June 2021: There was tension in the Black Sea near Crimea, Ukraine as Russian authorities claimed to have fired warning shots at the UK Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender; however, the UK Ministry of Defence denies the event ever happening. Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking logs showed that the HMS Defender traversed the Black Sea and sailed within a few kilometres of a Russian naval base at Sevastopol, but a live web cam feed proved the HMS Defender to be docked at Odessa, Ukraine. The false AIS tracks indicate GPS and AIS spoofing was involved. Dr. Todd Humphreys comments on this, saying “it’s easy to gin up a fake AIS signal purporting to be the Royal Navy’s HMS Defender and broadcast it around the Black Sea with some provocative-looking tracks.“ Humphreys says he has seen AIS fakery before, but never for a warship. He too suggests that the most likely source is Russian disinformation – to sow confusion.
