Sweden seizes vessel suspected of ‘sabotage' of Baltic Sea cable
Swedish prosecutors announced Sunday night that they have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected aggravated 'sabotage' and ordered the detention of a vessel in the Baltic Sea suspected of damaging an underwater fibre optic cable connecting Latvia and the Swedish island of Gotland earlier that day.
'Several authorities, including the National Police Operations Department, the Coast Guard and the Armed Forces, are involved in the investigation,' said Mats Ljungqvist, senior prosecutor at the National Security Unit, according to a press release.
The Swedish Coast Guard confirmed to the newspaper Expressen that they were on site near the vessel which the paper identified as the Malta-flagged Vezhen, at anchor near the port of Karlskrona.
'We are directly on site with the seized ship and are taking measures as decided by the prosecutor,' said Mattias Lindholm, spokesperson for the Coast Guard. According to data from Vesselfinder , the vessel departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga several days earlier and was navigating between Gotland and Latvia at the time the damage was suspected of having occurred.
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Asia Times
04-06-2025
- Asia Times
Ukraine shows it knows wars are never won in the past
The iconoclastic American general Douglas MacArthur once said that 'wars are never won in the past.' That sentiment certainly seemed to ring true following Ukraine's recent audacious attack on Russia's strategic bomber fleet, using small, cheap drones housed in wooden pods and transported near Russian airfields in trucks. The synchronized operation targeted Russian Air Force planes as far away as Irkutsk – more than 5,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Early reports suggest around a third of Russia's long-range bombers were either destroyed or badly damaged. Russian military bloggers have put the estimated losses lower, but agree the attack was catastrophic for the Russian Air Force, which has struggled to adapt to Ukrainian tactics. This particular attack was reportedly 18 months in the making. To keep it secret was an extraordinary feat. Notably, Kyiv reportedly did not inform the United States that the attack was in the offing. The Ukrainians judged – perhaps understandably – that sharing intelligence on their plans could have alerted the Kremlin in relatively short order. Ukraine's success once again demonstrates that its armed forces and intelligence services are the modern masters of battlefield innovation and operational security. Western military planners have been carefully studying Ukraine's successes ever since its forces managed to blunt Russia's initial onslaught deep into its territory in early 2022, and then launched a stunning counteroffensive that drove the Russian invaders back towards their original starting positions. There have been other lessons, too, about how the apparently weak can stand up to the strong. These include: attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin's vanity project, the Kerch Bridge, linking the Russian mainland to occupied Crimea (the last assault occurred just days ago) the relentless targeting of Russia's oil and gas infrastructure with drones attacks against targets in Moscow to remind the Russian populace about the war, and its incursion into the Kursk region, which saw Ukrainian forces capture around 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. On each occasion, Western defense analysts have questioned the wisdom of Kyiv's moves. Why invade Russia using your best troops when Moscow's forces continue laying waste to cities in Ukraine? Why hit Russia's energy infrastructure if it doesn't markedly impede the battlefield mobility of Russian forces? And why attack symbolic targets like bridges when it could provoke Putin into dangerous 'escalation'? The answer to this is the key to effective innovation during wartime. Ukraine's defense and security planners have interpreted their missions – and their best possible outcomes – far more accurately than conventional wisdom would have thought. Above all, they have focused on winning the war they are in, rather than those of the past. This means: using technological advancements to force the Russians to change their tactics shaping the information environment to promote their narratives and keep vital Western aid flowing, and deploying surprise attacks not just as ways to boost public morale, but also to impose disproportionate costs on the Russian state. In doing so, Ukraine has had an eye for strategic effects. As the smaller nation reliant on international support, this has been the only logical choice. Putin has been prepared to commit a virtually inexhaustible supply of expendable cannon fodder to continue his country's war ad infinitum. Russia has typically won its wars this way – by attrition – albeit at a tremendous human and material cost. That said, Ukraine's most recent surprise attack does not change the overall contours of the war. The only person with the ability to end it is Putin himself. That's why Ukraine is putting as much pressure as possible on his regime, as well as domestic and international perceptions of it. It is key to Ukraine's theory of victory. This is also why the latest drone attack is so significant. Russia needs its long-range bomber fleet, not just to fire conventional cruise missiles at Ukrainian civilian and infrastructure targets, but as aerial delivery systems for its strategic nuclear arsenal. The destruction of even a small portion of Russia's deterrence capability has the potential to affect its nuclear strategy. It has increasingly relied on this strategy to threaten the West. A second impact of the attack is psychological. The