Aeroflot Hacked – Source: www.schneier.com

Clive Robinson • July 29, 2025 5:54 PM

@ AlexT, ALL,

With regards,

“why pull the plug in such a public fashion?”

You could ask similar with,

“Why did the vikings / marauders burn the place down when they raided?”

It appears not to make sense after all leave enough of the village then they villagers will have enough to get back to a point where you can raid them again.

The reason was two fold, firstly to “send a message far and wide” with the smoke being visible for miles. Secondly so that the villagers had less materials etc to build back with thus they would be less likely to build fortifications.

Similar logic applies. Firstly by making the attacks public they “get the message out far and wide way beyond the censorship and spin which Putin uses to control public perception (though he will try). It also spreads the message that they can attack any where any time and Putin’s boys can not stop them. But importantly people are not hurt just inconvenienced Thus there is little moral outrage against the attackers but there is annoyance against the authorities for allowing it to happen. Thus the people tend to blame Putin for their immediate misfortune their disrupted holidays etc.

But it has a longer term effect because it will be remembered. Which also aids in building a sense of futility almost a sense of doom and helplessness in people like a form of disaster shock that instills a sense of systemic failure. That after a while becomes anger that because Putin started this he brought it down on their heads. Such disquiet has economic effects as well as political.

Secondly it forces Putin’s hand, as he represents himself as a man of both action and iron. Therefore he has to “be seen to act” publicly. Which due to the wide spread nature the attack has spread it will take significant resources creating not just “Security Theater” but actually denying those resources to military activities for attacking the Ukraine.

These things might appear small but Putin is in an awkward position at the moment economically. By playing deferment tricks the rapidly building economic cost has been kept hidden and actually made to look like economic growth by burning through the reserves there is little or no resilience left. So even a very small increase in pressure can be the “last straw” and collapse happens and the snow ball of recession starts to roll.

It’s why I mentioned the “energy tap” and the reversed effect of turning it off.

In the past Putin has turned the energy tap on and off to exert political pressure on other nations to bring them into line. He could do this because he had significant financial reserves thus did not see any visible ill effect on the Russian economy. Now with no reserves and the energy tap going to be turned off the desperately needed income stream into Russia from gas supply to Europe will stop.

The blowing up of the Russia Germany pipeline ment Russia had few options of which pumping gas through the Ukraine was in reality the only one.

But the destruction of the pipeline sent a message to Europe to sort their act out, and expensive though it has been they’ve stepped up on this.

This leaves Russia with only oil to export hence the build up of the tanker shadow fleet that is now suffering all sorts of odd expensive and slow to fix issues that don’t create environmental issues.

Plus the Western European seaboard “ring of nations” that the Russian Shadow fleet has to sail through their waters are now taking action to legally blockade them.

In part this is the result of shadow fleet vessels dragging anchors over subsea energy cables etc thus these vessels as far as the international view is concerned realy are seen as a “clear and present danger”.

So contrary to what has been reported in some places the Ukraine really does have “chips on the table” for peace talk negotiations and Putin knows it.