Russian navy steals Estonian university’s wave buoy, takes it to Kaliningrad

https://news.err.ee/1609704723/russian-navy-steals-estonian-university-s-wave-buoy-takes-it-to-kaliningrad

by happevann

39 comments

  2. Estonian university may want to check all remaining buoys and make sure they haven’t been tampered with. If the buoys also contain magnetometers to detect big metallic masses like covert ships (or submarines) passing by, the Russians could have all interests in compromising them to be able to disable them on command from distance.

  3. The Russians will steal anything that isn’t nailed down.

  4. Russian naval vessels in late April stole a wave measuring buoy created and operated by Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) from its location off the island of Hiiumaa, researchers claim.

    Rivo Uiboupin, director of TalTech’s center for marine systems, said: “The buoy was located about 50 kilometers from Hiiumaa. It is within Estonia’s exclusive economic zone. This is not exactly territorial waters, but Estonia has the right to carry out various activities there.”

    “The buoy was properly registered with the Transport Administration and was performing its routine function. We have 10 such buoys working the same way in coastal waters and the open sea,” he added.

    The institute designed the wave buoy, a device 50 centimeters in diameter, to measure wave characteristics. Similar equipment is also used elsewhere, for instance in the Arctic, Norway, and Finland.

    Over the period April 26–29, the institute noticed from its analysis of data emitted by the buoy that its movements no longer matched natural conditions on the sea. With the proximity of the location to Latvia, the institute asked the Estonian Navy’s (Merevägi) operations center to call in a nearby Latvian naval vessel to investigate.

    Cdr Ivo Värk, commander of the Estonian navy, said that while there were none of its vessels in the area, Latvia’s navy was also unable to physically locate the buoy. “With the help of the Latvian Navy, it was possible to match the buoy’s movement to the movements of Russian naval ships in the area,” he said.

    The institute also identified the presence of two vessels in the buoy’s vicinity that had their automatic identification systems switched off. These turned out to be Russian Navy ships.

    “The vessels were Bujan M-class corvettes. This was a routine patrol operation,” Värk said.

    Värk said he does not believe the Russian navy was testing Estonian and Latvian responses, suggesting instead the Russian vessels may have considered it a navigation hazard.

    “If, for some reason, the navigation warning had not reached their charts, they may have lacked information about the presence of this measuring buoy. And any object not marked on a nautical chart poses a navigation hazard,” Värk added.

    In any case, by the time the Latvian vessel was on the scene, the buoy had been taken to the Kaliningrad oblast, eventually ending up at the Russian navy’s Baltic Fleet headquarters there.

    Uiboupin said: “We got the GPS signal, and on the map it was visible how it moved toward Kaliningrad, into the port, and eventually to a military facility.”

    The incident came almost a year after Russia’s border guard removed more than 20 buoys demarcating shipping lanes from the Narva River, which forms part of Estonia’s eastern border.

    As of May, Russia has still [not returned](https://news.err.ee/1609638583/estonia-reiterates-call-for-russia-to-hand-over-stolen-narva-river-buoys) the stolen buoys. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has contacted its Russian counterparts, but without success.

    However, TalTech’s marine systems center says it is not giving up – next week it will place a new floating device at the same location.

  6. Russia is like that loud and abrasive neighbour that everyone hates because they are dirty thieves and always starting fights, mostly bullying people that are smaller than them.

  9. > Värk said he does not believe the Russian navy was testing Estonian and Latvian responses, suggesting instead the Russian vessels may have considered it a navigation hazard.

  11. Literally the worst neighbours in the world.

    Why can’t they just be happy in their own shithole? 

  12. Now Russia isn’t just kidnapping boys and taking them into Russia. They’re also kidnapping buoys…

  14. Well it’s not like Russia is going to invent or contribute anything.

  16. Why can’t Russia just be a normal country? They literally have all the resources they need to be rich.

  17. Damn, they really are scraping the barrel to get anything nowadays.

  21. Put a naval mine inside next time. Will be a nice surprise for russkies.

  22. When will our European leaders finally have enough of the clear danger that Putin represents and do something other than bitch on tv or social media?

  23. Russia stealing stuff, the grass is green.. what else is new

  26. “That buoy was at some point touched by Russian water, so it clearly needed to be ~~annexed~~ protected from Estonian gay nazis”

    _The average Russian nationalist, probably_

  28. Of course we cannot blockade the Russians, that would be an act of war. If they want to sail into the Baltic, they obviously should be able to… as long as they agree to and pay for inspecting and escorting of their vessels.

    If they don’t they are free to stay in their ports or else get torpedoed for being a credible threat to our infrastructure.

  30. They should replace it with one full of explosives detonated by geofence

  34. Gosh, living in a country that is right next to Russia must be so stressful and annoying…

  35. leave no buoy behind…nato must prepare mission to rescue our buoy from evil ruskies

  37. “The incident came almost a year after Russia’s border guard removed more than 20 buoys demarcating shipping lanes from the Narva River, **which forms part of Estonia’s eastern border**”

    That’s the reason, if some of you think it’s simple trolling

  39. There’s a saying in Finland “Kasakka ottaa sen, mikä on huonosti kiinni” or “The Cossack will take everything that is left loose”.

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