Hacker News

I don't think they look similar, the synchronicity notwithstanding. The sabotage in France was a 250–300 kg rail fragment (per your link). The objects in the Netherlands look much smaller, and look like they're intended to short-circuit two rails to trigger a signal fault. In one place they found car jumper cables with clamps attached to both rails,

https://nos.nl/video/2631081-startkabels-van-spoor-bij-meppe... ("Startkabels van spoor bij Meppel weggehaald")

Most consumers know Renault as an ordinary car manufacturer but also worth mentioning it's a major manufacturer of armored vehicles for the French armed forces.

> Just days after a similar (criminal) incident causing a train to derail in France

From what I read, the similarity ends in “both involved trains”. This chain of attacks seems to have used short metal pipes (“Footage published by Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Tuesday showed police carrying what appeared to be metal pipes - about 1.5 metres (5ft) long”) to short a connection, making safety systems signal “there’s a train there”, stopping trains further up the track.

The France incident involved a piece of rails heavy enough to cause derailment (“The rail fragment was estimated to weigh between 250 and 300 kilograms”)

My money is on this being a rogue farmers protest.

Leaving aside the irony in seeing the "peaceful" EU (who bet it all on Uncle Sam) now going on full warmongering and wanting to spend 3% of its GDP on warfare, the serious issue here is the lack of will of politicians to punish the authors of such acts, which ruin society for everybody.

44 person injured and a young woman between life and death. Yet when the perpetrators are caught, we'll have journalists and judges relaying the official tune of the EU: "criminals are victims too".

They'll get a slap on the wrist and be able to ruin society again in no time.

When shall the left accept that people putting 300 kilograms of rails to try to kill people has only one solution: shackles and a heavy ball?

Where do you draw the line between "we're all beautiful butterflies" and "some psychos need to be scruffed by the neck and bowed into lifetime submission"?

How many deaths?

Surely there is a lot of Russian-motivated sabotage going on in Europe, but there's another group that might be motivated:

exactly today, a major farmer demonstration was already planned. They way they usually go ahead in the Netherlands is drive with their tractors over the highways towards The Hague, where our government is based. Obviously this leads to massive traffic jams.

A simultaneous disruption of the Dutch railways would add some extra effect to the expected traffic chaos.

Yes. And in combination it completely rules out the suggestion that the Netherlands attack is some kind of local activist protest. (The France attack resulted in several grave injuries and could have just as easily resulted in dozens of deaths.)

Last week we had four train-truck collisions at Polish level crossings resulting in derailment and passenger death, and afaik 2 or 3 involved foreign truck drivers.

Why all this farmers know so much about how to sabotage trains suddenly?

on same day today: Nato jets down drone that entered Lithuanian airspace

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjx2zgk7edlzo

[flagged]

That does mean that I would not automatically jump to conclusions about Russia or war or whatever; since much of national public policy is presented today, it's also a popular day to express disagreement, and apparently some farmers had already announced they would be doing so today.

(I'd assume the BBC reporter to be aware that Prinsjesdag is today, and that they'd mention that fact in this article, but apparently not.)

https://nos-nl.translate.goog/liveblog/2631038-hooibalen-in-...

>Might be related to today's yearly 'Prinsjesdag' in the Netherlands:

Russia may have heard about that annual event as well, of course.

maybe, but it's a step or two up from blocking roads?

>Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede)

Is "troonrede" essentially just the Dutch pronunciation of "Throne read"?

The harm is in the cost. Not the actual danger. Or are they going to pay for the damages caused due to lost productivity?

There are over 200 incidents of suspected Russian sabotage in Europe in recent years. [1] They continuously drum up the EU as the enemy. I think it's prudent to take them at their own word, and accept we're at active hybrid war with them.

We should assume by default now that every single act of sabotage is linked to Russia, before any investigation even. Then if evidence points elsewhere, we can update the suspect for that single event.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/germany-leipzig-airport-explosive...

Because we had seen the same old tricks a thousand times before.

Nobody wakes up some day saying I know exactly how to stop a train without being caught. Or: I know exactly were to cut to enter in this restricted area that normal people never had heard about it just to steal a few copper cable here and there (or worse, fiber optic cable)

Random actions are truly random. This acts aren't random. They need instead planning, precise knowledge that is not available to most people, and direction to coordinate them in several locations at the same time

Highly likely associated with yearly national budget fiesta. No reason for foreign interference, we can easily mess it up on our own.

European governments (and American) have been drumming up fear and hatred of Russia for more than 50 years.

It's my default assumption at this point that all blame placed on Russia is either from those trying to stoke those feelings, or those who have been swayed by them.

