A Russian Navy surveillance ship has been seen lingering off the western coast of Hawaii in May according to USNI News
Today a Russian spy ship has been observed operating just outside US waters of the Northshore of Oahu
A U.S. missile defense test was briefly delayed off Kauai late last month due to the presence of a Russian spy ship.

Tourism is booming in the Aloha State. No one is worried about the Russian spy ship just 200 miles North of the Island of Oahu.

Generally, international waters start around 200 nautical miles from the country’s shoreline and continue outward.

A Russian ship is currently operating in these waters. Onboard are Russian intelligence officers known as spies. Their mission is to gather intelligence on US military installations on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. This was confirmed to local media by US Navy officials

The spy ship was detected north of the Island of Oahu.

Last month a Russian spy ship was loitering in international waters off Kauai for several days. The presence of this ship had delayed a US missile test.

U.S. Naval Institute News, which was the first to report the presence of the ship, said it was the Russian Navy Vishnya-class auxiliary general intelligence ship Kareliya (SSV-535).

The Vishnya class (also known as the Meridian class) is a group of intelligence collection ships built for the Soviet Navy in the 1980s. The ships continue in service with the Russian Navy. The Soviet designation is Project 864. The Russian Navy operates seven of these ships.

The Vladivostok-based ship on a Hawaiian mission is one of seven AGIs specializing in signals intelligence, USNI News said. It was not clear tonight if the Russian collection ship operating off Oahu is the same as the one encountered in late May.

As reported by this publication, three fighter jets from Hickam Airforce base took off on Sunday to keep the Russian navy under control operating the largest exercise since the cold war just 300 miles from shores of the Aloha State,

A US Navy official told a Hawaii newspaper: “We operate in accordance with international law of the sea and in the air to ensure that all nations can do the same without fear or contest and in order to secure a free and open Indo-Pacific. As Russia operates within the region, it is expected to do so in accordance with international law.”

The US Air Force has F-22s, pilots, maintainers, and weapons crews on call 24 hours a day at Hickam to respond to air threats to the Hawaiian islands as part of an air defense alert mission.