This just in from Fox News, confirmed by independent sources:
A Russian spy ship was spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday morning, the first such patrol since President Trump took office, two U.S. officials told Fox News.
The Russian spy ship was 70 miles off the coast of Delaware, heading north at 10 knots, according to one official. That location means the ship is in international waters. The U.S. territory line is 12 nautical miles.
It was not immediately clear where the Russian spy ship was headed.
The ship, the SSV-175 Viktor Leonov, last sailed near the U.S. in April 2015, an official said. The ship is capable of intercepting communications or signals, known as SIGINT, as well as measuring U.S. Navy sonar capability, a separate official said.
This is not the first time a Russian intelligence vessel was spotted off the coast of the United States. In September 2015, a spy ship from the same country was detected off the coast of Kings Bay, Ga., which is home to the U.S. Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine fleet.
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The previous year, a Russian intelligence-gathering ship was found to be operating off the U.S. coast near the Gulf of Mexico, and last year a Russian spy vessel was reported to be patrolling the waters near Hawaii.
