An open letter to NORAD and USNORTHCOM - Let's talk about Russian Navy operations

Russian Navy Frigate Admiral Gorshkov (credit:USNORTHCOM)

Dear North American Aerospace Defense Command & U.S. Northern Command

Do you have a few minutes?  I hope so.

I'm a long time fan of your work, defending North America and all, but it looks like information operations from unknown parties are taking place in NORAD's area of responsibility, and seem for the most part unchallenged. I don't want you to take that the wrong way, and maybe tell the public less, in an effort to reduce the attack surface, and reduce any public discussion about Russian Navy operations; I'd like you to lean into it, and I think you're already half way there.

Let me try to explain what I mean with context.

Back in the summer a few of Russian Navy ships stopped in Cuba, including the new Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov, on their way around the world, and U.S. Northern Command told the public of that event; I was thrilled. No really, I was! Being so open and transparent with the public is not something I see militaries do frequently. Russian ships do still stop in Cuba occasionally, and it reminds me (and others) of old Soviet times when they had a significant military force there. While the Russians still do have a presence, somewhat, it's a shadow of those times. Their submarine base, as well as others, lie mostly as reinforced-concrete ruins.

We are aware of the deployment of the Russian ship Gorshkov and are taking steps to actively track it. We won't discuss all measures being taken, but NORAD is conducting air operations in defense of the US & Canada and USNORTHCOM has deployed maritime assets to track Gorshkov.

— U.S. Northern Command (@USNorthernCmd) June 26, 2019

Unfortunately, there was no follow-up saying the Russian ship left, which left an opportunity that was exploited by detractors who published rumours to social media that they were still there, days / months after they left. Being aware of a Russian warship stopping in for supplies in Havana is in the public interest, it is news, and it should be mentioned; thank you for that. However, the follow-up that they left, especially because they left within a couple of days, is equally important. I believe it is important to give the correct impression that they were passing through, not repositioning there. Not mentioning the departure gives the public the impression Russia forward deployed a frigate to be stationed in Havana, which isn't true. The Russian Navy was just passing through. In the future, I hope NORAD will be more clear about that. The initial transparency, telling the public, was fantastic, but it needed follow-through. I did notice the US Navy was tailing them as they departed the Americas; NORAD was aware of exactly where they were every moment of the day.

My bad, they ARE reporting in on AIS again!

🇺🇸 #USNavy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Jason Dunham (MMSI:366997034|CS:NJDM) is heading for Florida, I guess Admiral Gorshkov has departed the #NORAD area of interest.#USSJasonDunham #DDG109 #AIS ⚓ https://t.co/MhDb4teslm pic.twitter.com/xkRfGyBsa6

— Steffan Watkins (@steffanwatkins) June 29, 2019

Just last week someone leaked to The Washington Times and CNN that the Russians were visiting in international waters off the US East Coast for their almost-yearly visit to conduct signals intelligence; NORAD could have broke that news publicly when they arrived to the region, without the leak and without help from the press. The Russian Navy AGI Viktor Leonov is well known to sail over from Murmansk every year or two. Their mission mostly out of public view because they do not use an AIS transponder, which would show where they are to ship tracking enthusiasts like myself. Without a transponder, I rely on other more creative means, including watching for others who might stumble across their location - but that's hard to come by, since they're over 12 NM away from shore, and likely only noticed by a few planes or other ships.

The earliest reference I've ever found for the Viktor Leonov coming near the US East Coast was 1998, but of course I can't find that reference anymore; I thought it was off one of the wire services published years ago. I can still find a very slim reference to their visit in 2012 (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/27/russia-cuba-warship/5876249/), as well as more detail in 2014 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-spy-ship-docks-havana-n40041), 2015 (https://abcnews.go.com/International/russian-spy-ships-arrival-cuba-raises-eyebrows/story?id=28377558), 2017 (https://abcnews.go.com/International/russian-spy-ship-now-off-virginia-coast/story?id=45547194), and 2018 (https://freebeacon.com/national-security/pentagon-shadowing-russian-spy-ship/). These are facts, matters of history, that are being written by the press, that future generations will refer to. Telling the public what's going on is probably listed somewhere lower on the list of NORAD's daily activities than protecting the public. In today's age of information warfare, telling the public the truth, up front, denies NORAD's adversaries the capability of exploiting a lack of information to propagate disinformation. Publishing information from an official source has the effect of acting as an area of denial weapon in an information war; it denies the adversary the capability of waging a whisper campaign, spreading disinformation, since public information allows anyone to fact-check, and refute their statements, if the information is from a trusted source. I can't think of a more trustworthy source for Canadians and Americans than a NORAD press release. NORAD has the power to suffocate any information operations trying to misinform the public about Russian Navy operations in international waters, if they take the initiative to do so. Information is an area of denial weapon, and while NORAD knows that at some level, it is not taking advantage of the high ground it holds. By not being forthright with information, NORAD is ceding the information battlespace to adversaries who are exploiting the lack of information for agitprop.