drone attacks are more likely to enrage Putin than bring him to the bargaining table. However, they reinforce to the Russian military that there are few places – even on its own soil – that its air force can act with operational impunity. The surprise attacks also provide a shot in the arm domestically, reminding Ukrainians they remain very much in the fight. Finally, the drone attacks send a signal to Western leaders. US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, for instance, have gone to great lengths to tell the world that Ukraine is weak and has 'no cards'. This action shows Kyiv does indeed have some powerful cards to play. That may, of course, backfire: after all, Trump is acutely sensitive to being made to look a fool. He may look unkindly at resuming military aid to Ukraine after being shown up for saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to capitulate without US support. But Trump's own hubris has already done that for him. His regular claims that a peace deal is just weeks away have gone beyond wishful thinking and are now monotonous. Unsurprisingly, Trump's reluctance to put anything approaching serious pressure on Putin has merely incentivised the Russian leader to string the process along. Indeed, Putin's insistence on a maximalist victory, requiring Ukrainian demobilisation and disarmament without any security guarantees for Kyiv, is not diplomacy at all. It is merely the reiteration of the same unworkable demands he has made since even before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. However, Ukraine's ability to smuggle drones undetected onto an opponent's territory, and then unleash them all together, will pose headaches for Ukraine's friends, as well as its enemies. That's because it makes domestic intelligence and policing part of any effective defence posture. It is a contingency that democracies will have to plan for, just as much as authoritarian regimes, who are also learning from Ukraine's lessons. In other words, while the attack has shown up Russia's domestic security services for failing to uncover the plan, Western security elites, as well as authoritarian ones, will now be wondering whether their own security apparatuses would be up to the job. The drone strikes will also likely lead to questions about how useful it is to invest in high-end and extraordinarily expensive weapons systems when they can be vulnerable. The Security Service of Ukraine estimates the damage cost Russia US$7 billion. Ukraine's drones, by comparison, cost a couple of thousand dollars each. At the very least, coming up with a suitable response to those challenges will require significant thought and effort. But as Ukraine has repeatedly shown us, you can't win wars in the past. Matthew Sussex is associate professor (Adj), Griffith Asia Institute; and fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Asia Times
04-06-2025
- Asia Times
Will Ukraine or Russia win the war?
After Ukraine's attack on Russian air bases, some pundits are writing that Ukraine is winning the war. At least one American newspaper headlined the surprise attack as Russia's 'Pearl Harbor,' evidently forgetting the ultimate result. In any case, the actual ground war in Ukraine is increasingly favoring the Russians, who are slowly tightening the noose on Kyiv's forces. The latest drone attack is Ukraine's emerging strategy to raise the cost of the war to the Russians, hoping either that they will get a better deal from Moscow, or more likely, persuade their American and European sponsors to actually join the fighting. The new strategy first took shape in the invasion of Kursk in August 2024, a venture that cost Ukraine approximately 75,000 troops killed or wounded. At the same time, Ukraine began launching heavy drone strikes inside Russian territory as well as on the battlefield. These attacks, at least those on the battlefield, forced the Russians to change tactics and revert to smaller unit operations that were more survivable, and it certainly slowed down the pace of operations for Russia's army. Conversely, the Russian strategy is to grind down Ukraine's army and, wherever possible, trap them in cauldrons, cutting off their resupply and rotation lines of support. The Russian strategy appears to be unaffected, at least so far, by Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, or by wasteful operations in places such as Kursk, which actually support Russia's military objective. As matters now stand, on the backside of the now-failed Kursk operation, Russia has expanded its operations in Sumy, a Ukrainian province adjacent to Kursk. Sumy offers long-range potential for a land assault on Kyiv, should Russia be able to consolidate its operations in Kursk and further weaken Ukraine's army defenses. In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Press Service, bodies of the killed residents lie on the ground following a Russian missile attack that killed at least civilia civilians in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. Some Russian mil-bloggers are expressing the view that even if Russia and Ukraine sign some form of 'peace agreement,' guerrilla attacks on Russian territory and on their forces in Ukraine likely will continue for the foreseeable future. One can see in these ruminations the belief that NATO will continue to cause Russia trouble for many years to come, assuming Russia does not take more radical steps to quash them. Examples of how Ukraine is executing its strategy are clear. The attack on Russian air bases is just a part of the process: railroads have been hit, railroad bridges destroyed, and the Kerch Strait bridge was hit by a large explosion on June 3. The Ukrainians also destroyed power stations supporting Kherson and Zaphorize, showing that Russian control is not all that effective. Latest Kerch Bridge Attack Ukraine is also carrying out a record number of assassinations. including Zaur Gurtsiev, 34, a decorated former major, who was blown up in Stavropol in southern Russia. The Ukrainians are exploiting a major Russian weakness, a lack of adequate preparation to protect important assets, including key people, and poor intelligence. Ukraine's advantage is that it is supported by US and European intelligence and technical capabilities, which act as a facilitator and force multiplier for Ukrainian non-conventional operations. In addition, Ukraine has its own drone manufacturing and electronics and software development experts. Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian software engineers were working for leading companies outside the country. Israeli companies contracted or hired Ukrainian software developers to augment Israel's own formidable capability in this sector. There also are limitations to the Ukrainian strategy. First, while the strategy, especially the use of drones coupled to some battlefield tactics, has given fits to the Russian army, the best that can be said is that it has slowed them down but not stopped them. Meanwhile, the Russians are able to keep heavy pressure on the Ukrainians, making use of long-range missiles, drones, and increasingly FAB bombs (conventional bombs with guidance kits, called UMPK kits, extending their range). Ukraine also has gotten some glide bombs from the US (such as the GBU-39), but the payload is much smaller than those used by the Russians, and the Ukrainians are running out of aircraft that can launch them. GBU-39 is a glide bomb in the 250-pound category, while Russia's glide bomb can carry between 555 pounds. and 3 tons of explosives over 37 miles. FAB-1500 with UMPK glide kit Certainly, the Ukrainians are aware of the vulnerability of their armed forces, especially as they are stretched out over a long line of contact, now expanded with Russian operations in Sumy. Reports say the Russian cauldron battlefield strategy is squeezing off logistical support for Ukrainian units, and their ability to rotate soldiers, meaning that morale is suffering and even well-organized defenses can't be held for very long. An additional problem for Ukraine is securing adequate supplies from Europe and the United States, as well as trained operators for the imported weapons. Europe has slowed down the transfer of weapons, as European planners worry that they have little left for national self-defense. It is unclear whether the US will keep up the pace, since there is growing concern in Washington that the US will not remain competitive in the Pacific – facing China's rising military capabilities – if it continues to strip its stockpiles of critical weapons and munitions. Should the US reduce deliveries of weapons, a distinct possibility for operational reasons, Ukraine's army cannot remain in the field for very long. Ukraine's main problem is internal and political. The current leadership can't acknowledge the surrender of any territory to Russia. It could agree to a ceasefire in place, but the Russians are not ready to grant that. It would leave the Russians with control of some of the territories they have annexed, but not all that they claim, and the possibility that the war might resume again in future. More to the point, the Ukrainians don't want to give up on a relationship with NATO and Europe. Thus, even though uninvited, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he will attend an upcoming major NATO meeting in the Hague. While the US says that Ukrainian membership in NATO is off the table, Kiev is not accepting the US position. Zelensky is currently in Vilnius where he will be attending the Bucharest Nine and Nordic summit, aimed at unifying regional support for Ukraine. (The Bucharest Nine, established in 2015, includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.) Volodymyr Zelensky in Vilnius | D. Umbraso / LRT nuotr. We know less about Russia's internal situation. The Russians, so far, have failed to come to grips with Ukraine's unconventional war strategy, nor have they reacted so far either in improving their own security measures or in answering the Ukrainian attacks. How this impacts the current leadership, the Kremlin first of all, Russia's security services, and the Russian army, is simply unknown. Having said that, it is unlikely the Russians will dramatically change their approach to the conduct of the war, or at least so far, there is no evidence of any change. It looks like Ukraine's new strategy will not have more than a marginal effect on the war itself. Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
Asia Times
03-06-2025
- Asia Times
We're all vulnerable to a Ukraine-style drone strike
Ukrainians are celebrating the success of one of the most audacious coups of the war against Russia – a coordinated drone strike on June 1 on five airbases deep inside Russian territory. Known as Operation Spiderweb, it was the result of 18 months of planning and involved the smuggling of drones into Russia, synchronized launch timings and improvised control centers hidden inside freight vehicles. Ukrainian sources claim more than 40 Russian aircraft were damaged or destroyed. Commercial satellite imagery confirms significant fire damage, cratered runways, and blast patterns across multiple sites, although the full extent of losses remains disputed. The targets were strategic bomber aircraft and surveillance planes, including Tu-95s and A-50 airborne early warning systems. The drones were launched from inside Russia and navigated at treetop level using line-of-sight piloting and GPS pre-programming. Each was controlled from a mobile ground station parked within striking distance of the target. It is reported that a