Seems I was a little too slow, but here we go anyway:
The Red Niagara Incident.
A serious naval mishap in the 2000s and one of the catalysts for the outbreak of the Second Cold War. Prior to the incident, the West-East tensions were on the decline and a rebalancing of power occurred in Europe: Germany had reunified, the Baltic States had gained independence and Premier Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces from Eastern Europe as he focused on turning the Soviet Union into the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics via the New Union Treaty. Ex-communist nations of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria entered the NATO alliance in the 1990s. In neighbouring Romania however things were different as the Ceaușescu regime weathered the changes and remained in power despite having deteriorated relations with both the West and Soviets. A Romanian Civil War broke out in 1998 when the regime was weakened by a transfer of power from Nicolae Ceaușescu to his son Nicu Ceaușescu.
Since Romania shared a border with both the U.S.S.R. and N.A.T.O. states the global powers attempted to keep the violence and chaos from spilling over the border. U.N. resolutions, supported by both Washington and Moscow, established no-fly zones and naval exclusion areas to prevent areal or costal bombardments of cities. It was under these conditions that the April 25, 2000 Red-Niagara Incident took place. While patrolling Romania’s littoral waters the Canadian nuclear attack submarine HMCS
Niagara (formerly known as the USS
Glenard P. Lipscomb before she was sold by Washington to Ottawa) fired torpedoes at the Soviet missile cruiser
Chervona Ukrayina (“Red Ukraine”) after incorrectly identifying the latter as a Romanian ship. While both East and West worked quickly to deescalate the situation the attack had profound and long-lasting impact. Previously many within the Kremlin were suspicious of detente with the West and critical of both Gorbachev’s withdrawal from Europe and N.A.T.O.’s expansion. The Red-Niagara Incident gave this faction a boost, spurring Gorbachev’s ouster and a return to a more confrontational stance towards the Western alliance and its expansion towards the Soviet heartland.
Following a series of secret meetings, an agreement between the Moscow and Washington was reached on ending the Romanian quagmire without new “friendly fire” incidents. Using humanitarian grounds as justification, a joint N.A.T.O.-Soviet invasion of Romania took place. Romania was split into 2 by Soviet and Western forces with a “demilitarized zone” between them to avoid shooting incidents. After the dismantling of the Ceaușescu regime a U.N. backed process was to determine the fate of the country but it stalled, leaving the nation split in two as a flashpoint in the Second Cold War.
Decades later the impact of the Red Niagara Incident is still felt around the world. In 2019 an ex-Soviet immigrant to Canada attempted to bomb the Canadian Parliament. Upon capture, the individual revealed that the their relative was killed while serving aboard
Chervona Ukrayina during the incident and the attack on the parliament was motivated by feelings of revenge.
Next up:
Rescuing the Titanic: The SS Californian Story.