Russian Spy Ship Spotted Off Virginia Coast: Reports

A Russian spy ship that was first spotted earlier this week off the coast of Connecticut was seen late Wednesday steaming south off the coast of Virginia, according to a report Thursday by Fox News and The Virginian-Pilot. The ship, called the Viktor Leonov, was spotted approximately 65 nautical miles northeast of Norfolk, Virginia, home to the largest naval base in the world, where the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet is located.

The Russian ship is in international waters heading south, a U.S. official told Fox News.

The Department of Defense said it is aware of the vessel's presence, saying the ship "has not entered U.S. territorial waters. We respect freedom of navigation exercised by all nations beyond the territorial sea of a coastal State consistent with international law."

Two retired Navy submarine commanders also downplayed the Russian presence off the East Coast, telling the Los Angeles Times newspaper that the ship presents little threat to U.S. security. Such Russian intelligence ships routinely patrol areas outside U.S. naval bases and track U.S. and allied forces' naval exercises, they said.

The Russian intelligence-gathering ship ventured as close as 30 nautical miles earlier this week off the coast of Groton, Connecticut, home to a U.S. Navy submarine base. While the spy ship was technically in international waters, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, shared a Fox News story about the ship on his Twitter page and wrote: “Russia is acting like it has a permission slip to expand influence, test limits of reach. Questions are obvious: does it, and if so, why?”

The 300-foot long spy ship is based on the North Sea but stopped in Cuba before heading north to conduct its patrol up and down the Atlantic Coast and is expected to return there following its latest mission, CNN reported. The vessel is outfitted with a variety of high-tech spying equipment and is designed to intercept signals intelligence. An official told CNN that the U.S. Navy is "keeping a close eye on it."

A member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, said the ship’s proximity to the coast is concerning, CBS News reported. “It is collecting information, apparently, because it wants to spy on our military,” Blumenthal said.

“This Russian spy ship may be just part of a testing of a new administration which has been all too cozy with Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia,” CBS News reported Blumenthal as saying.

Read the full FOX News report here.

Photo credit: GuyDeckerStudio