French FREMM Bretagne tracks Russian spy ship Yuriy Ivanov.

According to a tweet published by the French Gov on December 16, 2022, the French Navy's FREMM frigate Bretagne has tracked the Russian Yury Ivanov-class intelligence ship Yuriy Ivanov.
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French FREMM frigate Bretagne and Russian intelligence collection ship Yuriy Ivanov. (Picture source: French Gov)

The Yuriy Ivanov class (Project 18280) is a new type of Russian SIGINT intelligence collection ship. The ship is designed by the JSC Central Design Bureau Iceberg.

Project 18280 has a length of 95 m (311 ft 8 in), a beam of 16 m (52 ft 6 in), and a draught of 4 m (13 ft 1 in). The class of vessels can carry a complement of 120 sailors.

The displacement of the ship is more than 4,000 tons, the cruising range not less than 8,000 miles (13,000 km) and its armament consists of light anti-aircraft weapons.

The ship on its performance characteristics and capabilities is considerably superior to similar vessels of previous generations mainly due to the versatility and high level of automation and systems integration.

The vessels of this class are designed for providing communication. The first ship, Yuriy Ivanov, was laid down in 2004 and was launched on 30 September 2013.

The second ship, Ivan Khurs, was launched on 16 May 2017. Russia originally planned to build at least four such ships by 2020, but this date was later pushed back to 2025.