AK. A. KARPINSKIY

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Russian is spoofing ship

On Sep 16, 2024, at about noon, global maritime tracking showed that the 'Akademik Alexander Karpinsky', which is infamous for mapping Antarctica’s banned oil and gas, was hovering at a peninsula in northern Tallinn. An ongoing ban imposed by the European Union since April 17, 2022, however, is thwarting Russian-flagged ships from entering the region’s ports. The implications of the ship’s apparent presence in Tallinn — a location it has been barred from accessing — sent national maritime authorities scrambling. Upon inspection, officials confirmed that the ship was not physically present at the designated location. This apparent discrepancy led to the conclusion that the US-sanctioned ship had employed location spoofing. The ship had engaged in a significant incident of GPS interference, falsely positioning itself within global maritime information systems to appear docked in Tallinn. The ship appeared to have used a “modified AIS”, or even a specialised military variant, which is capable of altering its reported location. This manipulation allowed the ship’s coordinates to be artificially set to a port in Tallinn, while it was actually operating from its St Petersburg home port, about 170 nautical miles away.