LETTERS | Norwegian shipping company chair states Russian crew not involved in drone activities

2. I do not think that there is any credible circumstantial evidence to connect our ships to drone activities. The other articles that I have seen are in my personal opinion not professional research, but [done by] journalists who are biased and very eagerly want to find "something" without having any tangible info. Just guessing and conspiring. Some examples:

In one article they criticise our anchoring positions, but these positions are given to us by the authorities in different countries. And in difficult times, there are more waiting (at anchorage) for cargo than in other times. Some journalists have big blown-up pictures (covering only a few hundred metres) of "suspicious movements", but these are normal patterns when one is at anchor.

We have been criticised for having more crew than required. Normally the so-called "safe manning" is six or seven crew on our vessels, but we usually add one extra crew in order to adhere to watch-duty time rules (and also in order to do maintenance on board). If not, we will get the ITF on our back.

The shortsea trade in the Baltic is very hard for the crew with short voyages and a lot of work in between. And again, there are many hundred shortsea ships (if not thousands) with Russian crew. In addition comes the rest of the shipping fleet where also Russian crews are in abundance.

We have also seen the term "shadow fleet" used in reference to our ships; Normally when one talks about the "shadow fleet," one think of oil tankers with unknown owners and shady or false flag-states trying to evade sanctions (often with AIS turned off).

In the case of HAV there is a known Norwegian owner running its ships under well accepted flag states: Bahamas (London), and Antigua and Barbuda (Oldenburg), and with AIS turned on. Our ships are, as all other ships, inspected in almost every harbour by customs, PSC, police, ITF, etc.