Did you hear the one about a Russian Yacht circling Puerto Rico, like a shark with lasers?

Dateline November 17, 2017: The Bermuda-flagged super-yacht "Eclipse" sailed into The Port of Palm Beach Florida. Eclipse is Roman Abramovich's yacht; and he's a very rich Russian with ties to Vladimir Putin, so naturally rumours started to circulate among a faction of people, who were still in shock over Donald Trump's election win. One of the stories was about clandestine meetings at Mar-a-Lago; Russian yachts moored off the coast, and their "oligarch" owners slipped in to shore, maybe under the cover of darkness. It was a great story to lift the spirits of those who felt they'd lost the election, and helped smooth over any criticism of Hillary Clinton's election loss. The Russian yacht-clandestine meeting narrative would fan the flames of the story it was the Russians, not the American voters, who were to blame. The yacht story would also prove to be quite absurd.

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"don’t get all collusion-delusional"

-Tony Doris, Journalist with the Palm Beach Post covering the last yacht story

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As reputable media organisations reported, Roman Abramovich wasn't on his yacht in Florida in 2017.

• That's what his publicist said.
• That's what the press said.
• That's what I said.

Why? How can I be so sure? Because there were no helicopters, no fast cars, no entourage, no limo... and no Roman. Where Roman Abramovich goes, so does the Paparazzi. There were no Paparazzi staking out the ship, because Roman Abramovich wasn't there. Some people wanted to believe the yacht, owned by a rich Russian, was a sign of Russian influence. The yacht was parked for weeks at the end of 11th Avenue in Palm Beach, having preparations done for its usual winter season spent in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the yacht's presence was all the evidence some people needed. Believing the yacht's owner is nearby may be a good guess for someone's weekend cabin cruiser, it doesn't scale to the mega-rich, with yachts that are the size of cruise ships.

Despite the rumour not being even remotely plausible, let alone true, the story plays to a crowd who would very much like to believe Russian yachts are following the President of the United States up and down the United States East Coast, and somehow meeting with him, despite closed airspace overhead, and secret service agents hiding in the bushes. Mega-yachts of the rich and famous are not following Donald J Trump around. The story is quite ridiculous, and easily shown to be false; all multi-million dollar yachts have AIS transponders, all are tracked, but the rumour has staying power, because people want to believe it. It is quite impossible to smuggle a Russian billionaire into the USA using a yacht that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars unnoticed.

Skip ahead to April 2019, and another (in)famous Russian's yacht sailed into a US harbour, this time, into the Port of San Juan; Andrey Melnichenko's super-yacht "A" - to a crowd of impressed onlookers.

Since Donald J Trump isn't in Puerto Rico (I hear he's not popular with the locals for some reason), how can this non-event be spun to be something nefarious and Russian-y? The rumour is the yacht stopped near a dozen different American military bases in Puerto Rico, the insinuation is they are conducting SIGINT/ELINT/COMINT/(etc); someone even made a list of the bases... but it's not entirely as it seems; it's a truism. Truisms make great springboards for propaganda, especially when people don't understand they're truisms to begin with.

Picture a rectangular dining table, standing on four legs. In your imagination, walk around the table. Now picture the headline as; "Suspicious person seen circling 4 table legs; citizens monitoring situation for signs of vandalism." It misses the obvious, an uses exaggeration for effect; but it's still the same story, phrased differently; spin, propaganda, disinformation - whatever you want to call it.

