A third tanker from the Russian shadow fleet is hit. Turkey engages in controversial explanations

10 months ago by mapto to c/blacksea

Different sources report different planned destinations. According to VesselFinder the tanker had its AIS transponder switched off for 17 days.

partial_accumen 6 points 10 months ago

This is the one "attack" that looks like a Russian false flag. The drone parts Russia placed on the ship for a photo op are from a model that doesn't have the range from Ukraine to reach where the "attack" happened among a bunch of other screw ups from the Russians trying to make this look like a Ukrainian attack.

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UnspecificGravity 2 points 10 months ago

OK, But how does Russia benefit from falsely claiming to have been attacked by the one country on earth that literally everyone agrees has the right to attack Russia already?

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partial_accumen 3 points 10 months ago

Two ways:

The attack was right off the coast of Türkiye. If this were an attack from UA (which it isn't), Türkiye could claim that UA attacks were putting Türkiye's shipping, commerce, and its civilians at risk and Türkiye being a NATO member, that would carry a lot of weight. Russia wanted the idea "if another country's cargo carrier is being attacked by UA, then UA should be stopped from attacking ships".
UA has been specifically targeting Russia's petroleum carriers, not agribusiness, which could have nutrition connotations. Russia claimed it was carrying sunflower oil, not petroleum. So Russia would try to claim that food shipments for the nation of Georgia were being attacked by UA, and that the UA attacks on ships should be stopped by NATO allies.

Russia desperately wants the attacks on it main economic lifeline, cargo ships, to end as soon as possible.

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UnspecificGravity 2 points 10 months ago

Wouldn't it be like a thousand times more effective for Russia to just attack a Turkish ship with a "ukranian drone" and skip the three steps of logic it would take for anyone to care about a Russian ship getting hit by Ukraine?

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partial_accumen 1 point 10 months ago

Russia attacking a Turkish ship would be an unambiguous trigger NATO Article 5. That is something Russia absolutely wants to avoid. There is no Article 5 implications if Russia attacks its own ship.

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