total of 117 drones were deployed across five locations. While many were likely intercepted, or fell short, enough reached their targets to signal a dramatic breach in Russia's rear-area defense. The drone platforms themselves were familiar. These were adapted first-person-view (FPV) multirotor drones. These are ones where the operator gets a first-person perspective from the drone's onboard camera. These are already used in huge numbers along the front lines in Ukraine by both sides. But Operation Spiderweb extended their impact through logistical infiltration and timing. Nations treat their airspace as sovereign, a controlled environment: mapped, regulated and watched over. Air defence systems are built on the assumption that threats come from above and from beyond national borders. Detection and response also reflect that logic. It is focused on mid and high-altitude surveillance and approach paths from beyond national borders. But Operation Spiderweb exposed what happens when states are attacked from below and from within. In low-level airspace, visibility drops, responsibility fragments and detection tools lose their edge. Drones arrive unannounced, response times lag and coordination breaks. Spiderweb worked not because of what each drone could do individually, but because of how the operation was designed. It was secret and carefully planned of course, but also mobile, flexible and loosely coordinated. The cost of each drone was low, but the overall effect was high. This isn't just asymmetric warfare, it's a different kind of offensive capability – and any defence needs to adapt accordingly. On Ukraine's front lines, where drone threats are constant, both sides have adapted by deploying layers of detection tools, short-range air defenses and jamming systems. In turn, drone operators have turned to alternatives. One option is drones that use spools of shielded fibre optic cable. The cable is attached to the drone at one end and to the controller held by the operator at the other. Another option involves drones with preloaded flight paths to avoid detection. Fiber links, when used for control or coordination, emit no radio signal and so bypass radio frequency (RF) -based surveillance entirely. There is nothing to intercept or jam. Preloaded paths remove the need for live communication altogether. Once launched, the drone follows a pre-programmed route without broadcasting its position or receiving commands. As a result, airspace is never assumed to be secure but is instead understood to be actively contested and requiring continuous management. By contrast, Operation Spiderweb targeted rear area airbases where more limited adaptive systems existed. The drones flew low, through unmonitored gaps, exploiting assumptions about what kind of threat was faced and from where. Tu-95 bombers were among the planes destroyed. Photo: Almaz Mustafin via The Conversation Spiderweb is not the first long-range drone operation of this war, nor the first to exploit gaps in Russian defences. What Spiderweb confirms is that the gaps in airspace can be used by any party with enough planning and the right technology. They can be exploited not just by states and not just in war. The technology is not rare and the tactics are not complicated. What Ukraine did was to combine them in a way that existing systems could not prevent the attack or maybe even see it coming. This is far from a uniquely Russian vulnerability – it is the defining governance challenge of drones in low-level airspace. Civil and military airspace management relies on the idea that flight paths are knowable and can be secured. In our work on UK drone regulation, we have described low-level airspace as acting like a common pool resource. This means that airspace is widely accessible. It is also difficult to keep out drones with unpredictable flight paths. Under this vision of airspace, it can only be meaningfully governed by more agile and distributed decision-making. Operation Spiderweb confirms that military airspace behaves in a similar way. Centralised systems to govern airspace can struggle to cope with what happens at the scale of the Ukrainian attacks – and the cost of failure can be strategic. Improving low-level airspace governance will require better technologies, better detection and faster responses. New sensor technologies such as passive radio frequency detectors, thermal imaging, and acoustic (sound-based) arrays can help close current visibility gaps, especially when combined. But detection alone is not enough. Interceptors, including capture drones (drones that hunt and disable other drones), nets to ensnare drones and directed energy weapons such as high-powered lasers are being developed and trialed. However, most of these are limited by range, cost or legal constraints. Nevertheless, airspace is being reshaped by new forms of access, use and improvisation. Institutions built around centralized ideas of control; air corridors, zones, and licensing are being outpaced. Security responses are struggling to adapt to the fact that airspace with drones is different. It is no longer passively governed by altitude and authority. It must be actively and differently managed. Operation Spiderweb didn't just reveal how Ukraine could strike deep into Russian territory. It showed how little margin for error there is in a world where cheap systems can be used quietly and precisely. That is not just a military challenge. It is a problem where airspace management depends less on central control and more on distributed coordination, shared monitoring and responsive intervention. The absence of these conditions is what Spiderweb exploited. Michael A Lewis is professor of operations and supply management, University of Bath This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
