Tracking ships at sea can help catch sanction-busters
Radio data, satellites and a high-tech game of cat and mouse
NEVER BEFORE have the activities of ocean-going vessels been under so much scrutiny. So says Oleg Ustenko, the economics adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and a leader of a government initiative called the Russian Tanker Tracking Group (RTTG). Working with tips from a network of experts and spies, including foreign officials who contribute on the sly, the RTTG, Dr Ustenko says, tracks the energy shipments with which “Russia is desperately trying to finance its military machine”.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Who’s who on the ocean blue”
From the April 16th 2022 edition
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