A new documentary has shed new light
on a fleet of Russian ghost ships
gathering intelligence in the North Sea.
The investigation
by four public broadcasters
from four Nordic countries
say the ships have used
underwater surveillance equipment
to map key sites.
Those include military
training areas, oil
and gas fields, airports
and even windfarms.
The broadcaster
say some of the ships
identify themselves as research vessels
or fishing trawlers.
But the reports say that route suggests
they're up to something else entirely.
The Kremlin's chief spokesperson
is calling the accusations baseless
Well, Steve
Hall is a CNN
national security
analyst and former chief
of Russia operations
for the CIA. Steve,
thanks for being with us.
Great to be here.
So in February,
Dutch military intelligence reported
a Russian ship was detected
near an offshore
wind farm and was escorted
out of the North Sea
by the Dutch Coast Guard,
with officials
later warning
Russia is secretly charting
this infrastructure
and is undertaking activities
which indicate preparations
for disruption and sabotage.
And a few months before that, a southern
defense analyst tweeted this.
If you live on the East Coast of Scotland
and you look out your window today,
you might see the Russian spy
ship, Admiral
Vladimir Ski, heading south.
It's been known for a while
that Russian ships
often described as research
vessels or fishing trawlers
have been mapping the location of,
you know,
critical maritime infrastructure.
It seems this new information,
which is our public,
is about the extent
of that spying operation, in particular
the number of Russian ships involved.
So what more do we know at this point?
Well, you know, what we
what we know at this point,
I think, is sort of a reinforcement
or simply an escalation
of what really
has been going on for decades.
The Russians
certainly since Vladimir Putin took over,
but probably before then as well,
have always been very active
and very active
in the Baltic region,
especially in the Baltic
Maritime situation,
because it's key
to how
they viewed their defensive posture.
And now that NATO's has enlarged,
notably Finland,
which has increased the land border
we can't forget
because a lot of people spent
a lot of time looking at land maps.
There is a huge ocean map,
of course, that the Russians
have to be concerned about,
as do NATO's allies, new or old,
because of the huge coastlines
that they have.
So this is actually something
that's been going on for a long time.
But the new pieces
now, we're seeing exactly how large
this new effort is to collect
that sort of intelligence
that the Russians believe
that they need
because of the threat
that they feel from NATO's.
It's also coming in the background
of the war in Ukraine.
So how does that play to this?
Can we expect some kind of Russian attack
on these maritime assets?
What this is, is preparation,
because they understand
that they might have to
there might be a time
when they have to either fight
to protect themselves or push back
or at least that's what they believe.
There's also a propaganda
angle to this, John,
and that is that the Russians
want to say, well, what did you expect?
Of course,
if NATO's going to act
recklessly and threaten Russia,
you know,
we have to protect our interests.
Of course,
NATO's a defensive alliance
and has no intention
of doing anything against Russia
unless Russia attacks first
but they have to be prepared,
the Russians
do, for any eventuality that they think
they think could happen
in this joint investigation
by public broadcasters
from four Nordic countries
track that the aforementioned vessel,
the Admiral Vladimir Ski,
which was approached by journalists
from these four broadcasters.
This is what happened in that instance.
Here it is.
We're filming everything on the ship
and filming in tennis.
As we've been told by the source.
I can
see crew members
walking around on the deck.
I think they're watching us.
There's two men staring at us
while they're looking at us.
This is really a strange situation,
almost a tense situation.
They're looking at us
even though this ship had disabled
its locator beacon.
It appears that the Muskie
had been approaching wind farms.
And as it did, it slowed down
and loitered in the area.
And according
to the Norwegian Broadcasting
Company,
that all of these Russian vessels
have been sailing past military training
areas, important oil and gas fields
small airports,
deep water keys
and strategically important hubs
for the Norwegian armed forces.
So what intelligence
are they actually being able to get here?
How would that intelligence
be used by Russia?
And how vulnerable are these sites?
So this is a
this is an intelligence
bonanza, I think for for
Russia is the best way to say it.
The Russians are looking at
potential targets
that they would consider attacking
perhaps as part of their their philosophy
of of not necessarily direct warfare,
but hybrid warfare.
So, you know,
we've seen strange things happen
beneath the surface of the Baltics.
You know, recently there was
there was the pipeline
that somehow was was blown up.
We still don't have at least
publicly don't understand
exactly how that happened.
But the Russians
see great value in targets
such as gas pipelines.
Some of these huge communication cables
that go across the Atlantic,
which carry critical information
not just for the functioning
of our society,
but for the functioning of
of the military
as well, of the wind farms.
People might be saying,
well, what about a wind farm?
But when you think about it,
that's essentially infrastructure.
And if it's energy infrastructure
that we're talking about,
the Russians
are going to be very interested
to know how they can make life difficult
for the West
if they go after some of these targets.
So all of
that is valuable
and viable collection information
that the Russians really need
if they want to conduct
some sort of hybrid warfare
that they can later deny
so that they don't
feel the full wrath of NATO's or the West
in the military fashion against them.
There's a lot there for them
that they're that they want to collect
and are interested
in these ghost ships
they call them,
which are floating around
without their, like,
locator beacons on
you know,
essentially everyone to see,
which is quite interesting
in all of this sea,
I think is being with us.
We really appreciate it.