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Bevo

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  1. The Russian spy ship in Britain’s waters preparing ground for war A confrontation with Yantar may have looked peaceful but for Royal Navy, the fight is below the surface Senior Foreign Correspondent 29 January 2025 11:57am GMT Sailing off the south coast of England, the Russian trawler known as the Yantar carried its usual array of hi-tech equipment. In photographs released by the Ministry of Defence, a large radar dome can be seen behind two masts bristling with antennae. Officially, these allow the 108 metre-long craft to monitor ocean currents, befitting a vessel the Kremlin maintains is part of its oceanographic research fleet. But it was the ship’s more nefarious purposes that prompted a rare display of British naval power on Jan 20, when the Yantar was confronted by a British warship, HMS Somerset, and patrol vessel HMS Tyne. Humdrum though it may appear, the Yantar is known to carry two submersibles that can dive down up to 6,000 metres, allowing their crew to map, monitor and potentially sever the undersea cables that transmit data around the world. 1Gathering intelligence on US acoustic sensors near Kings Bay Naval Base, Georgia 2Monitoring communications around the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba 3Recovery or destruction of equipment on board crashed Russian SU-33 and Mig-29 aircraft 4Assisting Argentina in recovery of missing submarine 5Attempting to retrieve crashed British F-35 6Mapping UK undersea cables off the coast of Cornwall and in the Irish sea 7Investigating sinking of Russian cargo ship Ursa Major and potentially destroying secret equipment 8A second sortie to UK waters within weeks of being escorted away to the Mediterranean “Let me be clear, this is a spy ship,” said John Healey, the Defence Secretary, as he revealed the Royal Navy operation last week. And while the encounter looked peaceful from above, analysts and former navy officers told The Telegraph that Britain is likely to be already engaged in direct conflict with Russia’s “dark fleet”, deep underwater and out of sight. In the images released by the MoD, a third ship looms over the Yantar, RFA Proteus. The £65 million auxiliary ship, completed in 2019, also possesses submersibles – only these have the kind of claws needed to sever the cables connecting Yantar to its mischief-making deep-sea craft. “I reckon by now the Yantar will be missing some of its equipment,” said Tom Sharpe, a former Royal Navy submariner. “If it isn’t, it should be.” The details of underwater battles typically remain shrouded in secrecy for decades, observed only by passing sea life as they take place. The last British submarine known to have severed a cable was HMS Conqueror in 1982. Fresh from firing the missiles that sank Argentina’s Belgrano in the Falklands War, it cut an acoustic array trailed by a Soviet trawler. 1Navigation and tracking other vessels, including Nato ships 2Deep-sea submersibles, the Rus and the Konsul, can dive to 6000m 3Poistioning system that allows the Yantar to loiter in the same place for prolonged periods of time 4Transmitting data to Russian naval command, electronic jamming systems and communication intercepts 5Helicopters can perform reconnaissance to back-up underwater operations “Thank goodness it was one of our submarines” to have performed the daring operation, said a jubilant Margaret Thatcher. Similar efforts are likely under way today, said Dr Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “I would be surprised if… efforts to outcompete each other just short of the threat of war by both Russian submariners and Western ones are not occurring.” The Yantar is an openly provocative target. For almost a decade, the 60-crewed ship has trailed undersea cables around the world, its position revealed through the pings it sends to the Automatic Identification System, a global maritime tracking network. From Guantanamo Bay to the North Sea, it is suspected of mapping out Nato’s critical underwater infrastructure to prepare for eventual conflict. The global internet network relies on around 500 undersea cables, with 60 or so running through Britain. The most important of these travel across the Atlantic and carry critical financial data between Wall Street and the City. In a worst-case scenario, the Yantar could be dropping charges on those cables to be detonated in the event of war, said Mr Sharpe. Matt Western, the chairman of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy, told The Telegraph that the consequences of an attack would be “grim”, hitting “communications, essential services relying on the internet, the finance sector, payments systems, supply chains and so on”. Russia’s dark fleet is already suspected of four sabotage operations in the Baltic since November, severing cables connecting Estonia