By Kyle Mizokami
A Russian Navy ship with a fishy past is currently sailing around the eastern Mediterranean. Described as an oceanographic research ship, outside observers believe the Yantar is actually a spy ship using mini-submersibles to conduct cloak and dagger work on the bottom of the sea.
The Yantar is a Russian Navy ship that joined the fleet in 2015. Officially described as a "special purpose ship" or "oceanographic vessel," the ship is operated by the Russian Navy's Main Directorate of Underwater Research, which is thought to control Russia's undersea espionage efforts.
Yantar is designed to act as a mothership to mini-submarines, with hangars for storing manned and unmanned submersibles and cranes for lowering them into the water. While that's useful for legitimate scientific research, the reality is that the ship is often spotted lingering above the undersea cables that carry data across the ocean floor, linking entire countries and even continents in the global telecommunications network.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a28276/yantar-spy-ship-eastern-mediterranean/
