A Russian-made ship is found to have lingered for weeks off the coast of southern Taiwan near an undersea cable landing site. Ray Powell of Stanford University's Sealight Initiative says such activity by Russian ships around Taiwan is unusual.
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00:00Here's what we know about the suspicious Russian ship near southern Taiwan.
00:04The Vasily Shushkin, a Russian-made cargo ship, is flying the flag of Belize and is
00:09registered to a Hong Kong company.
00:12Public data shows its route leaving Russia's Far East, docking briefly in Busan, South
00:16Korea and then heading near Pingtung County in southern Taiwan.
00:20The ship stayed in that area for over three weeks without docking in any Taiwanese ports.
00:25This raised concerns as the area is close to undersea cables, critical for Taiwan's
00:30internet.
00:31Around 10 p.m. last night, it started moving north along Taiwan's west coast.
00:36As of this afternoon, it's now off the central coast of Taiwan, reportedly heading to Vietnam,
00:41weeks behind schedule.
00:43Taiwan's Coast Guard says the ship entered its territorial waters but didn't cut any
00:47cables.
00:48But the fact that it was loitering near those cables is cause for suspicion, especially
00:53after incidents involving Russian and Chinese ships damaging cables in Europe late last
00:58year and here in Taiwan earlier this month.
01:01Taiwan Plus spoke with Ray Powell at Stanford University who tracks maritime gray zone activities
01:06and here's what he told us.
01:08We haven't seen a lot of these loitering ships off the coast that just sort of wander around,
01:16whether they are looking for submarine cables, whether they are collecting intelligence.
01:20What exactly they are up to is, I don't know, but I am noticing an increase in activity
01:28off of Taiwan's coast and I think it's something that's going to take a lot more study.
01:33We may find out more about this ship in the coming days, but the fact that it was able
01:38to linger in southern Taiwan for so long without much incident is surely to raise a lot more
01:43questions.
01:44Yixin Chen, Devin Tsai, Jaime O'Connor, and Chris Gorin for Taiwan Plus.
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