"Russian Vessel in Latvian Waters for 5th Time" Topic

It appears that the Ukraine isn't the only front where the Russians are pushing the envelope on territorial incursions, since there have been five incursions by their vessels into Latvian waters in less than a week:

link

Apparently, they've also made air incursions into Latvia as well, with their recon planes.

Sweden has also confirmed that a foreign submarine did enter its waters last month. The article didn't provide details, but I suspect they were able to do that via sonar/SOSUS analysis, after the fact, or they found some of those little minisub tracks on the bottom again, like they did back in the early 1980s.

Needless to say, these events, and Russian practice air strike sorties on Bornholm, and incursions into Swedish airspace have not gone unnoticed. Finland, and Norway have also noted a sharp increase in activity near their territory as well, amongst other European nations.

Countries in the region are planning on taking steps to address these new threats, or have already done so.

So, it appears the ultra-modern gamer has lots of scenarios to choose from, if you are looking for a good game in the Baltics region, on the land, sea, or in the air.

No doubt, the professional wargamers are already doing so, as I write this.

"The ship crossed into Latvian waters and was stopped by authorities approximately nine miles from the country's maritime border". What does that mean?

Swedish waters submarine was a hoax, so was Polish/Russian Ukraine division talks. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Sorry, today's news from Sweden seems to indicate otherwise, Igwarg1.

I don't know what you're going on about over the Polish/Russian Ukraine division talks, so you must have me confused with someone else.

I have made no comment about that, and don't even know what you are referring to.

Since nobody is going to be trading shots, might be a bit limited how much actual gaming you can do.

Might make a fun "player vs GM" scenario with double-blind movement.

One never really knows, especially if Latvia is given the Crimean treatment.

To make the military maneuvers scenario a bit more interesting, with a chance of going hot, each sides' forces get to try to maneuver for advantage. They only get to open fire on their opponent, on a roll of 2 for side A, or 12 for side B, on 2D6 dice.

The loser is surprised, and doesn't get to fire back, for a full turn.

You can play out the scenarios several times perhaps, without any shooting occurring (10 – 12 turns per game).

Of course, if one side rolls well, and gets authorization from above, things could go hot immediately, or shortly after the maneuvers start, as well.

"The ship crossed into Latvian waters and was stopped by authorities approximately nine miles from the country's maritime border". What does that mean?

Probably means entered into Latvia's Exclusive Economic Zone (200nm from the coast), and was turned around about 12nm from the coast. IIRC, the "Maritime border" (actual national waters) is 3nm from the coast.

But since I didn't play close to shore while I was in the Navy, I might have that backwards, that the Maritime border is 12nm out. Where's Chouan, he was a merchie and would probably remember better than I do.

Could add a rule for an accidental discharge. Local sub or ship commander decides to circumvent orders (or is seeing ghosts).
If played with a GM, the GM might give false readings. Player has to decide if they respond to fire first or not.
Next turn, the other player is informed that they've detected firing and has to react.

The article mentions interception at 9 miles, by the Latvian Navy, and says they violated Latvian waters and airspace.

Sounds like the Russians are upping the tension all around the board. The Cold War returns.

Doesn't Latvia and the other Baltic States have a large percentage of ethic Russians in their populations ? Like Crimea and the Ukraine …

Yes, and they claim they are being mistreated, so the scene is set for Crimea II, in Latvia.

I'm waiting for Russian paratroopers to drop out of the sky any day now, to protect Russian-speaking people here, who no doubt may have some grievances too.

Lithuanian has only a small minority of Russians, some 5,8% according to the last census but both Estonia and Latvia have much larger Russian minorities (about 25%).
Main complaints are to be found in Estonia and Latvia, mainly due to the loss of the favoured status the Russians enjoyed during the Soviet era combined with the new citizenship laws introduced by both countries.

But despite extensive propaganda efforts and a few nasty incidents in the last 10 years the situation is far less inflamed than in Ukraine. Despite the citizenship troubles Russians in both countries on average enjoyed a much higher average living standard than is found in Russia and you have much less corruption than in the Ukraine, a working democratic system, the rule of law is firmly in place and so on. There are some lingering hotspots of dissent like Narva but even there the problems are on a much smaller scale.

Of course nothing of this will prevent a Russian invasion to "protect" the Russian minority, that justification will be used regardless of the actual situation if Putin so desires.

