The US military had reportedly picked up a Russian ship operating near Hawaii’s waters.
“As part of our normal daily operations, we closely track all vessels in the Indo-Pacific area of operations through maritime patrol aircraft, surface ships, and joint capabilities…I can tell you we are monitoring a Russian surface vessel operating in international waters in the vicinity of Hawaii,” an Indo-Pacific Command spokesperson told Honolulu’s KHON-TV on Tuesday.
The spokesperson did not provide any further details regarding the ship’s type or its whereabouts.
Marine Lieut Col (ret.) Hal Kempfer told the outlet that US forces were likely “watching” the Russian ship closely, and that “other intelligence organizations [are] trying to figure out exactly what it is.”
“They’re not just watching the ship. They’re watching everything [it] might be connected to and getting some real detail on what it’s doing, why it might be there, who they’re reporting to. All of these things go into a fusion process, an analytical process if you will, that tells us is this a threat or is it not a threat,” Kempfer assured.
20 Russian warships, subs and support vessels conducted large-scale naval exercises in the central Pacific Ocean near Hawaii in June 2021, drilling in the management of a heterogeneous group of forces far from their home bases, sea lane defence, and the interaction of ships and aircraft tracking groupings of submarines and surface warships.
Last summer’s Russian deployment off Hawaii put US forces in Hawaii on alert, with the Hawaii Air National Guard scrambling F-22 fighters and the Indo-Pacific Command deploying the USS Vinson-led carrier strike group closer to the islands.
A month before the drills, the Pentagon delayed testing of an SM-6 missile off one of Hawaii’s islands as Russia’s Kareliya intelligence gathering ship was spotted nearby. The rescheduled test ended in failure.
Throughout their operations, both the Russian naval task force and the Kareliya remained in neutral waters, operating in accordance with international maritime law.
Tensions between Russia and the US have escalated dramatically in recent months over the crisis in Ukraine, with Moscow recognizing the Donbass republics as independent countries and kicking off a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine in February after months of escalating tensions and shelling attacks against the breakaways, and years of threats by NATO to accept Kiev into the alliance. Washington and its allies slammed the Russian-led operation as an “unprovoked, illegal invasion,” slapping Moscow with sanctions and billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine.