It was already an established fact Russia/Putin can’t be trusted, there was no trust left to be broken. If it weren’t for the war this unsuccessful attempt to map wouldn’t even be major news. It’s two day old news about something that happened months ago, that’s almost ancient history for people more worried about their first-world problems. Instead of chinese balloons, we get Russian jets, bombers and spy planes and ships on a somewhat regular basis. Like recently the news two dutch F-35 scrambled Russian planes is nothing new. Belgium and NL each got 2 of them ready 24/7 to take off in just minutes specifically to escort Russian troll planes away from our own airspace. Same with Norway, UK, Germany etc. Happens 300+ times a year in europe. It’s like whack-a-mole. The cold war never really ended so this isn’t as big news or rattling as it may seem.
Although needed to meet emission goals, it’s not a critical infrastructure yet. Might be in 7-10 years though. Right now it would amount to vandalism more than sabotage unless the goal is to disrupt efforts to curb climate change. The Russians know they’ll be escorted away immediately, whether it’s ships or planes, not like they can easily go in unnoticed in our small but busy area. Neighboring countries already track or escort them and inform us of their arrival. So these half-assed attempts doomed to fail are a nuisance, trolling, weak and futile attempts at intimidation.
Amsterdam has the largest internet exchange in the world, it’s for digital packets what Rotterdam is for physical goods, and Russia mapped the data cables in the sea with submarines a few years ago. Sabotaging those would have a more direct noticeable effect.
Speaking of energy… Dutch state-owned company Tennet owns most of the high voltage grid lines in NL and a good chunk of Germany’s grid. Germany wants to buy the part in Germany so their own goverment has full control.
The German and Dutch economy ministries said they cannot confirm a Bloomberg news agency report saying Berlin was in discussions to pay more than 20 billion euros ($21.32 billion) for Dutch electricity grid operator TenneT's German unit.
www.reuters.com
20billion extra to throw at energy crisis and support for Ukraine.