I've seen (false!) reports alleging that Russian Navy ships (plural!) have been off the coast since Trump was elected, that they dock at Mar-a-Lago, that they drop anchor outside Mar-a-Lago, that they were snooping on Wifi (of course) at Mar-a-Lago, that they were planting nuclear mines along the seaboard, that they communicate with President Trump on his phone, that they tap his phone from offshore, and of course that they're there to pick up President Trump as he flees from his life of crime. Does anyone take these rumours seriously? Well, the problem is, there's so much disinformation it's hard for the American and Canadian public to keep it all straight. Snopes articles about each of these varieties of lies are not what we need; the public needs authoritative information from one of their most trusted guardian, NORAD.

While we won't discuss specific measures being taken, NORAD and USNORTHCOM routinely conduct air and maritime operations to ensure the defense of the United States and Canada. 2/2

— North American Aerospace Defense Command (@NORADCommand) December 17, 2019

I have three humble requests.

• Please continue to tell the public when Russian Navy operations are taking place in NORAD's area of interest.
• Please break the news yourself, so the public can recognize the excellent work NORAD is doing, and know it's from a trusted source.
• Please ask the US Navy to consider leaving their transponders on, as USS Jason Dunham did in the summer, but USS Mahan did not while tailing Viktor Leonov after December 14th. If they can look out their window and see their escort, turning off AIS isn't going to improve OPSEC.

I simply don't believe there's any reason for the public to rely on rumours spread by leaks and malicious actors with their own agendas; you know where "they" are, and "they" know you know where they are. Leaving the news of their arrival and departure up to the rumour mill only enables disinformation. Please continue to tell the public about their comings, but also their goings, so the public doesn't get the impression there is a traffic jam off the coast off Mar-a-Lago. 😉

Thank you, and Happy Holidays.

Steffan Watkins
Ottawa, Canada

The Truth? You can't handle The Truth.

Viktor Leonov - February 27th 2014 in Havana, Cuba
Photo Credit: Unknown

In any DoD / Pentagon / Military Press Release there are at least 4 versions of the truth.

1. The Press Release

Carefully crafted to match the narrative du-jour, the military will put out intentional leaks to journalists, or official press releases through a Public Affairs office, that fit with whatever message they are trying to convey to their citizens and internationally.

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NB Classifications
Even "Unclassified" information is a classification, so watch for how the term is used.  (eg, "sorry, I can't give that to you, it's classified" doesn't mean it's Secret or Top Secret, necessarily.)

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2. Unclassified / For Official Use Only

You didn't think the Pentagon would tell you what was actually happening did you?  Well maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but there is a less massaged briefing note somewhere that wasn't that Press Release, and has more dirt about whatever it is, and is supposed to be for internal / official use.  Different governments have different names for this classification.  You can find 1950s Cold War briefs that fit into this category if you hunt the public government archives sites to see how boring they are.

3. Secret

"Secret" classification could be something about ship or troop movements, highly detailed maps, perhaps info gained by Satellite intelligence with some details left out for a senior military brief... or many things.  The story in the Press Release will likely look considerably different at this level; it will show casualty counts of an enemy encounter, details about where enemy forces came from and intelligence gathered - but still mostly avoid mentioning the methods (Did the info come from a paid informant?).  You can find examples of this in the Bradley Manning Wikileaks docs from the Afghanistan files.

4. Top Secret (and above)

You're going to find the names of informants, what sort of weapons systems nobody knows about, information about secret satellite programs - whatever. This is where you find "The Truth" if it exists.  You will find blame, you will find unredacted imagery, you will find evidence of things that "don't exist", whatever crazy conspiracy stuff that you think they have at Area 51 is in here, potentially at a higher classification than Top Secret.  My point is, this is where that Press Release has all the truth, or as much truth as you can find.  The Snowdon files are at this level, and they disclose methods and technology used by several agencies.

What we, the public, get as a press release is a shadow of the original story, and only has what the military and the government believe we need to know to keep us satisfied and quiet.

