Russian warship ‘passed through English Channel in disguise'

Telegraph

9 hours ago

A Russian warship passed through the English Channel in disguise over the weekend, according to reports.
The corvette Boikiy, which has guided missiles and mounted machine guns, is said to have broadcast a fake ID signal as it travelled through the Channel on Saturday.
It is not the first time this year the warship has entered British waters after being tracked in March making its way through the Channel and North Sea.
This time, it reportedly travelled alongside two oil tankers, the Sierra and the Naxos, which are part of Russia's shadow fleet, a network of tankers that transport sanctioned Russian oil using deceptive practices.
Using military ships as protection has been viewed as an attempt by Moscow to deter the UK and other Nato states from seizing shadow fleet vessels.
Last month, a Russian shadow Kilo-class submarine, Krasnodar, was detected in the Channel, forcing the Navy to deploy HMS Tyne to track it. That came just two weeks after HMS St Albans and HMS Mersey shadowed Russian vessels through the Channel in a separate incident.
At the same time, the number of Russian oil tankers passing through the Channel has almost doubled since London sanctioned Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine, according to data analysis by The Telegraph.
Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior research scientist at the Centre for Naval Analyses, told the BBC: 'The action seems designed to deter the UK and other Nato states from attempting to board and, or, seize these vessels, since the presence of a military escort heightens the risk of confrontation and further escalation.'
BBC Verify, the broadcaster's fact-checking unit, said the Boikiy did not activate its tracking systems when it departed from Conakry, the capital of Guinea, in West Africa earlier this month.
The ship reportedly failed to activate its automatic identification system (AIS), which alerts fellow seafarers and coastal authorities of its location, route and other safety-related information to aid safe passage at sea.
Generic identification number
Instead, it is said to have travelled under a generic identification number 400000000, which made it wrongly appear on tracking sites as previous vessels to have used that ID.
Verify, which used satellite imagery, tracking data, and video footage to identify the warship, said it passed near the Canary Islands before meeting the two shadow tankers at the mouth of the Channel on June 20.
The Royal Navy is reported to have shadowed the Boikiy as it then passed through the Channel towards the Baltic Sea. Webcam footage later appeared to show the warship passing underneath the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark.
Frederik Van Lokeren, an analyst and former officer in the Belgian navy, said it was unusual for a Russian warship to disguise itself.
'Normally, if the Russians want to remain hidden in secret, they just turn off their AIS signal,' he said. 'So for them to be camouflaging as something else… it's very, very uncommon.'