The Air Corps has been tasked to monitor a vessel from Russia’s “shadow fleet” which is off the Irish west coast.
As The Irish Times reports, Everest Energy, or the Metagas Everest tanker, has been declared a “vessel of interest”, and its progress has been tracked through international waters for the past week.
Metagas Everest is registered to Curacao, and transports liquid natural gas.
It left the Russian port of Umba, near Finland, last month.
The Defence Forces are said to be concerned that the vessel may be steaming through Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) while breaching international sanctions in transporting natural gas from Russia.
The Airbus C295 patrol aircraft acquired by the Air Corps is equipped to monitor vessels from a distance.
The Irish Times reports that the Metagas Everest has been repeatedly turning its transponder, known as an automatic identification system (AIS), on and off.
Vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet have been accused of sabotaging undersea cables in European waters on several occasions in recent months.
Read The Irish Times here
