At this point it's literally a war crime. Claim denial and accidents all they wanted before, but if the sailors are outright acknowledging it was intentional to attack civilian infrastructure, it's by definition a war crime
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949?activeTab=1949GCs-APs-and-commentaries
- War crimes don't matter anymore. Russia does them, Israel does them, the US does them. There is no justice.
  
  Does Germany do them any more? How about Ireland?
- Russia has been using the list of war crimes as a checklist of things to do for 3 years
  
  Much, much longer than that. But yes, they picked up the pace again in recent years.
  
  Nah. You have just been paying attention for three years.
- I don't think it's officially a war. So it's a regular crime and I think that's also better, because the victim country can react more quickly and more powerful.

Hang the captain and first mate, take the oil, sink the ship. This is how we've always dealt with pirates.
- Scrap the ship, don't sink it. We have more than enough waste on the bottom of the various oceans and seas as is.
  
  You can responsibly strip and scuttle large vessels to help facilitate reef development
  
  They use end of life ships for this shenanigans anyway. They are essentially already scrap.
  
  Does hitting a Russian warship with it at full speed count as scrapping?
- Aim it at the port of St Petersburg and put it on full power. Let them deal with it
  
  The captain is Georgian and the crew is Georgian and Indian according to the article, why saint Petersburg?
- An extremely public trial would be more effective.
- In some civilized parts of the world, we've renounced death penalty some time ago and only the far-right wants it back.
  
  "They go low, we go high!"
- Strap em to an anchor
  
  Fuck them with a rusty anchor
- And how do we deal with saboteurs and enablers of sanctions evasion?

The head of the investigation, Risto Lohi of the National Bureau of Investigation, told Reuters the vessel was threatening to cut a second power cable, Estlink1, and the BalticConnector gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized.
"Lohi" is Finnish for "salmon". That's right. Inspector Salmon is in charge of this investigation. Thankyou, Finland.
- This Lovely Bones sequel is weird
- Oh my gosh people Finland isn't even real. They're is no landmass. FIN-LAND. It's all fish! They're even rubbing our faces in it with these stupid names.
  
  Shhh! Don't give us away!

I wonder if NATO is going to try and enforce a blockade where any ship travelling through the area of cables must be escorted.
- I hope so. And bill the “ghost fleet” for any costs.

Lock them up.

Steal some of the oil. Replace it at correct stoichiometric ratio with ammonium nitrate or some other powerful oxidiser. Attach a detonator and tracking device to the ship. Don't tell the crew. Let the crew go free. When the ship reaches its destination, detonate. Halifax explosion, round two.
Fuck you, whoever would buy Russian oil.
- I should maybe add that I don't think this is actually a good idea. I can just see that it's scientifically possible, and I enjoy constructing scenarios like this.
  But to those who are riding Putin's dick, just know that these are the things the West could do, but chooses not to. And the fuck you to all buyers of Russian oil still stands. I don't care how poor they are.
  
  Oh yeah, it's just fun to imagine murdering a bunch of civilians, who have absolutely no say in whose oil just sailed into their harbour. Disgusting.
  Would you rather buy Saudi oil? American oil? Yeah, like that's any better.
  
  "...these are the things the West could do, but chooses not to." Yeah, the West does whatever TF it's done in Afghanistan, Iraq, West Asia, whatever France has done in Africa. "fuck you to all buyers of Russian oil" You mean like the US and EU? What do u think happens to the Russian oil once it's refined to actual useful oil?
- You realize that a lot of Russian oil gets "laundered" and then imported to the EU? So you would likely blow up an EU port, which is like a double Christmas and birthday gift to Putin.
  
  It would probably blow up the port doing the laundering, which is unlikely to be happening in the EU.
  But it would even more likely blow up an Indian or Chinese port.
  It doesn't matter. Like I said, I think this is a really bad idea. Mainly because it is collective punishment, and almost all of the thousands of victims would have had nothing to do with their corporations' and their governments' decision to buy that oil.

They are russian flagged vessels right? What does that mean in terms of ability to do things about them?
I assume you can't legally just board/sink them, even with cause?
- They are russian flagged vessels right?
  No, this specific ship is registered in the Cook Islands.
  
  As are many I believe? Like how most US companies incorporate in Delaware I think it's for tax reasons.
- Edit: I thought that the gulf of Finland was narrower than it is, and this affects the relevance of my comment. See boredtortoise's reply below
  Under UNCLOS at least, a country can board a ship within its territorial waters to investigate a crime "if the consequences of the crime extend to the coastal State" (and some other reasons). Sinking it is almost certainly illegal, but it's an unarmed ship and Finland has marines so I can't imagine that they'd have much trouble boarding it if they wanted to
  
  The boat was caught on international waters without an anchor when the event happened. The Coast guard asked it kindly to move into Finnish waters where the police boarded the boat with the border guard giving a chopper ride.
  No marine equivalents were actually needed which has the benefit of the apprehension not being a military action which could've easily been made escalatory in propaganda.
  
  Ty, I was expecting them to be russian flagged to 'dare' NATO to mess with them as an excuse to do... Something

Pay them to sabotage the infrastructure of Russia and its allies. Plainly all this crew wants is money.
- Oh, also, steal the oil.
  
  Ah yes that's it. Steal the oil, sell it, and use the proceeds to pay the crew to sabotage Russia and its allies.

"travel bans"? huh. you'd think the finish would be aware if russia wants their people back, and those people are free to roam the streets, they're gonna come and get em. these fuckers should be in jail, safely behind bars until trial.
- They are still on the ship, and cannot get to land because of the lack of visas.
  
  We can dump them in a rowboat near Russias border. Keeping them just means feeding them. They are not worth the food.
- The crew isn't Russian though. Just hired help that don't care too much what they're paid to do. Russia doesn't care about their fate.
  
  Indeed. I for one would like these ass hats to have a good look at the culture they were so willing to fuck with, for such little money. The best view is not from a prison cell.
- One does not simply leave Finland.

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