I want you to think about this. I invite you to look at a map of Puerto Rico. Answer me this; in what direction can you sail around the island, approaching from the East, and loop around the island (ending up heading East again, like a horse shoe) without passing "near" a dozen military bases? Do you sail around the island clockwise, or counterclockwise, to avoid the bases? What do other yachts do? What's is the baseline from which you determine that this trip is at all unusual or out of the ordinary.

unknown source, picture making the rounds with the rumour

I hear Puerto Rico is lovely, but it isn't very big. All of the military bases are close to shore if not on the shore. No matter where you are in Puerto Rico, you're already near a US military base. Even using terms like nearby and close are subjective, and could be an attempt to make the claim impervious to criticism. These are the usual wiggle-words that we, the consumers of propaganda, need to be on-the-lookout for. Additionally, the claim doesn't elaborate regarding the speed or where the ship stopped; it is only referred to as circling the island, and stopping near bases, which is true, they did sail around the island counter clockwise. If they had sailed around the island clockwise would that have avoided scrutiny? My point in pointing out the absurdity of these allegations is they're totally baseless. As a truism those that make the claims can say they're factually correct; and they are. There was a big yacht, owned by a Russian (not a Russian yacht - there's a difference), that sailed around the island of Puerto Rico, as it had previously done around many other Caribbean islands. There's nothing weird or nefarious about it. It's the same route taken by millions of other ships before them, and completely unrelated to Venezuela; which is a new red herring that could have been thrown in by the Venezuela regime change propaganda campaign for all I know.

MarineTraffic.com AIS-T and AIS-S Tracking Data

Using MarineTraffic.com data of the ship's movements shows their pattern of movement matches what you'd expect the route would be for any incredibly expensive yacht; they're sailing from beach to beach, Caribbean vista to Caribbean vista. Overlaying that they're stopping near American military bases is true, but only because Puerto Rico has so many military bases; it's a truism. Every ship that circles the island or stops anywhere near Puerto Rico is "near" a military base.

Open Skies Treaty overflight of the United States by the RuAF Sept 25-29 2017

From September 25th to 29th the USAF played host to an Open Skies Treaty overflight of the United States by the Russian Federation.  Here is the flight plan as captured by FlightRadar24, as best as it was able to track the flight using Mode-S MLAT, triangulating transponder information received by private receivers across the country. You'll notice the green dots are likely sites which pictures were being taken, as they were within the allowable envelope. Provided they were at ~11,000ft, and not banking, they would be allowed take pictures, per the treaty and arranged flight plan.

Flying at 11,000ft indicates the digital electro-optical sensor (that when spoken of before the Senate Armed Services Committee was made to sound like the Death Star by DIA 3-Star General Stewart) was in "medium" altitude mode, and the swath was 7.7km (4.8mi) total width.  Please remember that USAF members are aboard the plane for the entire overflight, the camera being used has been certified by a 22 nation committee, and the resolution of the imagery is worse than commercially available satellite imagery.

As usual, the USAF did not inform the American people of this overflight because their media posture is "passive", by policy. Only the Russian news media, usually maligned as "fake news" or propagandists, inform us of these flights. Why would the US Government be more controlling with the message than the Russians? Wouldn't they want to show a working treaty in action and dispel any fear about the Red Scare narrative? 🤔

(There is another Open Skies overflight going on this week, FYI)

Senate bill calls for restrictions on Russian Open Skies Treaty overflights of the US

On July 14th 2016 a Simple Resolution was passed in the Senate. The sponsor of this bill was Tom Cotton, Junior Senator from Arkansas (R). Being a Canadian, the term Simple Resolution was foreign to me, but it doesn't seem to be a law, but more of a finger-wagging statement, which says:

S.Res. 544: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate regarding compliance enforcement of Russian violations of the Open Skies Treaty.

"... it is the sense of the Senate that— (1) restrictions upon the ability of Open Skies Treaty aircraft to overfly all portions of the territory of a State Party impede openness and transparency of military forces and activities and undermine mutual understanding and confidence, especially when coupled with an ongoing refusal to address compliance concerns raised by other States Party subject to such restrictions; (2) it is essential to the accomplishment of the purpose of the Open Skies Treaty that Open Skies Treaty aircraft be able to observe the entire territory of a State Party in a timely and reciprocal manner as provided for under the Open Skies Treaty; (3) the Russian Federation’s restrictions upon the ability of Open Skies Treaty aircraft to overfly all portions of the territory of the Russian Federation constitute violations of the Open Skies Treaty; and (4) for so long as the Russian Federation remains in noncompliance with the Open Skies Treaty, the United States should take such measures as are necessary to bring about the Russian Federation’s return to full compliance with its treaty obligations, including, as appropriate, through the imposition of restrictions upon Russian overflights of the United States." (ref here and here)

