A cargo ship, linked to the Russian ghost fleet, which has been investigated for suspicious activity in the Baltic was spotted by an Irish Air Corps aircraft dropping an anchor close to an undersea cable in Irish waters.

It has emerged that the incident earlier this year occured in waters off the north east coast. The Air Corps had dispatched an aircraft to monitor its movements as it is a list of Russian related vessels.

There has been several incidents in the Baltic Sea where anchors, dropped by Russian linked vessels, have damaged critical internet cables.

The Air Corps was able to film the ship, dropping the anchor in the area, and following communication from the Irish crew the cargo vessel fled. It was not confirmed if the ship was intentionally targeting undersea infrastructure or if it was a case of bad seamanship.

The ship, sailing under a flag from Caribbean region, had been in trouble in the Baltic Sea in the same month. German authorities escorted it out of the area along with Swedish and Danish naval colleagues.

On that occasion she was sailing from St Petersburg en route through the waters near Gotland, an island off Sweden.

The sighting of it in Irish waters was made earlier this year and it was being monitored after intelligence was shared from a friendly nation with the Irish State.

An Irish Air Corps maritime patrol vessel was despatched to keep watch – it is understood that they recorded it, using specialist camera equipment, as it dropped the anchor.

It is understood the ship was contacted by radio by the Irish Defence Forces and directed to haul its anchor back up and it departed the area.

The Journal has learned that the ship is back in Irish waters and is heading towards the west coast.

It is understood that the ship has steamed from the Bay of Biscay and is currently off the Cork and Kerry coast.

Using an open source flight monitoring service The Journal was able to follow an Air Corps CASA 295 aircraft which went to a location near the ship this afternoon.

This publication has previously revealed that Ireland held a major exercise behind closed doors to test how Ireland will deal with a complete loss of the internet after a targeted attack.

It is understood that the event, known as a tabletop exercise, was held in February and involved multiple Government departments and agencies including the Defence Forces, An Garda Síochána and other emergency services.

The scenario was a concerted cyber attack which was combined with the loss of multiple undersea cables.

There are a large amount of fibre optic internet cables connecting Europe to the US and other parts of the world running through Irish waters. They carry all high speed internet traffic, including banking and other critical data.

  • octopus_ink@slrpnk.net
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    17 hours ago

    Now just hear me out.

    Trump and Musk are in bed with Putin.

    Putin props himself up on his elbow as he takes the last drag of his cigarette, the sheet carelessly exposing his right nipple. He looks deeply into Trump’s eyes, a coquettish grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

    “Guys, guys. What do you think would happen if something were to happen to a lot of those intercontinental data cables?”

    Musk giggles and says, “The walls are talking to me. Or is it that gargoyle in the corner?”

    Putin rolls over to his other side to gaze lovingly into Musk’s eyes, while Musk ignores him to stare in awe at various nonexistent things he sees around the room. “But Musky,” he slowly trails one finger from Elon’s belly button down in the direction of his crotch, “those can take a long time to repair. They’ll need something that doesn’t require those cables. And, cough we have something like that, don’t we?”

    Trump says, “Remember that time when the hand of God saved me from that bullet at the very last moment? Many people, everyone really, couldn’t stop talking about how valiant I looked. Plymouth Valiant - great car. Some say the best car, the very best. They are all saying it. From the moment that car stopped being produced it was all downhill, just like a river flowing downhill. Did you know the liberals don’t like rivers? Because the Rio Grande makes it harder for the illegals to come here from Mexico. Why is it spelled like that? Where did that “e” come from? What does Rio mean anyway? You know we should rename it, like we did the Gulf of America. It could be the River of America, and that would really be grand, everyone’s saying it. We could find a way to set it on fire, that might be easier than building a wall. You know you can get fire from water, it’s not that hard really, I saw it coming out of faucets in Michigan - we should learn how they did that and just do it to the Rio Grand-”

    Putin says, “OK, so we are agreed.”

    He lovingly kisses them both on the mouth, savoring the flavor of Trump on Musk’s lips just a moment, pulls the sheet up close in modesty, and runs from the room on his tiptoes with a brief giggle, wondering which admiral he should call first. He nearly trips over JD Vance, who is curled up with his collar and leash near the threshold.