That is not to say that Russia does nothing, but I think it is blamed for more publicly known events than it is actually responsible for.

Likely organized by farmer protest groups (FDF for example) to protest against emission restriction regulation. They are known for their dangerous stunts, including driving their tractors on the highway and spraying manure on government buildings. These actions are tolerated by the Dutch police, which willingly and purposefully refuses to punish these acts.

Too bad Russia 'had to' go to war in the first place.

It is good for Russ.a even if they didn't even organize it: everybody thinks it's them, but they might not have even spent anything on it.

Ockham's razor may be? Big protests are common on Prinsjesdag, particularly when sensitive decisions or policies are made. A local protest organisation is therefore significantly more likely than an organized foreign sabotage. If I were Putin and had foreign agents in the Netherlands I certainly wouldn't expose them this physically.

It is russia, no surprises.

One has to be an idiot to assume otherwise at this point

We should just build up enough nuclear deterrent to prevent Russia from attacking us.

We've been dependent on the US for this but this was also by the US' own design. They didn't want many countries to have nukes. So the whole 'Europe is not doing its bit' is not really justified.

We don't need more tanks and soldiers because if we go at Russia like Ukraine does, so many people will die that it doesn't matter who wins. We just need to be able to destroy Russia so thoroughly that they won't think about attacking us, just like they don't attack the US. Mutually assured destruction has kept the world safe for almost a century but now with the US no longer committed to NATO we just need to build our own.

Except... it finances and arms Ukraine. Yeah, Europe is at war with Russia.

Yet again.

The plan is to turn Europe into a Pro Russia right wing empire before that happens though. AfD etc.

Oh, these wannabe intellectualist.

Russians been messing with your elections, blowing up factories, inducing illegal immigration, destroying infrastructure and openly threatening to turn Europe into a radioactive dust. Meanwhile people: "hopefully investigators find out".

Seriously, this is ridiculous

There are over 200 acts of sabotage in Europe linked/suspected to Russia. There's plenty to go around for everyone, and somehow people are still hesitant to say we're in active hybrid war.

the railway was hacked with a metal tube... perfectly suited news

Or maybe they do realise it how close it is. It is not a certainty yet, but we can see russia circling.

No idea when it would start but there are only two outcomes I can see:

* Russia doesn't use nukes and get flattened. They don't have the troops, material or finances to deploy on even half the frontline.

* Russia use nukes and get flattened (and so does a chunk of EU). French doctrine when it come to nuclear warfare is quite agressive. Not idea how london would react, but major russian cities and/or ressource hubs would see retalations on kind.

I don't know how much support or opposition from the population such actions would have, but people are getting fed up with external threat burning so much of our governments time and attention on external issues (brexit, babysitting trump, russian threat) that internal issues get further pushed to the future.

>Europeans don't realise how close war is to their homes.

I would add 'Western-' to that. The Eastern Europeans are keenly aware, have been for years.

- Dutch person.

We are at war with Russia, but just as with climate or mass immigration, we refuse to address it.

Define Europeans - us Poles absolutely understand the danger. In fact I'd say we're already at war with Russia, the way they attack our democracy, our institutions and politics daily. But someone in Portugal might not see it the same way we do.

Europeans are just mentally incapable of reasoning about security matters. It's essentially forbidden to research.

If this was a protest it would be clear who did it. The farmers' have no incentive to mess with infrastructure without being visible for their cause.

Protests draw attention to your cause. This doesn't draw attention to anything, it is straightforward sabotage. Neither is it in line with how typical protestors operated before.

You are jumping to the assumption that foreign agents wouldn't be exposed, but any willing idiot can be bought to conduct such activity. Recent research in Denmark showed that sabotage comes, most likely, from locals, persuaded by foreign actors.

So two things could be true at once. A local 'protestor', disengaged through some issue (whether climate, farming or anything else), persuaded to join some 'resistance' by anyone.

I don't expect this to be supported by local protesting groups, like FDF or XR, either. Way too risky, media-wise.

Why is it sad for you for people to assume that recurring events with the same source are a base assumption to be made?

It is indeed possible Russia is behind it, but considering a domestic farmers' terror group has told its followers to cause disruption today (as it is a politically-significant day), and those are definitely disrupting highways, chances are good they are also responsible for the railway disruptions.

And if this is supposed to be war, then by European standards it is incredibly mild.

We don't know whether this was Russia, it's just as likely it was the "farmers defence force" or climate activists.

Edit: some context as I'm looking like a Russian shill now, which I understand. Today is the day that the budget gets announced, and the farmer terrorist organization (farmer defence force) have announced actions - and have disrupted highways by setting bales of hay on fire, and all the disruptions happened where farmer concentrations are high.

