Not sure we understand "probing" differently. Russian currently is at the edges, testing the responses from things like cutting cables and otherwise interfering with the infrastructure. This is what "probing" means for me. "Beyond probing" would be actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet (except of course, for the Ukraine invasion).
he's saying "this was not a probe, this was an actually launched attack"
A submarine cable is an attractive target for Russia because Russia doesn't have cables of their own exposed: Russia is a continental power, not a maritime alliance. A cable attack is an asymmetric attack, difficult to respond to appropriately.
> The 1,000 kilometre (620 miles) Baltika cable belonging to state-owned Rostelecom runs from the region of St. Petersburg to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the southern Baltic Sea.
> A gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia and two other telecoms cables, connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden, were also damaged last month. Finnish police believe damage to the Baltic connector gas pipeline was caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor along the seabed but have not concluded whether this was an accident or a deliberate act.
> The Finnish coast guard said the Russian outage may be linked to the previously reported damage.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-says-russian-ba...
On the contrary. The attacks have been ongoing for years now. You're looking for the tanks and missiles when the attack is actually happening right under your feet. Rot and corruption are more powerful than any bombs or missiles.
The developed world knows this even better. Offering yachts, real estate, supercars, prostitutes, and other luxuries to oligarchs. Thanks to this their military is rather in shambles right now.
It's historically, financially, and strategically incoherent. Trying to bribe people who are already rich with hard-to-hide things, just to make them extra-corrupt in the vague hope that it somehow results in pilfered AK-47s being sold on the black market?
Sorry, but no: Being shaken down by Russian traffic cops for bribes every week is a domestic problem.
Russia started invading Ukraine six months before Nord Stream blow up. Previously Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
The next invaded country, will be also an escalation?
All of this is about a few psychopaths filling their pockets with the money that generates the corpses of their criminal business, some encouraging the production of war, others encouraging the waging of war.
Why are these psychopaths and their "business" not prosecuted?
Quoth Churchill: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last."
The crocodile is still intent on eating you, even if you're nice to it. I really wish Europe would start understanding that.
This conditioning is how you prepare for an actual attack, so that they're not prepared at the actual time of the real attack. It's also why some military exercises near a country is considered provocative, even tho it's "just an exercise".
Not to mention that it drains resources to respond/monitor these cry-wolf fakes.