to Latvia, Sweden to Lithuania and Norway to Finland and Germany. To knock out the UK’s internet connection, dozens of cables would have to be severed simultaneously. Some analysts speculate that, besides threatening such a strike, the Yantar’s probing missions could serve another purpose. “I think they probably want to go after critical military cables and discriminate those from the wider network,” Mr Kaushal said. The location and purpose of such cables is classified, but when bad weather severed one off the US coast in 2007, it grounded the army’s Iraqi drone fleet for a week. HMS Somerset tracked the movements of Russian spy ship Yantar through UK waters HMS Somerset tracked the movements of the Russian spy ship through UK waters on Jan 20 Credit: Royal Navy In his statement to Parliament last week, Mr Healey revealed a British submarine had surfaced near the Yantar during a sortie it made into British waters in November. The nuclear-class Astute submarine could have lurked underneath the Yantar for “days”, Mr Sharpe suggested, potentially getting close enough to take photographs of its hull and “map the underwater fittings”. In revealing itself to the Russian craft, the submarine provided a clear show of force to the Kremlin, but the breaching carries risks. Moscow will now be able to monitor any sensor data the Yantar collected in the hours before, listening for any tell-tale acoustic signals left by the not-quite silent boat. In the Russian military, Gugi is the agency responsible for deep-sea espionage, reporting directly to the ministry of defence rather than the navy. Its officers were “very capable”, Mr Sharpe said, informed by decades of experience over the Cold War. The Soviet Union built up the world’s second-largest fishing fleet in the early 1970s and converted dozens of trawlers into spy ships, taking advantage of their hardiness and large amounts of hangar space. ‘Godforsaken pieces of junk’ When a US navy destroyer approached a Soviet vessel lurking off the coast of Virginia in 1964, the ship’s captain reported that the small craft “spun on a dime”. “They may have looked like godforsaken pieces of junk, but they were manned by talented crew”. Four years earlier, Harold Macmillan, Britain’s prime minister, warned that the presence of fishing trawlers near a weapons testing range at Aberporth, Wales, was bringing the Soviet Union “perilously close to a showdown with the West”. That Russia is able to deploy much the same tactics decades on from the Cold War stems from the protections afforded to civilian vessels under international laws around freedom of navigation. “If you want to protect against it,” you may have to compromise fundamental principles like the ability of civilian ships to sail – and collect intelligence – through international waters, said Katja Bego, a research associate at Chatham House. That could have knock-on effects on international shipping through the Red Sea or the tense waters in the western Pacific. Russia, which denies any spying, has already threatened to deploy warships to “protect” its civilian fleet. In part, this is a riposte to the West’s increasing naval muscle. In December, Finnish commandos boarded the Eagle S, the trawler suspected of severing the Estlink 2 power cable in the Gulf of Finland. They found the ship “bristling” with spy equipment that allowed it to monitor Nato ships and aircraft, Lloyds List reported. Could British commandos be called upon to board the Yantar, if its brazen snooping continues? “Other countries have boarded and detained vessels suspected of sabotage,” Mr Western said, days after announcing an inquiry into Britain’s undersea defences. “The committee’s inquiry will take a close look at what powers and capabilities the UK has, and how well they are being used.” Lawyers should already be working on establishing the legal basis for a boarding operation, Mr Sharpe added. There would be little point in the SBS speeding out of Poole only to have to turn back half-way. As ever, the risk of conflict spirals in a direct confrontation. No Royal Navy sailor will forget the fate of commander Lionel Crabb, who was deployed to examine the underwater hull of the Ordzhenikidze, a Soviet cruiser that docked in Portsmouth in 1956. His body, missing its head, was found floating in the waters nearby.
  2. Or you are Sydir Mitchell
  3. Yeah, sorry - I’m on my phone and in a poor coverage area - I can’t look up names or recognize autocorrect very easily.
  4. Yeah, that is the likely scenario outside of health issues like drug abuse, obesity, diabetes, High BP/Poor Cholesterol levels… I was playing basketball at Tulane and a late 20s AA had a heart attack on the court. We gave CPR immediately, an ambulance was there within 5 min, and the guy still died with undiagnosed congenital heart issues. Not relevant, but my buddy had his backpack and watch stolen while we were giving CPR.