This Bill is a politically motivated punitive measure spurned on by lobbyists for the defence industry, under-informed politicians looking to score points riding the Red Scare wave, political appointees, and the head of the DIA, who I've written about before (cited below). For a host of reasons, like desperate caged animals, the these people have been rabbidly spreading the narrative of a renewed Red Scare of Russia, and trying to convince the American people that Russians are spying over the US with these "treaty overflights". Further, they state these overflights have now become "vital tools" for Russia's intelligence collection, even though the plane's cameras produce 30cm resolution photos, which are similar in resolution to commercial satellite photos.

Opponents of the Open Skies Treaty need Americans to be afraid of the Russians, as they were of the Soviet Union. It seems the only way the American military can get more funding is by having a nefarious super-power to duel with. Repeated statements about Russian "RESTRICTIONS" on overflights of Russia have been parroted by the media, with no fact-checking or elaboration regarding what "restrictions" they are talking about. The impression given is that Russia is *blocking* overflights of large pieces of Russia, hiding invasion forces, and obstructing arms inspections of the country at every turn.

This is somewhere between fantasy, wishful thinking, and an extreme stretch of the facts. Almost none of it is true. Almost. The restrictions put in place by the Russians are mostly in contravention of the agreement as it is written; TRUE. However, the restrictions do not impede the inspection of the entire territory of the Russian Federation, very small portions of Russia have had any restriction at all, and nothing is "hidden" by any of the restrictions.  I've already covered the misinformation these factions are trying to spread here, here and here.

Russia's "Restrictions" imposed on other states' overflights are as follows:

• Limited distance allowed for flights over Kaliningrad (not unreasonable)
• Treaty-defined 10km restriction from border with independent states (Breakaway republics of Georgia, dovetails into unrelated border dispute)
• Restricted airspace over some of Moscow forcing a higher overflight (not outrageous)
• Restricted airspace over Chechnya forcing a higher overflight (also not surprising)
• Declaring "Force majeure" on an unknown (2? 3?) overflights since 2011 due to VIP on the ground (certainly poor form)

I really don't see any of these are so bad that you'd want to start contravening an Arms Verification treaty to prove a point.  If the USA is going to arbitrarily impose restrictions on Russian overflights without getting the approval of the OSCC it will be as much in the wrong as Russia is.  If these are such egregious affronts to the treaty, why is no other country crying foul?  There are 32 other Nations, other than the United States and Russia, who have not voiced objections to these issues with the same fervour as the United States.  Why haven't the Americans convened a meeting regarding these issues and come up with a resolution put forth by the rest of the signatory parties to the Treaty?  Why is it the United States is doing these punitive measures alone and without any other country's support?  What measures are they even considering?  Will they be proportional to what Russia is imposing?  Tit-for-tat?

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Not a misquote, they are his own written words from his own column here

Let me introduce you to Junior Senator from Arkansas USA Tom Cotton, a Republican; why?  Because I believe he routinely recklessly endangers the world, and is a horrible misogynist, despite graduating from Harvard and being a decorated former Army Captain, and veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

He was also called a "mutinous" by a General over the letter he (and 46 others) sent to Iran which was against the US national interest and the narrative Obama was broadcasting during the nuclear deal negotiations.  You could read this.  He has also been routinely called out for taking money from hard-line Israeli lobbyists and significant donations from defence contractors.  This man is a one man war machine.

War is good for business.

If this man is advocating reprisals against Russia for minor infractions of the Open Skies Treaty, you should be wondering how this benefits the people who fund him; specifically the extremely arms industry and their deep pockets.

Peace isn't good for business.

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