Sweden has also confirmed that a foreign submarine did enter its waters last month. The article didn't provide details, but I suspect they were able to do that via sonar/SOSUS analysis, after the fact, or they found some of those little minisub tracks on the bottom again, like they did back in the early 1980s.

The confirmation is in fact the most solid one since the Sovite sub S-363 ran aground deep inside Swedish territory in 1981.
Main evidence was provided by sensors and has not been made public due to the need to not reveal the capabilities of the system(s) in question. Supporting evidence was provided by other observations by both military units and civilians. One declassified sonar photo has been published of a 70 meters long track found exactly were one of the ships got a strong sensor contact which managed to slip away before more units could converge and box in the contact.

It could well be that the sensor evidence which was given a rating of 1 ("Confirmed contact") is in fact some sort of signals intelligence of such a sensitive nature that not only is it highly classified but the nature of actual evidence is hidden with some very ambigious language. What ever the nature of the evidence the goverment took it very seriously and it was presented in a very unusual joint press conference by the PM, the minister of the defence and the Supreme Commander.

Doesn't Latvia and the other Baltic States have a large percentage of ethic Russians in their populations ? Like Crimea and the Ukraine …

Yes, and they claim they are being mistreated, so the scene is set for Crimea II, in Latvia.

I'm waiting for Russian paratroopers to drop out of the sky any day now, to protect Russian-speaking people here, who no doubt may have some grievances too.

One thing you're forgetting, Mako: All three Baltic nations are NATO members, so Article 5 would apply.

I'm reasonably certain Czar Vlad isn't so stupid as to start that fight.

5.8% might just be enough for Mr. Putin, Daniel … "No Russkie left behind … "

I haven't forgotten that at all, Lion.

I suspect it would be the perfect place for little green men to cause a commotion, and for NATO to be unable to handle it, putting a great strain on the alliance, if not outright breaking it.

Of course, Vlad would profess no involvement at all, just like as in Crimea, and now Eastern Ukraine, until it was a fait accompli, and perhaps even afterwards, if it suited his purposes. No doubt though, he would lend his support to stabilizing the situation for everyone involved there, since he is such a nice guy, in order to play to the media.

Well if Russia professed no involvement, it would have no complaints about the Little Green Men being eliminated by overwhelming NATO force….

NATO has its problems, but it can deploy enough to deal with a couple of hundred mercenaries quickly enough.

Main complaints are to be found in Estonia and Latvia, mainly due to the loss of the favoured status the Russians enjoyed during the Soviet era combined with the new citizenship laws introduced by both countries.

And those citizenship laws apparently have flow on to other things such as government jobs, ability to vote etc etc.

I'm surprised that EU turns a blind eye to such blatant discriminatory behaviour in one of its member states.

You mean like people actually needing to be a naturalized citizen to be allowed to vote, Thomas?

That's kinda standard for most nations. In fact, I don't know of any nation where you can vote without being naturalized!

As far as not allowing dual citizenship, the US didn't allow dual citizenship for years, and I know for a fact that Japan doesn't to this day.

The last time the Russians tried to get cute with the Finns and make a fighter jet incursion over Finnish airspace, the Prime Minister of Finland mentioned offhand in a speech the next week that Finland really needed to consider joining NATO.

That put a stop to Russian funny business, at least for while.

You mean like people actually needing to be a naturalized citizen to be allowed to vote, Thomas?

The biggest issue was that by 2000 Latvia was able to have what pretty much every country in the world considers to be a natural right (whether they have it or agree internally on how it applies), a (set of) native language(s) as the de jure official language of the country. This cut a lot of people functionally out of government and business.

The unfortunate part of it being that many of them did not voluntarily move into Latvia of their own volition as adults, but rather are inheriting the consequences from decisions of their ancestors or decisions imposed on their ancestors from a time with very different circumstances. Not that I have any reservations on the assertion of native languages in Latvia and their policy; I support it. I consider this to be the unfortunate effects of Soviet Occupation.

All can be a pretty tough concept for the majority of TMP users, who have grown up in countries without de jure official languages.

In the case of Estonia the law was that to be a citizen all of your grandparents had to be born in Estonia which was abit tricky for the ethnic Russians as the influx of Russians was in the 60s as the USSR invested in the industry of the Tallinn and Narva areas.

The Estonian requirements for naturalisation do not include having grandparents born in Estonia:

Those seeking to become Estonian citizens via naturalisation require to fulfill the following criteria:

applicant is aged 15 or over
resided in Estonia legally for at least eight years and from that last five years permanent stay in Estonia
be familiar in the Estonian language. People who have graduated from an Estonian-speaking high school or an institute of higher education are assumed to fulfill this criterion without the need to take a full examination.
take an examination demonstrating familiarity with the Estonian Constitution
showing a demonstrated means of support
taking an oath of loyalty

Those who have committed serious crimes or are foreign military personnel on active duty are ineligible to seek naturalisation as an Estonian citize

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The main point that causes difficulty is the language requirement and for some the oath of loyalty.

How many nations have an official de jure language?

The oath of loyalty is common to every nation's naturalization process.

Thank you for the correction though it still doesn't allow people born within the current borders of Estonia to be automatically an Estonian citizen like in most/all of the EU

…be familiar in the Estonian language

Not that unusual a request. The UK now requires Life in the UK test and knowledge of English for citizenship: gov.uk/english-language

The long residence requirement is 10 years lawful residence.

Thank you for the correction though it still doesn't allow people born within the current borders of Estonia to be automatically an Estonian citizen like in most/all of the EU

Being born in the UK does not automatically make you British.

The last time the Russians tried to get cute with the Finns and make a fighter jet incursion over Finnish airspace, the Prime Minister of Finland mentioned offhand in a speech the next week that Finland really needed to consider joining NATO.

Was that the time the Finnish air force couldn't launch an intercept because it had flown its allocation of overtime hours already?

I suspect that was a sensationalist media headline.

Being born in the UK does not automatically make you British.

Interesting, I did not know that.

I wonder how many other nations do not have jus solis citizenship?

I suspect that was a sensationalist media headline.

No, was an actual fact. They decided not to intercept but the reason as to why was never given. But there were accusations of no flying due to overtime which the air force denied. It then lauchned a probe into airforce leaks, which gives credence to overtime story.

yle.fi/uutiset/savon_sanomat_air_force_to_probe_leaks_in_airspace_violation_case/7272294

The President of Finland apparently acknowledged lack of overtime flying allocation was the issue.

helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/10790-finnish-jets-were-unable-to-respond-to-russian-airspace-violations-niinistoe-confirms.html

The supposed "secret" information on number of jets, locations of bases etc is freely available on the internet.

E.g. scramble.nl/orbats/finland

In any case the Finnish AF came out looking incompetent and obviously didn't have very good communication with either the Prime Minister's office or the President's office who bother have misrepresented facts according to the Finnish air force.

The same thing has happened in Switzerland when they couldn't stop a hijacked airliner due to it being out of office times. Austria is now in the same boat having just gutted Eurofighter pilots and flight hours.

The Swedes also weren't able to scramble a single jet (out of 100 odd operational) to intercept Russian aircraft and had to rely on NATO Baltic policing jets.

This is the 21st century and much of European defence has become bureaucratic and budget concious to the extreme. Of course the budget conciousness only applies to actual forces and not bloated bureaucracies or economically unsustainable job creation programs that maintain a fiction of indigenous self sufficiency.

Being born in the UK does not automatically make you British.

Interesting, I did not know that.

Many have assumed it does, but generally at least one parent must be British at the time of birth for citizenship to be automatic.

However check the Belgian laws on nationality where the child has no nationality and us born in Belgium.

This was used to effect in the case of Zambrano. The parents (both Colombian) were refused refugee status but didn't leave the country, and refused to register their new born children as Colombian citizens. This made them Belgian citizens with a right to stay in Belgium, and as minors the Parents had to be granted the right to stay and look after them.

If I recall correctly Germany has a similar requirement. Your Mother must be German to make you a citizen of Germany. I think that was to prevent the Turks (or any other minority) working in Germany from claiming citizenship with all the perks of the German social system. Don't know if that's true today or not.

We need to enact the UK's citizenship policy here, to eliminate the birthing tourist trade, amongst other issues related to that.

Do the test Geoff changes of anyone born in the UK before 1983 not being a British citizen is pretty remote, and it doesn't change that much for people born after that date.
link

Do the test Geoff chances of anyone born in the UK before 1983 not being a British citizen is pretty remote, and it doesn't change that much for people born after that date.
link