A cargo ship with a full Russian crew that was stopped in mid -May at the Volkerak locks near Willemstad is suspected of having deployed drones over the European area. That appears to report Pointer (KRO-NCRV) and Follow the Money after research with international partners.
It concerned cargo ship HAV Dolphin, sailing under the flag of the Caribbean island of Antigua and Barbuda.
Kiel and Potsdam
German investigating services had warned the coast guard a few hours earlier that the ship had been suspected of the Kiel coast at the beginning of May, exactly when drones were spotted there. The cargo ship was inspected by a team of customs, Royal Netherlands Marechaussee and police, but drones were not found.
About ten days later, in the night of May 17, drones again appeared. This time above the German patrol ship Potsdam, which at that time the Russian cargo ship Lauga shaded in the German exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as previously reported by Der Spiegel. The drones followed the patrol ship for three hours, until just before the Dutch waters.
‘Next step in the way Russia ways hybrid war’
The German police could not determine whether the drones were from De Lauga, but asked the customs in Belgium, where the ship was on the way, to inspect it. No drones were found there either.
Former navy officer and lawyer Niels Woudstra sees the incidents as ‘the next step in the way Russia ways hybrid war’. Drones are a simple weapon, he says. Cheap, small, easy to use. “They are easy to hide on a large ship. And the advantage of drones is that little has been arranged by law. The seastrous says nothing about it. On the high seas you can just use them.”
Increase
German investigation services have been seeing an increase in drone observations over critical infrastructure, such as ports, chemieparken and military installations. Whether spying drones have also been spotted in the Netherlands, the Ministry of Defense, Intelligence Service MIVD and the Navy do not want to say. The coast guard is familiar with observations of drones at sea. “But the origin or identification is unknown to us.”
According to various sources at home and abroad, the German authorities have informed European investigative authorities of the events. The ships have since been followed closely.
AIS-follow system disabled
Both cargo ships show striking behavior. The HAV Dolphin spent a month in the port of the Russian Kaliningrad, near a naval base, and temporarily eliminated the compulsory AIS follow-up system during her journey. De Lauga also did this during her journey over the North Sea. In addition, the cargo ship previously visited the Russian naval base in Syria, which indicates possible ties with the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Stopping the drones is virtually impossible, thinks Woudstra. Equipment to detect the small drones is expensive. Woudstra therefore thinks that European countries are increasingly arming themselves in the future. “Of course you can always shoot them out of the blue. It is only an unmanned drone, and above a military site there is a flight ban. So you can easily take countermeasures there. The same will happen with warships at sea.”
The HAV Dolphin and Lauga are currently running undisturbed.