did not provide details on the extent of the spill into the Kerch Straight, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov alongside the Crimean Peninsula, or why one of the tankers sustained such serious damage.

Dramatic videos posted online showed the stern of the Volgoneft-212 ship broken off and floating vertically in the water. Interfax reported that some of the crew members were in the water.......

Ukrainian cloud seeding? LOL.

Btw. the ship names are "Volgoneft 239" and "Volgoneft 211" ("Volgo" means Volga; "neft'" is oil resp. petroleum). With a lenght of 3,530 kilometers "Volga" is the longest and most water-abundant European river, which rises in northwestern Russia and flows into the Caspian Sea. It is connected to the Black Sea via inland waterways. Imagine Volga as a smaller Russian version of the Mississippi. Its discharge flow is ~40% of the Mississippi's.

One of the versions of the tanker crash in Kerch is a crew error in difficult weather conditions (Source: Interfax - Russian news agency; in Russian only)

"These tankers were built from 1950 to the early 1980s. In particular these two are from the last series built in 1980 and 1984. Originally, they were designed as river tankers with the possibility of limited access to coastal sea zones in calm weather conditions. A storm could mean excessive stress and the ships' hulls could not withstand it." [...]

PooTin calls for volunteers to clean up his mess.

Oil spill spreads to Russia's Black Sea coastline after storm damages two tankers.

Russian authorities have declared a state of emergency and are urging volunteers to join a massive clean-up effort after two stricken tankers spilled oil into the Black Sea, contaminating a 50-kilometre stretch of Russia's coastline.

The two vessels were damaged by a storm on Sunday, with one splitting in half and sinking near the Crimean peninsula after issuing a distress signal.

Videos posted on social media since then show sea birds floundering in oil, flapping their wings and struggling to fly, with black pools of oil visible on long stretches of beach.......

The 650MW subsea HVDC cable Estlink2 was damaged on Dec 25, supposedly by an oil tanker of Russia’s shadow fleet that dragged its anchor in the shallow Gulf of Finland between Finland and Estonia (Eastern Baltic Sea). The Finnish Coast Guard boarded the ship and ordered it into Finnish territorial waters for a thorough investigation.

Estonia navy to protect undersea power link after main cable damaged

Estonia’s Navy now actively guards the remaining 350 megawatts Estlink1 HVDC cable.

The Baltic countries officially anounced this year to finally withdraw from the BRELL agreement, thus leave the Russian controlled IPS/UPS synchronous grid on Feb 8 2025 in order to connect to the continental European ENTSOE grid.

The two HVDC links to Finland are urgently required to become independent from Russia.

... thus leave the Russian controlled IPS/UPS synchronous grid on Feb 8 2025...

... Who's betting that Putin throws in some further disruption before that date?...


All in our deadly political world...
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

About as near as Putin/Russia will ever get to admitting they shot down an airliner and murdered about 40 people:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqx8l1533j5o

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

What a stupidity that Russian air traffic control forced the damaged plane across the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan. If the wreckage were now in Russia, they could blame the pilots, as the Soviets usually did, independent of true crash reasons. …

„Because unfortunately the FDR and CVR were totally destroyed by the impact. Anti-aircraft missile? Where? No, we didn't fire any missile!“ …

Just like with Malaysian Boeing 777 (MH17), shot down over Eastern Ukraine.

Fact check:
The Flight Data Recorder has been recovered, and is being analysed. Normally this would be done by the aircraft manufacturer's agent and the local (to the crash site) air accident investigation authority, but I'm not sure if that will be the case.
It is worth noting that the FDR is normally mounted in the tail section of a civil airliner rather than near the front - the rear of the aircraft is more likely to survive a crash than the front. FDR are designed to be incredibly tough, being resistant to fire, impact and "ballistic" damage.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder is frequently mounted under the cockpit, or in the mid-section, thus may well have been destroyed in the post-crash fire.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

What a stupidity that Russian air traffic control forced the damaged plane across the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan.

Please, please, please let it crash and sink in the water so the dog Pootin won't have to answer for it.

Well, that was the plan, but it didn't quite work out.
I can't help but think, who was the "important" person on that flight that Putin didn't want alive (and I hope they were one of those that staggered out of the back of the debris).

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I can't help but think, who was the "important" person on that flight that Putin didn't want alive [...]

You assume they knew it was a civilian airliner as well as its flight number? I don't think so.

It looks like they were shooting on all targets close to Grozny, because of a reported drones threat. Like the shootdown of this Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 (PS752/AUI752) on Jan 8 2020 by Mullahs in Tehran, who awaited a retailliation strike by the US back then.

