xXx_swat21_xXx

The story now has coverage from motherboard.vice.com

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-theory-about-a-russian...

Unlike the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210 (to show agents don't defect and live), unlike military exercises in plain view of your adversary (to show your military prowess), and unlike displaying new shiny hardware at a parade (to make your adversary wonder about their capabilities); covertly tapping (or cutting) cables is done covertly, and as someone else mentioned has been going on by "both sides" for decades. If it was done overtly, the country who was being spied on would be tipped off and stop using that means of communication. I think willvarfar is closer to correct, they are probably mapping and looking for things, for future use, not exploiting things right now. I still think one of the things they're looking for, if they're actually over the cables, are other taps that have been placed by others before, or maybe looking for static ASW equipment laid there to detect subs.

...and the RV Yantar is part of the 29th Special Squadron of the Northern Fleet; the same group that operates those secret cable tapping subs. Probably not a coincidence.

The western media has been fed a story that Russian diplomats' families have been recalled. No proof of that yet. No leaked emails, memos, letters, boarding passes of families, people moving out of their apartments, motorcades of diplomatic people rushing to the airports... nothing.

Who benefits from putting that story out there?

Why would you believe that story?

Why would Russia tap Turkey's telecom? Why would Russia tap Syria's telecom? Why would Russia tap Lebanon's telecom?

I've offered up motive for why they would be looking to un-do taps that are already there, but haven't heard any competing explanation to why Russia would tap commercial undersea cables.

The American military does not use commercial undersea cables for their trans-continental communications, by the way. So, if the RV Yantar is not near commercial cables, they could be near secret military cables, or Anti-Submarine Warfare equipment set up by the Americans, Israelis, Greeks - who knows.

I'm trying to point out that latching onto the idea that they're loitering above and tapping/sabotaging underwater commercial cables is only one of many things they could be doing. Since we don't even know the location of those cables, it's extremely speculative to say they're loitering above them to begin with.

That's the problem. SubmarineCableMap.com and similar web sites show logical, not physical, representations of the underwater cables. Cables are not that neat and tidy. A proper nautical chart would; I'll pay for it, if I find a downloadable digital one for sale.

I apreciate @CovertShores's diagram showing a general area where cables are believed to be, but we can do better with a nautical chart showing exactly where the cables are, to prove or disprove the RV Yantar is over top of them.

RV Yantar's slow methodical movements suggest they're doing something, but I don't know that it suggests they're tapping cables. It looks more like a search pattern using underwater equipment that moves very slowly.

Towed sonar arrays can usually move ~4kn, so I don't think it's towed sonar. I believe it's a remote operated vehicle sniffing along the ocean's floor, on a tether, and they need to move the ship slowly, at 0.5kn to "keep up" with the ROV at the end of the line.

Are they looking for the cables themselves? Maybe. Are they looking for pre-existing taps on those cables? If they're doing anything to do with underwater cables, I think so. Are they putting their own taps on the lines? Maybe, I can't disprove that, but I'd like charts to show exactly where those underwater cables are, to see if they're even doing something cable related - which is total speculation at this point.

If the cables are shown to be 10 miles away, they're clearly looking at something else.

Isn't it possible the Russians want you to think they're looking at cables, and not helping a stuck submarine, or other unmentioned possibility?

If Russia was tapping Syrian cables... they'd do so on shore. They don't need to do it at the bottom of the ocean; it's the same way the United States taps cables in many allied countries.

It is rumoured that Russian SIGINT tipped off the Erdogan government of the coup, not American SIGINT, which would suggest that Americans were complicit with the coup. To win further favour with the Erdogan government Russia would love to pants the United States by showing they are tapping their "ally's" telecom infrastructure. You may remember the NSA also tapped Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, an ally. You may also remember the NSA tapped all Greek telecom as well; also an Ally. Do you think the United States isn't tapping the Turkish telecom lines?

The Israelis clearly have the Lebanese telecom system tapped in about a hundred different ways, from buried taps on shore to underwater taps at sea. Do you doubt that too? Wouldn't it be in Russia and Syria's best interest to help Hezbollah?

Here are all the coordinates of where they've been since October 7th, so if you have access to more precise data about where those cables go, you can plot the coordinates with your own GIS software.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WFIX0PAK1SJq35usKwR4znbeS8...

There is no evidence that the Russians are "tapping" or "sabotaging" undersea cables; the Americans and Israelis would also tap those cables, and I think it's far more likely the Russians are doing counter-espionage of taps on Turkish, Syrian and Lebanese cables, to win favour with their governments.

If you could source that very accurate map that's available publicly I'd be very appreciative; I can only find the paper version for sale and don't want to pay $100 for something that will only arrive in a few weeks. The lines on the images that are being circulated are not accurate in the least, they are very rough estimates.