We don't need to know the names of the dead. We don't need to know the names of the local corrupt mayor in some shit-hole mud hut on the other side of the world.  We don't need to know we're paying off some of the bad guys to allow our troops safe passage through their turf.  We don't need to know who we plan on assassinating next.  Let the military do their job, we don't need to second guess them all the time.

Except... (You knew there was going to be a "but", right?)

Russian Naval surface ship movements, when they're literally within sight of the shore, should not be hidden from the public and teased out in geometric riddles. That's just cruel and unusual to those of us interested in tracking  those surface assets.

Hey, Captain, Major, Colonel, General... They know you know where they are. We know you know where they are. Who does it help to keep that information classified and out of reach of Joe Public?

Yes, I understand that the military won't tell us the locations of every Russian sub, if they knew every sub in every ocean, but there is no reason not to share surface-ship movement information near the coast of the USA. Ships can be seen from space, they can sometimes be seen from shore, and they can certainly be seen by sensors, or by a ship that shadows them.  I am pleased for getting the leaks we do from Lucas @ Fox's Pentagon source, regarding the position information of the Viktor Leonov.  She has been off the coast of the USA since mid-February, but I'd really prefer if the military just spilled all the data when the Russians are done their mission so those of us who are interested could analyse the data whole.

Throw me a bone!

Revisiting the 2014 Nikolay Chiker (Николай Чикер) Trans-Atlantic Tour

Nikolay Chiker - ShipSpotting.com - Cees Bustraan
Photo Taken 2014.03.03

Remember back in the spring of 2014 there was a Russian "Spy Ship", a Russian Navy AGI, the Viktor Leonov (Виктор Леонов), floating off the East coast of the USA for weeks, and a Russian Navy SAR/Salvage/Tug, Nikolay Chiker (Николай Чикер), in the same area, at the same time, zig-zagging around?

If you don't, here is Bill Gertz's article about the Russian Spy Ship and Tug.  Here are my previous posts on the topic too.

I wanted to fill in the blanks on the map I had made previously with the *complete* trip the Nikolay Chiker made using historical data from a commercial AIS provider... but it would cost hundreds of Euros to get what I was looking for, so I decided against it.  Without a corporate financier, it seemed a little extravagant.  So, the map remained cobbled together with whatever free copy & pasted coordinates I could find at the time, and Tom's coordinates that he was tweeting from the moorse code they were sending back home over HF.  It did the job, at the time.

Open Source Map of the Nikolay Chiker's Movements in 2014

Seven months ago I realised the Terrestrial Automatic Identification System (AIS-T) receivers along the US Coast are operated by the US Coast Guard, so I asked the Coast Guard for a copy of their historical AIS data of the Nikolay Chiker's positions (IMO: 8613334 / MMSI: 273531629) from March 01, 2014 to May 13, 2014; when I knew it should have been near American waters in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and more importantly, within range of US Coast Guard AIS-T receivers.  I submitted my FOIA request in November of 2015, and received the information in June of 2016.  I guess I can't complain regarding how long it took; I didn't pay anything for the information, and I'm even a foreign national!  I'd like to give a big thank you to the folks at the US Coast Guard for providing the information, it was very much appreciated.

New Map of Nikolay Chiker locations, as logged by the US Coast Guard via AIS-T

AIS Data Courtesy of the United States Coast Guard

What are we looking at here?

The AIS transponder on the Nikolay Chiker beacons to anyone who's listening.  When she is close enough to shore, US Coast Guard (AIS-T) shore-based receivers pick up her location, speed, heading, etc... Click on the red dots to get the information relayed via AIS at that location.  Some dotted lines fade out as the ship edges out of range of the shore-based receivers.  The ship can also turn off it's transponder at any time, but I'm unclear if regulations or conventions restrict when they can do so.  Please note, there are no timestamps on the locations; I didn't figure out how to preserve the timestamps from the US Coast Guard FOIA I filed.

What don't we see?

We don't see any satellite, aerial, sub-surface, Coast Guard ship-based, gypsy-with-a-crystal-ball, sonar, or radar data.  I mention this because there are a lot of gaps in the data, and I don't want to give the impression the ship was hiding at all - this is not a comprehensive view of what the US Coast Guard and US Navy can "see" and are situationally aware of.  This is just one unclassified public solution used in maritime shipping globally, where unclassified data meets classified operational information.  Also worth mentioning is that all of this information is served up by an AIS beacon, which the Captain of the Nikolay Chiker knows is broadcasting for all to see.  Keep in mind we don't see the position of the Viktor Leonov AGI, but we know from eyewitness accounts that the Viktor Leonov and Nikolay Chiker were very near each other on March 21st 2014, just outside US waters, right near Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay.

Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay is home to two Ohio-Class SSGNs, six Ohio-Class SSBN submarines, has a stockpile of 107 Nuclear SLBMs, and I suspect even more warheads.  These submarines were initially commissioned between 1979 and 1994, and are living reminders of the Cold War.  They are still in use, have been extensively refitted, and their mission often consists of lurking in the depths of the ocean, trying to stay undetected by the Russian Navy.

Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay

Behaviour

Clicking through the data, you'll see the Nikolay Chiker laid anchor at least a couple of times off the coast near King's Bay, then Daytona Beach seemed to attract her attention, and eventually Cape Canaveral where there was a SpaceX launch taking place.  If any ship was just "passing through" it would be unusual for it to lay anchor at those locations, I'd think.  No commercial shipping would normally stop in those locations, none of them are particularly attractive to stop and stay for the night (or day).  We are, unfortunately, only seeing half of the scenario - the Viktor Leonov AGI was also off the coast, and if it was leading the way, the Nikolay Chiker could have just been killing time.  A Naval AGI asset's whole purpose is to collect ELINT / COMINT (SIGINT) on a target.  What targets were they listening to?  Civilian comms infrastructure or military comms?  Were they just getting samples of data from each location along the coast, or listening for one thing the whole way?

Speed

Please notice what speed the Nikolay Chiker was travelling while examining her positions on the map.  I speculate when she is travelling alone she travels at full speed; 12-14Kts.  When she is with the Viktor Leonov, I believe she limits her speed to the same as the Leonov; a slower ~8-9Kts.  Further, I can't explain why she would trawl at 3-6Kts, unless she was towing a sensor array, or something similar.  Unfortunately I have a limited data set, but hopefully over time I can compile more examples of Russian Navy Auxiliary ships doing strange loitering off the East Coast of North America, and draw further conclusions.

Conclusions?

I can't draw any conclusions from this data, but I can throw out more speculation.

• It's likely the Nikolay Chiker's mission was multi-faceted.  I would be surprised if they crossed the Atlantic from the Mediterranean solely in case the Viktor Leonov had engine trouble and needed a tow.  While that is part of Russian Navy doctrine (always travel with a tug), I wouldn't think having a tug deployed and travelling in circles while they waited for an emergency wouldn be an efficient use of resources.
• The Nikolay Chiker has a moon pool (to allow diving from the inside/bottom of the ship) and decompression chambers that allow for deep water operations.  This is a "special set of skills" that not many ships have, and would lend itself to covert underwater operations.
• I suspect the Nikolay Chiker was surveying the ocean's bottom for ASW sensors and undocumented military underwater cables, but I have no way to prove that without knowing where the sensors and cables are - and their locations are... you guessed it.. Secret.
• The Nikolay Chiker has several extremely strong winches and cranes, to facilitate both towing and Search and Rescue operations.  Those same features could be used to move/lift/drag objects on the ocean's floor, or lift them to the surface. 
• On the old map you'll notice that several long straight lines were sailed, back and forth, in the Caribbean.  These are similar to the back and forth that was done off the coast of Georgia.  But what were they doing?  I remember someone called it "loitering", but it seems very purposeful to me, not just random paths.
• While I try to discern what military purpose these paths on the map might allude to, I also realize that there may be human factors, that are less military or professional, that could be at play.  Maybe the Captain of the Nikolay Chiker was following some wales, so he could take pictures of them?  Maybe the Nikolay Chiker and Viktor Leonov met at sea not for replenishment operations, but to have a long promised poker game?  Maybe the Nikolay Chiker made a bee line from the Caribbean to King's Bay at a high rate of speed to get out of the way of an approaching storm?  By only seeing the AIS data from the Nikolay Chiker, without context, and without the path of the Viktor Leonov, I do admit any conclusions I draw will be wild speculation.

So, if you have any ideas what they were up to, and have any additional information, please let me know.

Parade Standard of the U.S. Coast Guard
(Wikipedia)

Credit

• I'd like to thank the United States Coast Guard, who don't get sufficient credit in this age of international military interventions.  They do great work, at home.
• I'd like to thank Andre van den Berg for his help; Andre is an expert in the field of AIS, a consultant, and the CEO of Maritec.

CNN, February ~27th, 2014