  5. This is exactly true. personally, I think Shaw will be a very good starter, but the reality is we don’t know if that is true of anyone. Hills, January, Hero, Shaw, Justus, Sharma, Charles, Broussard (0 tech.) could all be ready to start or none of them could be ready. So we don’t really know right now who will be ready for playing time and who will be ready to excel. This gives the staff a few months to figure things out and determine what we have and what we need.
  6. In case people are interested: Acclaimed actress Linda Lavin, widely recognized for her role in the CBS series “Alice,” died on December 29 due to cardiopulmonary arrest, with lung cancer identified as the underlying cause. Similarly, the Atlanta rapper who just died, died in his sleep due to cardiopulmonary arrest - his wife claims that he didn't do drugs, but that is awfully young to have a heart attack without mention of an underlying medical condition.
  7. Oh, we can increase our production of artillery or alternatively decrease their supply.
  8. I don't know how fast that guy is, but he hits like a ton of bricks. That's one strong MF.
  9. Turkey has 230 F16s and the US has 840. Together, we could supply 70 planes and train Ukranian pilots and provide enough weapons for them from stockpiles without putting a dent in our military capabilities. We have 12,000 JASSMs, 170,000 AGM-114 Hellfire, 500 AGM-130, 5000 AGM-65 Maverick, and probably 1500 AGM-88. Would we miss 3000 missiles?
  10. Are y'all talking about 365 or standard Office? I don't pay very much for standard Office.
  11. Same age as my dad - We still go fishing but who knows how long that will last. Aging really sucks - I'm not ready for it and can't accept mortality.
  12. I understand alalogies fine. What I don't understand is your statement, "I like tease him it’s the edge of Spring". I just figured shrooms but I guess hillbilly gibberish was the correct answer. OTOH, por qué no los dos.
  13. Back when I was there, the high school was probably 90/10 Texas to A&M and Kinkaid was even more one-sided. That was before Spring Branch and Westchester closed, though.
  14. Take a deep breath. I was asking a question about the Woodlands. I was not providing answers. I just wanted an assessment. But if it makes you feel any better, my brother gives me shit all the time about Houston. Since the 90s I’ve gone to Santa Fe more than Houston and when I go to Houston I’m pretty lame and visit my brother and parents and don’t really bother to see friends. This means that I don’t really know Houston anymore and will mention some place the Ginger Man or Pig and Whistle or some place and I’ll be quickly informed that the place closed like 25 years ago. Alls good and it may not have come across correctly, but I just wanted more info.
  15. I know Westfield is ghetto now and people have moved out from there to the Woodlands. However, in the mid-80s I lived in Parapet next to about 6 engineers who all went to Spring Westfield and they all sent their kids to UT. So maybe the Woodlands isn’t all Aggie. Plus, I thought the Woodlands was mainly Oil and Gas - Doesn’t that mean there are a lot of UT PetEs living there?
  16. I’ve said it before - I really like this guy’s film.
  17. What's funny is that after all the gnashing of teeth, if we get the tOSU guy and pick up a quality starter like the Clemson guy in the spring, we will end up better at DL than we were this past year.
  18. Sorry, you are correct. I don't know where Dulles and Elkins kids go. I don't even know the demographic there - Other than it being different than the BraeBurn CC demographic and that's as close as I ever get these days.
  19. There was that and they all went to school in Klein which is an aggie area.
  20. Bruce Matthews is in the Hall of Fame and went to USC before the the Oilers/Titans. He played something like 19 seasons without missing a game. He later became a coach. His kids were all aggies. Mike Munchak is also in the Hall of Fame. He went to Penn State. He had a pretty long coaching career in the NFL after he retired as a player. Dean Steinkuhler went to Nebraska, was the Outland Award winner, and was picked 2nd in the draft. He won rookie of the year, but knee injuries caught up with him. Gene Chilton played at Texas and then the Chiefs. Omar Saleh started at Texas when Texas wasn't very good. He was too small and not strong enough to have an NFL future.
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