Regardless, the situation is dire, and probably either the tankies or terror farmers are being helped by Russian destabilizing forces, it's too early to call this disruption an action from the FSB.

What implications? Why wouldn't they want an, in this case real, external enemy they could use to distract the people from their own failures?

Yeah, not sure why not at least being upfront about the possibility is so hard. In Spain we've had train derailments, flocks of people being directed on social media to force themselves across borders, subterfuge deluxe everywhere and what not, yet the government is mostly silent and claim it's all unrelated, but it's hard to not also see the parallels across the continent and reach your own conclusions. But then also, don't wanna fall into some conspiracy theory trap either...

I think of it the other way: EU politicians want war but are not able to say it out loud and clear. Instead we get a bunch of "russian sabotage" all over the place with flimsy evidence to back it. Get the simple people into a paranoid state and use it to justify decisions which are already made. Classic FUD. And the people seem to swallow it.

And Russia is winning, they already have neutralized if not subjugated the US, but most of Europe is also heading towards that outcome, and fast. Russia is not this near omnipotent 5D chess mastermind behind all of the scenes in all of politics all across the West, but they are terrifyingly good at exploiting existing trends and influencing trajectories just so and they have been at it with great continuity over many decades. It's starting to really pay off. At this point, it's hard to imagine how the next German federal government could be anything else than either a completely dead-on-arrival coalition of polar opposites that only barely hangs on to keep the AfD out of government but will be unable to do anything at all, or an extremely Russia-friendly government the AfD is part of if not leads that is pretty much certain to continue within the EU what Trump started within NATO. Both outcomes serve Russia well, and the establishment has pretty much handed them that opportunity without meaningful resistance.

Starting? I've been worried for more than 4 years.

A desperate megalomaniac is a dangerous thing.

Robert J. Sawyer's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax

Checking some other calendars yields:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Nazi_Germany#National_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Text_of_the_law...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Days_of_Repentance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Democracy...

It's useful because if an issue is difficult, both levels can disavow responsibility.

> It seems as if one ambiguates the other.

Interestingly this mechanism contributed a lot to Brexit in my opinion, whenever there was legislation the politicians wanted to enact but knew would be unpopular with the voters they'd blame the EU and wring their hands saying there was nothing to be done, while in the background gold-plating the legislation far beyond what the EU was even asking for. This also made it easy for populists to point to many absurd examples of the EU being comically bureaucratic, when a lot of the more nonsensical ones were literally domestic additions. When the referendum happened, the consequences were obvious to everyone.

While no Brexiteer myself, I personally would want to see the European Parliament get a lot more powers and influence before I threw my wholehearted support behind rejoining. Half the problem with the EU is that it's seen as not particularly democratic as a place for legislation to originate, and giving the elected organ more power (including the power to propose legislation in its own right, and dismiss legislation proposed by the Commission with much more prejudice) would go a long way to addressing that I think. The Parliament needs to be more, well, parliamentary in how it functions.

No, it seems governments can only ignore the concerns then complain the 'alt-right' parties get voted

FYI Nord Stream had one end in Germany, which happens to be in Europe. So Nord Stream was driving oil to Europe, and some Europeans mattered.

That’s not true. It was (and is) a huge thing in the German news and public discussion, especially now that it’s brought up again with recent arrests of suspects, the explosives targeting cargo airports, etc.

Not sure where you get your news from, but plenty blinked.

I don't think he's very happy that his three day "special operation" is approaching five years.

Putin became a meme. He's almighty and weak at the same time. He's the Zar, Stalin AND Hitler in one person. He's been cloned at least a dozen times but seems to have a grave illness and will die soon. On the one hand it's funny to watch how people are losing their minds over it but on the other it just prevents a clear dialogue and assessment of a politician.

It's surprisingly cheap to recruit a few mugs to cause a bit of havoc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_arson_attacks_against_Kei...

This is very much why I find most people's AI doom scenarios trite.

Humans are useful, easily manipulated operatives in the medium AIs are conversant in and we already have evidence of agents doing exactly this in arguing for PR requests (likely with prompting by an operator but still).

It's not a "bunch of teenagers", a regular pipe won't cause a train to derail, one would need heavy machinery to move that rail in France

Also nobody is talking about aliens as an option?? /s

I really have no clue what this is supposed to refer to. LLMs with arms and legs, armed with pipes?

International politics is intellectually stimulating.

You're right, this is a political topic.

What one can do is provide accurate information on the one hand, and maybe flag the topic on the other.

Nerds like trains. A fair few of us live in NL too.

By the upvotes - a lot.

I think AI was mentioned in the article...