{"id":110627,"date":"2023-10-26T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edu.danwatch.dk\/how-armed-spies-sailed-on-a-secret-mission-in-denmark\/"},"modified":"2023-10-31T14:58:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:58:14","slug":"how-armed-spies-sailed-on-a-secret-mission-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edu.danwatch.dk\/en\/how-armed-spies-sailed-on-a-secret-mission-in-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"How armed spies sailed on a secret mission in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Officially, the Russian ship Evgeny Gorigledzhan is a research vessel.<\/p>\n\n

In reality, it is a state-of-the-art military intelligence ship belonging to one of Russia’s most secretive and offensive military underwater units. A ship with heavy capabilities to map, survey and, in extreme cases, sabotage critical seabed infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n

For this very reason, it has caused a stir that the spy ship on its maiden voyage appears to have sailed directly from its shipyard in Kaliningrad to the Danish-German waters of the Fehmarn Belt.<\/p>\n\n

Publicly available AIS data – i.e. position signals transmitted from the ship itself – reveals that Evgeny Gorigledzhan has made a number of unusual manoeuvres over a small piece of seabed near the future Fehmarn Belt fixed link. Seemingly unnoticed for many hours before a small German coastguard vessel shows up to keep an eye out.<\/p>\n\n

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Here you can see the two offshore wind farms R\u00f8dsand I and II and a rough sketch of the four internet cables that run through the area between Denmark and Germany. The route of the ship is marked in orange. The white dotted lines represent ferry routes. Sources: HiFleet, OpenInfrastructureMap and SubmarineCableMap. Illustration: MG<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

What exactly Evgeny Gorigledzhan did near Fehmarn is still unknown. But the voyage certainly seems suspicious, says Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen, lieutenant commander and military analyst at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen.<\/p>\n\n

“I can only say that the ship has not just been in transit. Nor is it normal for a ship of this category to sail back and forth on more or less the same opposite course for a long period of time, unless it is a diversionary manoeuvre and to attract the attention of the authorities.”<\/p>\n\n

“One may wonder why their AIS transmitter is on while they’re down there rummaging around. But perhaps it is a matter of seeing how we react to something like that. Just as the Russians do in the air, where their fighters jets enter Danish airspace to test our preparedness,” he says.<\/p>\n