The Ship That Pointed at the Pier

About this episode

In February 2026, the Russian-flagged bulk carrier Grumant disappeared into the haze of satellite-navigation interference that covers the Black Sea. At times its reported position put it on dry land. One field in its broadcast stayed steady: the heading, which comes from the ship's own compass and not from satellites. In this first episode of The Quiet Tell, Ines and Jonah retell Bellingcat's June 2026 investigation 'Heading Off', by Youri van der Weide, Galen Reich, Yörük Işık and Bridget Diakun. Their work matched that heading to a single berth in occupied Crimea, confirmed the stay with satellite imagery, and followed the grain to Benghazi, Libya. This is a retelling of Bellingcat's published work, not our own reporting.

We explain AIS, the radio broadcast every large ship sends about itself, in plain words. We go through why a gap in a ship's signal proves nothing on its own, why the difference between regional interference and deliberate spoofing matters, and how the team checked their hunch against the other ships nearby, before-and-after imagery and an outside expert. Then we ask the uncomfortable questions: how long the method keeps working now that it's public, and what happens, or doesn't, after open-source work gets it right. At the end we give the tell in one sentence and some open datasets you can explore yourself.

Hosted by Ines and Jonah, from real reporting. Supported by STELQ.

Sources

1. bellingcat.com/news/2026/06/12/shadow-fleet-russian-grain-stolen-ukraine-libya-ais-techniq
2. navcen.uscg.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/ais/references/IMO_A1106_29_Revised_guidelines.pdf
3. navcen.uscg.gov/ais-class-a-reports
4. sanctionedvessels.org/learn/ais-going-dark-and-spoofing
5. kpler.com/blog/ais-spoofing-vs-gnss-interference-why-the-distinction-decides-the-claim
6. lloydslistintelligence.com/resources/blog/from-probable-to-confirmed-using-satellite-image
7. elib.dlr.de/80940/1/ENC_2012_ASSESSMENT_OF_AIS.pdf
8. arxiv.science/abs/2609.37676
9. digitalyacht.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/the_rin_maritime_report_v1.2.pdf
10. web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Lo_ION_ITM_2026_Observations_of_Spoofing.p
11. kiborg.news/2024/07/08/grumant-shemy-frahtuvannya-sudna-dlya-vykradennya-zerna-z-okupovano
12. bellingcat.com/news/2023/05/11/grain-trail-tracking-russias-ghost-ships-with-satellite-ima
13. libyaobserver.ly/inbrief/russian-flagged-ship-grumant-arrives-benghazi-after-controversial
14. war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/en/transport/ships/303
15. projecttruthinternational.media/new-method-uses-ships-compass-not-gps-to-trace-stolen-crim
16. opensanctions.org/entities/NK-5YRJ6DaQ7rEx7NBZycbHaf/
17. home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0653
18. kse.ua/about-the-school/news/russian-shadow-fleet-tracker-september-2026-shadow-fleet-ship
19. npr.org/2026/07/31/nx-s1-5914652/google-adds-ai-to-satellite-images-raising-fears-of-deepf
20. cjr.org/feature/the-future-of-visual-investigations-if-we-cant-trust-our-eyes.php