The ship has been featured extensively in Danish and Norwegian media. First the Russians attempted to get the explosive ship close to a NATO base in Norway before the Norwegian coast guard chased them away. The Danish coast guard also had to confront them.

The ship contains several times more Ammonium Nitrate than what caused the 2020 Beirut port explosion.

But these are highly oversimplified number games. For example, it's highly doubtful someone could get this to explode all at once without dispersing most of it - even if they were actively trying to cause maximum damage. Nonetheless it's still a monumental safety risk and any port in their right mind would do well to shoo this piece of crap back to Russia.

> However even on this basis, comparing the actual energy yields of a large nuclear device and an explosion of TNT can be slightly inaccurate. Small TNT explosions, especially in the open, don't tend to burn the carbon-particle and hydrocarbon products of the explosion. Gas-expansion and pressure-change effects tend to "freeze" the burn rapidly. A large open explosion of TNT may maintain fireball temperatures high enough so that some of those products do burn up with atmospheric oxygen [...]

See also the "Relative effectiveness factor" paragraph [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effect...

No, it likely wouldn't do as much damage as an airburst nuke. But it would be catastrophic nonetheless.

That's a red herring. No one is looking at the decimal places. The comparison serves to provide a real-world benchmark of the expectable destructive power of the cargo held by this vessel, and a relative comparison of how big it would be. Arguing otherwise is idiotic.

According to anti-Russian outlets. I think it's fair to assume that a lot of covert operation are going on, however we should still assume that most media are just propaganda on either side and not blindly confirm our own bias.

And the examples in CEPA alone I consider obvious propaganda:

> The physical sabotage includes acts such as a fire at an IKEA storage facility in Lithuania, which helped fuel false narratives about the safety and reliability of foreign investments, while cyber-attacks on power grids, water supply, and communication networks have also been used alongside GPS jamming to disrupt people’s everyday lives.

That doesn't seem plausible or obvious.

> Hours after the incident, multiple German officials characterized the event as intentional, and Transportation Minister Volker Wissing decried it as a “targeted and malicious action.” But Reuters reported shortly thereafter that German police had concluded there was no foreign state involvement. The next day Wissing issued a statement reversing the police conclusion, describing it as sabotage and saying that he couldn’t rule out foreign responsibility.

--https://cepa.org/article/wake-up-nato-its-sabotage/ (linked article)

So it must be the Russians? It's a possible explanation, but neither obvious, nor the only one.

The other way around. If they had any concrete evidence that it was the Russian government we would have heard about it by now, even if only being relatively plausible. Otherwise this is a way too complicated conspiracy which needs the evidence to make sense in my opinion.

Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.

Protecting the borders saps resources from the militaries of these countries.

Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.

But you can admit that the IKEA fire example is laughable, right? But even the GPS jamming is questionable when it comes to the motivation. Do they have military reasons for it or is it to "disrupt people’s everyday lives"?

> Another one is hybrid warfare via artificial migration on Russia's Western borders. Poland, the Baltic states, and to a lesser extent also Finland, experience waves of aggressive migrants forcing these borders, often with clear help, or coercion, from Russian or Belarusian security forces. To be clear, I feel heavily for people escaping poverty and war, my point is they are being weaponised here.

This is actually a bit more nuanced than that. We are the ones that want (illegal) migration, it was only a problem when Belarus opened the borders and to be fair they have no obligation to keep them and they were upfront about it. It was a classic case of hypocrisy.

That Russia did the same thing is new to me, but if Baltic states/Finland have proper border control there is no problem.

It's a problem with our border control and creating unnecessary pull factors.

> Whether other specific attacks are Russian or not is hard to know, but it seems beyond doubt that Russia is engaging in low level hostility against the West.

I see the exact opposite and mostly retaliation to be honest, but even if you do not agree you can probably agree that the west is also hostile towards Russia. It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it, starting at least with 2008 NATO summit and making it obvious in 2014 Ukraine coup d'état. I don't know what Russia did to the US to warrant this kind of provocation.

Finland has closed the entire land border with Russia in response to Russia ferrying migrants from the other side of the planet to Finnish border and forcing them to illegally cross it, to overwhelm Finnish social services and incite political instability.

https://raja.fi/en/restrictions-at-the-border-crossing-point...

> It's obvious that this opinion is not well received, but the west/US started all of it

It is not well received because it is a hollow Russian talking point that has no substance behind it. Might as well bring up the international Jewish conspiracy and lizard people while you're at it.

Not sure why you are talking about lizards and jews. At least you're not telling anything of substance I could even take as an argument.

You may tell me how it was Russia's fault the US/EU instigated the coup d'état in Ukraine for a change.

In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.

You never thought for yourself it seems and just throw fact-check around. Janukowytsch was elected president of the country and was forcibly removed from that function. If you like him or not, it's by definition a coup.

> In any case political events in independent countries are none of Russia's business.

This is also true for the US and the EU. Why do we fund movements to overthrow foreign governments? It's not even a secret that the US does this all the time. It even got their own name: color revolutions.

That's not what a coup d'état is. Check the definition please, and try again.

It's also not correct to say he was simply forcibly removed from that function.

There was no coup in Ukraine. The sitting president was responsible for getting over 100 protestors killed. First he went into hiding as it became clear that had lost all political support in Ukraine and would be facing criminal charges, then Russian secret services helped him escape to Russia.