It's the same incompetence as with Malaysian MH17. Back then they thought to have downed a Ukrainian military Antonov AN-26 which they already proudly claimed on social media.

I can't help but think, who was the "important" person on that flight that Putin didn't want alive [...]

You assume they knew it was a civilian airliner as well as its flight number? I don't think so.

Excluding flight number and manifest**, are you telling me that the air defense system is not able to tell the difference between a civilian transponder and a military one, or the absence of any transponder? Are you telling me that the air defense system isn't looking for satellite transmission links (two way)? Are you telling me that the commanders are so incompetent to not have established two way contact with air traffic control when they activated their post in friendly territory?

They knew it was civilian or they didn't care one way or the other, or it was targeted.

Pootin doesn't want competence, he wants body counts like Robert McNamara.

**Flight number and manifest would have been transmitted to their Customs service before the aircraft took off.

Are you telling me that the commanders are so incompetent to not have established two way contact with air traffic control when they activated their post in friendly territory?

'Incompetent' doesn't quite captures it... 'Indifferent' does. Exactly that!

[...] or they didn't care one way or the other [...]

!!!

Pootin doesn't want competence, he wants body counts like Robert McNamara.

No, they are not bloodthirsty, just obedient and disciplined. Don't call the Tsar, if you haven't been summoned before him! Just follow your orders and don't question them!

Pootin doesn't want competence, he wants body counts like Robert McNamara.

No, they are not bloodthirsty, just obedient and disciplined. Don't call the Tsar, if you haven't been summoned before him! Just follow your orders and don't question them!

Ah, body count was a metric used to establish who was "winning" Of course it had no connection to actual victory, but it was easy to count. Pootin has fallen into a trap. Like Nixon, he will have to declare victory, turn tail and run.

Add to the list - transponder squack code and ADS-B return data.
The transponder squack code is assigned by air traffic control, and should be unique to a single aircraft at a given time. This is returned to any radar looking at the aircraft. In theory (and most of the time) the radar knows where the echo is.
Most ADS-B systems use GPS and the other similar systems to get its location. But at times of interference with the GPS signals this location may well be inaccurate.
So, you have radar saying a plane is here, but ADS-B saying it's over there and you are an air defence controller faced with a plane reporting two locations and are on high alert for incoming drones/missiles/bad-boys......


And who is causing the GPS interference? - that far into Russian territory there is only one suspect.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

From what I can find Russia never required ADS-B 1090es like EU/USA. Might be because it would have to be Glonass** not GPS based. Wouldn't surprise me if their ATC system doesn't have the ability to use it.

Squak codes, there are only 4096 codes (4 octal digits), several are reserved as special. There are far more than 4096 planes in the air. Best you can do is not have two with the same (non special) code in the same control area.

**Glonass is less accurate and had deployment delays.

Air defense targeting radar is going to be primary target only as a real enemy isn't going to be dumb enough to transmit. Surveillance radar would check transponders as well as primary returns.

The reality is they didn't have a phone line between the missile launch and ATC. If they did ATC would have given the position of the plane and the missile operator would have designated it a friendly. Of course with Soviet distrust of their own, their air defense systems may not have the ability to designate a target as friendly as they expect to have to fire on their own.

Update on the latest anchor dragging incident.

Finnish police find anchor drag marks on Baltic seabed after suspicious cable damage.

Anchor drag marks have been found on the seabed by Finnish police in an ongoing investigation into damaged power cables in the Baltic Sea.

Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said the anchor marks were likely from a Russia-linked vessel that had already been seized on suspicion of breaking the undersea cables.

NBI's chief investigator Sami Paila said the anchor drag trail extended for "dozens of kilometres … if not almost 100 kilometres".

The owner of the oil tanker is seeking the release of the ship, a lawyer representing the company said.

Finnish police and coastguard officials boarded the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S and brought it to a location near a Finnish port where crew members were being questioned.

Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Investigators said they believed the Eagle S broke the Estlink 2 undersea power cable linking Finland and Estonia.

It severed or damaged four fibre optic lines by dragging its anchor across the seabed for dozens of kilometres, police said.

The offence to rupture the cables is "aggravated interference of communications," Finland police said in a statement.

Police added that data of the vessel's passage was seized and "is being analysed".

Finland's president last week said he believed further damage would have occurred on the seabed had the ship not been stopped.

Finland's customs service has said it believes the Eagle S is part of a shadow fleet of aging tankers being used to evade sanctions on the sale of Russian oil.

It has formally impounded its cargo, although it is still on board the ship.........