8.22.25
Russia has been building a listening station on the edge of the Baltic Sea for the last two years, satellite images appear to show. Open-source researchers at the investigative project Tochnyi, which says it "aims to accurately report" on the Russia-Ukraine war, said the potential spying facility is in the Kaliningrad region—the Russian semi-exclave sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. They report it began taking shape in March 2023 and is almost finished. The project says they think that the site in Kaliningrad's Chernyakhovsky district, just south of an air base used by Russian navy's Baltic Fleet, is a circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA), a "military-grade antenna array designed for radio intelligence or communication." Russia could use the purported facility to intercept NATO radio communications and triangulate their positions. The apparent antenna array, around 60 miles from the Baltic coast, could span up to 1,600 meters in diameter, analysis of the satellite imagery shows, placing it "well above the size range of known CDAAs," Tochnyi said. While it is difficult to "draw a definitive conclusion" about the site, the investigators said, there are multiple features to suggest it is a CDAA.
These include a "circular configuration with several evenly spaced excavation points," which can accommodate vertical antennas, "a radial development of excavations from a central hub, suggesting the potential future presence of buried cables or signal feedlines" and the establishment of a security perimeter. Tochnyi researchers first noticed the site during routine satellite image reviews because of its "unusual geometry, impressive size, remote location and potential strategic significance." "The placement of a CDAA-like structure in this region is strategically logical," Tochnyi said. "Such an installation would enable Russia to monitor NATO's electronic communications across Eastern Europe and the Baltic region." It could communicate with submarines in the Baltic Sea or the North Atlantic and "support passive intelligence gathering, aligning with Russia's broader electronic warfare doctrine." Heavily militarized Kaliningrad is an extremely geopolitically important region to the Kremlin. It is Russia's westernmost territory and guarantees its freedom of navigation and overflight in the Baltic Sea.
www.newsweek.com
