The Lady R's position system is on 99% of the time, historic data shows – but not perfect. So were it not for eyewitness accounts, we may never have known that the ship, which allegedly carried weapons and ammunition to Russia, had visited South Africa at all.

The Russian-flagged Lady R is not a typical visitor to Africa, south of the equator. In the last eight years, it has visited mostly ports in the North Atlantic and the West Mediterranean, with common sightings in the Baltic and Black Sea. It sometimes, but not often, ventured as far as West Africa. It most commonly docked in Spain, Algeria, Germany, Portugal, Belgium and the UK, visiting ports in those countries more often than it did any in Russia.

Over the last year, that long-term pattern did not hold true. The ship was mostly seen in Novorossiysk, a Russian port on the Black Sea, not terribly far from the Ukraine front-lines, with calls in Algeria, India and Egypt. It also visited Mozambique, Cameroon, Sudan, Togo and Turkey.

Since mid-2022, it has gone from Novorossiysk to Istanbul, then through the Suez Canal to Kolkata. It visited the Indian city of Kochi before returning back through the Suez Canal to Istanbul, and then Novorossiysk again. It's next voyage took it much farther afield. Because its positioning system apparently suffered that rare (and potentially dangerous, to itself and other ships around it in busy lanes) outage, historical records do not show it visiting South Africa. Instead, data for its movements would suggest it travelled down the west coast of Africa to call first in Togo and Cameroon, then skipped to the port of Beira, in northern Mozambique. It anchored in Sudan for a couple of days, then it was back through the Suez to complete its circle around the African continent, ending up back in Novorossiysk.

The ship had a long Christmas break in Beira, but then hot-footed it back to Russia, with only very brief stops along the east coast of Africa.

It is currently cutting through the Suez again, this time with its reported destination as Zhanjiang in China, again a long way from its usual stomping grounds, and only about half-laden, judging by how high she is riding in the water. Getting to China should take the Lady R another month or so. What happened between Cameroon and Mozambique? Despite no data being recorded from its automatic identification system, we know the Lady R entered the Simon's Town Naval Base on  December 6, because it was spotted there, and the government later confirmed its visit. While it was in port, however, neither the government nor the military was available for comment.

Residents of Simon's Town said they saw cranes at work, and people in military uniform. Three days later, the ship left in the early hours of the morning, while the navy still refused to say anything about it.