Ukraine’s security service blew up a railway connection linking Russia to China, in a clandestine strike carried out deep into enemy territory, with pro-Kremlin media reporting that investigators have opened a criminal case into a “terrorist attack.”
The SBU set off several explosions inside the Severomuysky tunnel of the Baikal-Amur highway in Buryatia, located some 6,000 kilometers east of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the operation told POLITICO.
“This is the only serious railway connection between the Russian Federation and China. And currently, this route, which Russia uses, including for military supplies, is paralyzed,” the official said.
Four explosive devices went off while a cargo train was moving inside the tunnel. “Now the (Russian) Federal Security Service is working on the spot, the railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimize the consequences of the SBU special operation,” the Ukrainian official added.
Ukraine’s security service has not publicly confirmed the attack. Russia has also so far not confirmed the sabotage.
I’m no expert, please take this with a massive chunk of salt, but as far as I understand it China is trying to balance their relationship with Russia with their relationship with the US. I’d expect the reaction to a rail bombing like this to be muted and cautious.
Good point. It has seemed recently like they’re trying to make nice with the US again all of a sudden. Some of their comments after visiting San Francisco were very out of step with their rhetoric up until recently. At least as far as what I have gathered from news articles. I don’t really have a great grasp on the nuances of it myself. They’re a difficult government to understand sometimes.
I think their trying to get a pro China movement in the west. I also think it’s working.
They are going to have a hard time recovering from their dot balloons and the shot they pull in Taiwan, at least as far as public opinion goes. But democrats seem to be offering them some kind of economic deals that they seem to be happy about. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
I think part of the problem is that US media generally accepts the US state department’s interpretation of Chinese foreign policy. That makes it difficult to interpret China’s aims since it’s buried under pro US bias.
Personally, I think the Chinese government appears relatively predictable if you can parse various global sources including the actual statements China publishes. Granted that’s a bit more difficult since it means accounting for all the biases of each source.
China and Russia share similar ideologies but that’s about where the similarities ends.
China isn’t insane and actually understands restraint unlike Russia they’re not going to go charging into something without examining the consequences. China really doesn’t want to get involved in this if they can help it, as I’ve looked at it and it’s only downsized as far as they can see.
If Russia does attack NATO and NATO gets involved, and the Chinese still send them resources after that point, then it’s possible NATO will consider China to be involved and therefore a legitimate target. This will mean that China will have to go toe-to-toe with the US military, and they really don’t want to.
Of course all of those are big if’s, and to be honest are very unlikely but it’s not an impossibility and the risk they’ve decided isn’t worth the very little reward.