Ukrainian parlament assembled, voted with 328-vs-0 to hold early elections for a new president. Not even a single member of his own party voted in favor of the Russian puppet who ran away. Elections were held soon thereafter and even Russia recognized its results after a delay.

Calling this a coup indicates lack of knowledge or intentional maliciousness.

Elected president gets forcibly removed -> coup. It's the definition of the word.

edit: I am not even sure how this can be malicious in any context.

This is the opposite of "illegal seizure of power by a small group", as coup is commonly defined.

Are all subsequent russian rulers illegitimate?

What russia calls a "provocation" is no excuse for russia's invasion and subsequent 3rd genocide of Ukrainians (the 1st being the russian-perpetrated Holodomor starting in 1932, the 2nd being the russian deportation of Crimean Tatars starting in 1944).

Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist. Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.

The hollow russian talking point the other poster pointed out, is that russia being upset at something that happened in another country which has nothing to do with it, is somehow justification for russia perpetrating a war of genocide. It isn't. That's why nearly every country in the world voted to reject russia's excuses such as the ones you cite, and condemn russia's actions in multiple United Nations votes, and why the ICC issued arrest warrants for putin and his war crimes.

Yeah the liberal use of genocide isn't going to help. Killing thousand civilians per day in east Ukraine by their own people is closer to that. And killing thousands of civilians was also a reason for the NATO to intervene in Serbia.

> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.

The same could be said about the US in Ukraine, but also Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq - just in the recent time, otherwise I have to list most of the world. The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat for the US, but it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.

> Had russia historically not been evil to its neighbors (example: the Katyn Massacre in 1940), its neighbors wouldn't seek protection from russia.

1940? What time is it?

You're hallucinating. Total deaths an all sides (civilian and military) are far below 1000, and certainly not ">=2000" as you are explicitly stating.

One could delve further into civilian vs. military distinction and which side is responsible for the bulk of these -- but if you're going to insist on pulling numbers out of the air without making any effort to check them (much like your "knowledge" in regard to the events of 2014), there's clearly no point in doing so.

Agreed: russia's liberal use of genocide in Ukraine isn't going to help resolve the conflict. Beyond that, denying russia's 3rd genocide of Ukrainians isn't going to help. Especially since nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If russia cared about civilian killing, russia would not have killed so many civilians in their war on Chechnya and their other conquered lands, and russia would stop killing so many civilians in Ukraine, including in Eastern Ukraine.

>> Had russia stayed within their borders and minded their own business, the current russian war of genocide against Ukraine would not exist.

> The same could be said about the US

The same could be said about russia. "Someone else did it" isn't a sufficient excuse, which is why nearly every country in the world has rejected the excuses you speak, and condemned russia's actions in the UN. If you think other countries' actions are equivalent, you may make your case to the UN, who can decide if they are. If you think other countries did wrong, you may make your case to the ICJ or ICC, who can decide if they did. Note that "invade and genocide" is not an acceptable response.

> 1940? What time is it?

Has russia ever acknowledged that the actions I cite were wrong, apologized, and made reparations? No? They're just doing the same thing again? And russia is surprised the world is reacting to russian actions in the way they are? Such surprise is performative. It is best if russia accepts sooner, rather than later, that if they wish to change the world's reasonable reactions to unreasonable russian behavior, they must first change the unreasonable behavior. This starts with accepting to settle their complaints via multilateral diplomacy, not invasion and genocide. It also means accepting russia doesn't get everything russia wants.

> The difference with this and Russia is, that there was never a threat

Oh, russia has never attacked any countries? They present no threat? If this was true, countries would not seek to join NATO to protect themselves from russian threat. Ukraine sought protection because they felt threatened by russia. They were right: russia attacked them for no good reason.

> it is an open threat to Russia if Ukraine is part of NATO.

This is an empty, world-rejected talking point. Every country has the right to join NATO if they wish. It only threatens russia's ability to conquer and genocide other countries, which they have no right to do in the first place. As long as russia doesn't attack other countries, there is no problem. A better representation is that russia is an open threat to Ukraine and eastern Europe if the latter are not in NATO. russia proved this to be true with their nazi-like wars of territorial conquest.

Is the ship filled with the same Beirute port explosion compound? Yes or no?

Is the ship refusing to turn to Russian ports and instead is aimlessly trying to get into strategic EU/NATO ports?

Even the captain failed to address any kind of repair while at Port.

Only a moron does not consider this a threat worth mitigating.

Russia has made their bed, and now they must sleep in it.

Not trusting a Russian ship is easy. How easy is trusting an ANFO-laden truck is not getting parked near a busy shopping mall right now?

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-berlin-fire-diehl-beh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Vrb%C4%9Btice_ammunition_...

Jesus Christ the state of this world.

Immigrants go through a significantly higher barrier of entry and background checking than your average citizen. The average citizen who is probably reading rhetoric like yours and then going and mowing down migrants because the world told them they’re evil.

Nonsense. The vetting process can be as simple as wading across the Rio Grande and walking 20 miles (or a similar dry-land journey), whereupon the immigrant gains residency automatically.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ice-released-over-435-000-...

I know of no incidents of "average citizens... mowing down migrants..." on any US border. What are you talking about?

Your statement accuses "average citizens" of murder and is way out of line on these forums. In contrast I (below) stated demonstrable truths about migration on the southern USA border and got downvoted.

Thank goodness for Stanislov Petrov!

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/18/551792129...

Citation, please.