The Russian naval ship is “concealed” as it passes through the English channel

A Russian warship was hiding, using a false ID signal while traveling through the English channel with two sanctioned oil tankers, the BBC Cerfify investigation found.

Boikiy – Corvette, armed with rockets – emits the fake personal code as it passes through the channel on Saturday.

In tracking sites, he miscreated as ships that had previously used this identifier. The BBC checks the Boikiy identification number using satellite images, data tracking and video on it, passing under a bridge in Denmark.

He travels with two ships known to be part of the Russian fleet of shadows – a network of tankers whose property can be darkened and used to transport sanctioned petroleum products.

The BBC Cerify turned to the Russian Embassy in London for comment. But experts told the BBC to check that the last Western movements against the shadow fleet may have encouraged Moscow to use its military to protect tankers.

Last month, Russian fighter SU-35 flew along the vessel of the shadow fleet and entered the Estonian airspace after the country tried to cross the ship suspected of carrying a sanctioned oil.

“It seems that the action is intended to prevent the United Kingdom and other NATO countries from trying to get on and or, to take advantage of these vessels, since the presence of military escorts increases the risk of confrontation and more escalation,” says Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior scientific scientist at the center of the center of the center of the center of the Center for Monroem.

Attention was the first to be attracted by Boikiy on social media by the independent intelligence analyst with open source Christian Panton on Bluesky.

The ship is known to have left West Africa in June, where it participated in a diplomatic mission. Photos published online showed the ship, moored in the capital of Guinea, Conacri.

Corvette left the gate without activating its automatic identification system (AIS). All ships are expected to broadcast the signal, although warships often sail without it.

However, a ship traveling under the generic identification number 400000000 – code sometimes used by ships that want to warn others for their presence for safety reasons without identifying – it was briefly visible near the Canary Islands.

The location is in accordance with the time it could take it to travel 200 km from Konakri. The satellite images viewed by the BBC show that a 100 m long ship corresponding to the size of Boikiy and distinguishes it from other vessels that used the identification number.

Frederick van Lockey – an analyst and a former lieutenant in the Belgian Navy – noted that Boyko’s actions were unusual for a Russian naval ship.

“Usually, if the Russians want to stay hidden secretly, they just turn off their AIS signal,” he said. “So for them to be camouflated as something else … very, very rarely.”

Later in Boikiy, two oil tankers joined, who made their way from India through the Suez Canal and through the Mediterranean – Sierra and Naxos. Both ships are sanctioned by the United Kingdom.

The three ships met at the mouth of the channel on June 20. Here, the Russian naval ship appeared again in radar and optical satellite images, which allows us to confirm again that it is size and shape that correspond to Boikiy.

Naxos had reached the entrance to the channel a few days earlier than the other ships and waited for the warship before continuing in the channel.

A source of the United Kingdom Department of Defense confirmed to the BBC to check that the Royal Fleet overshadows Boikiy while passing through the channel.

The satellite images viewed by the BBC have emerged that they are showing a ship that packs Boikiy as it passes through the water road, but we cannot confirm that this is the ship of the Royal Navy.

All three ships continued to the Baltic Sea, where Boikiy – still traveled under the fake AIS marker – was recorded, passing under the large bridge of the belt in Denmark.

Webcam footage showed the ship clearly for the first time as a naval ship.

It is unclear where the vessels are bound, although all three continue to sail through a Baltika and can move to the ports in continental Russia or Kaliningrad – Exclud between Poland and Lithuania.