Seven German journalism students monitored cargo ships with Russian crews that were suspiciously stationed off the coasts of the Netherlands and Germany, and managed to correlate them with swarms of drones flying over military bases.
Let me explain what Michèle Borcherding, Clara Veihelmann, Luca-Marie Hoffmann, Julius Nieweler, Tobias Wellnitz, Sergen Kaya, and Clemens Justus from the Axel Springer Academy for Journalism and Technology have achieved.
To be clear: I know them. I attended an extensive OSINT training in Berlin with them. And I can say without hesitation that they have far exceeded everything I taught them. Only field verification — tracking a ship through France, the Netherlands, and Belgium — is something you don’t learn in a classroom.
On the night of May 16, 2025, two ships were in suspicious positions. HAV Dolphin — under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda — had been circling in the Kiel Bay in Germany for ten days. Without delivering cargo. Just stationed, about 25 kilometers from military shipyards, in the area where swarms of drones had been observed on three different days.
Meanwhile, 115 kilometers away, off the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog, the sister ship HAV Snapper went out to sea and stopped in open waters. It positioned itself exactly two hours before seven drones appeared over a Russian cargo ship escorted by the German police through the North Sea. It stayed there for four days, describing meaningless circles.
Details, HERE