Regardless of what specific rules could be set you have to consider rules of engagement and potential escalation. What happens if a Russian merchant vessel (either legitimately flagged or shadow fleet) refuses to cooperate? Do you use force to stop them? What if they're being escorted by a Russian warship or combat aircraft?

You put mines and wait. We need to stop with “what if escalation” mantra when it was always Russians escalating.

Put mines where? How do you prevent neutral vessels from hitting them? What happens when they inevitably break loose in a storm and drift away? Naval mines are quite effective for closing down a body of water in an unrestricted hot war but we haven't reached that stage yet. EU and NATO countries still want to be able to use the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland for their own purposes.

You haven't really thought this plan through.

Smart mines. There are thousands of them deployed already.

Huh? What are you even talking about? Which models specifically? And how sure are you that they can reliably discriminate between Russian vessels versus others that look and sound identical?

You haven't really thought this plan through.

> And how sure are you that they can reliably discriminate between Russian vessels versus others that look and sound identical?

Based on recent events, even people struggle to tell what is Russian and what isn’t.

These smart mines might solve that?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...

No, smart mines won't solve that. I can't fathom where this fantasy is coming from. It's totally disconnected from the reality of current mine technology.

This is deployed in baltic already

https://www.rheinmetall.com/Rheinmetall%20Group/brochure-dow...

What's your point? Those weapons don't have the ability to reliably distinguish Russian shadow fleet vessels from others.