Vantage Point North

 On Friday 26.7.2024 the Finnish Ministry of Defense reported that a Russian vessel had violated the Finnish territorial waters on the eastern Gulf of Finland. The fact that this was reported by the MOD, instead of the Border Guard, that is under the command of the Ministry of Interior, indicated that the vessel in question had been a Russian state one.  Mikhail Kazansky Later on the same day it was confirmed that the vessel had been the Mikhail Kazansky , officially labelled as a hydrographic vessel in the Russian Baltic Fleet. Even a regular such boat has the sensors that can provide valuable intel for a navy that is planning hostile operations.  Project 23370G rendering The Mikhail Kazansky is a Russian Navy Project 23370G class multipurpose boat, it has the capability to transport teams into unprepared shores as well as deploy variety of buoys, officially navigation ones, but the same deployment system can be used for listening devices etc. The hull also off...

 OSINT, and especially social media based OSINT, on military installations can be tricky. But some bases are a lot more accessible than others. The Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet is one of the easier ones. Both of the fleets major bases, Baltiysk and Kronstadt, are popular tourist and outdoor locations with people boating, walking, fishing, ice fishing and filming almost all year around.  An unmodified Nanuchka-class corvette Geyzer and the Swans that hang out along the canal So what kind of information can be derived from the typical weeks worth of digging through the various social networks? The most obvious fact is that a Russian city can have more nail saloons than residents. When it comes to the military side of things, the first one is the locations of the vessels within the port area. This also allows one to observe the ships that are missing from images. But be warned, some ports have more static berthing than others. The Zubr-class LAC:s in their special concrete landing...