The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | December 27th, 2024: Undersea Cable Sabotage & South Korea's Leadership Crisis Deepens
28 Dec 2024
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: We’ll begin today with a potential act of sabotage by Moscow, as Finland seizes a Russian oil tanker suspected of severing undersea power and data cables on Christmas Day. Then, South Korea’s government descends further into chaos, as their parliament impeaches the current acting president, just two weeks after suspending President Yoon Suk Yeol’s powers over his highly controversial martial law declaration. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
It's Friday, 27 December. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. All right, to be fair, it is the late afternoon, almost bordering on the early evening bulletin. I'm still on the road and still somewhere out in East Asia. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed.
We'll begin today with a potential act of sabotage by Moscow as Finland seizes a Russian oil tanker suspected of severing undersea power and data cables on Christmas Day.
Then South Korea's government descends further into chaos as their parliament impeaches the current acting president just two weeks after suspending President Yun Suk-yeol's powers over his controversial and bizarre martial law declaration. But first, our afternoon spotlight.
We'll begin in the Baltic Sea, where it appears that the Kremlin may be intensifying their shadow war against Kyiv's NATO allies. Finland seized a tanker carrying Russian oil in the Baltic Sea on Thursday on suspicion that it had severed an undersea power cable and several internet cable lines on Christmas Day. Finnish authorities said the vessel may be part of Russia's infamous shadow fleet.
That's what they're calling it, the shadow fleet of aging tankers used to skirt Western sanctions on the sale of Russian oil. That's according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Three of the cables in question connected Finland and Estonia, while another connected Finland with Germany.
Now, Finnish officials stressed that the country's energy and telecommunication services remained stable despite the damage as they were able to fall back on reserve cables to avoid data and power disruptions. Still, they warned that the damage could take months to repair and worsening weather conditions could potentially prolong their work and put the country's power supply in jeopardy.
Authorities said the Russian vessel slowed down as it passed over the cables on Wednesday with its anchor dragging on the seabed, roughly around the same time that the cables ceased functioning. Now, that could be what some would refer to as a clue. They added that the tanker briefly lingered over the site before continuing on its journey. Possibly another clue.
Shortly after midnight on Thursday, Finnish special forces raided the vessel and have since been interrogating its crew on suspicion of, quote, aggravated criminal mischief. Is that what we call severing important undersea cables? Mischief.
Finland's prime minister said it was too early to say whether the Russian government played a role in the incident, but Finland's NATO allies aren't taking any chances By Friday, NATO leadership announced the alliance would boost its military presence in the Baltic Sea, while Estonia launched their own naval operation to guard nearby electricity cables
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