[guelo]

You provide no evidence why one scenario is far more likely than the other. There are much more direct ways that Russia is winning favour with those governments such as fighting Syria's wars for them or signing a gas pipeline deal with Turkey.

[xXx_swat21_xXx]

If Russia was tapping Syrian cables... they'd do so on shore. They don't need to do it at the bottom of the ocean; it's the same way the United States taps cables in many allied countries.

It is rumoured that Russian SIGINT tipped off the Erdogan government of the coup, not American SIGINT, which would suggest that Americans were complicit with the coup. To win further favour with the Erdogan government Russia would love to pants the United States by showing they are tapping their "ally's" telecom infrastructure. You may remember the NSA also tapped Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, an ally. You may also remember the NSA tapped all Greek telecom as well; also an Ally. Do you think the United States isn't tapping the Turkish telecom lines?

The Israelis clearly have the Lebanese telecom system tapped in about a hundred different ways, from buried taps on shore to underwater taps at sea. Do you doubt that too? Wouldn't it be in Russia and Syria's best interest to help Hezbollah?

[rosser]

I think you may have misunderstood the grandparent comment's use of the word "evidence".

[xXx_swat21_xXx]

Why would Russia tap Turkey's telecom? Why would Russia tap Syria's telecom? Why would Russia tap Lebanon's telecom?

I've offered up motive for why they would be looking to un-do taps that are already there, but haven't heard any competing explanation to why Russia would tap commercial undersea cables.

The American military does not use commercial undersea cables for their trans-continental communications, by the way. So, if the RV Yantar is not near commercial cables, they could be near secret military cables, or Anti-Submarine Warfare equipment set up by the Americans, Israelis, Greeks - who knows.

I'm trying to point out that latching onto the idea that they're loitering above and tapping/sabotaging underwater commercial cables is only one of many things they could be doing. Since we don't even know the location of those cables, it's extremely speculative to say they're loitering above them to begin with.