Russian shadow fleet

Based on Wikipedia: Russian shadow fleet

The Ghost Ships Hiding in Plain Sight

Somewhere in the Baltic Sea right now, a rusting oil tanker is sailing with its transponder switched off. Its insurance documents are forged. Its true owner is hidden behind a maze of shell companies in Dubai and Hong Kong. And in its hold sits a hundred thousand tons of Russian crude oil, worth perhaps seventy million dollars, making its way to a buyer who will pay above the price that Western nations have tried to impose.

This is Russia's shadow fleet.

It is not one fleet but a sprawling network of over a thousand aging vessels—tankers, freighters, and cargo ships—that Russia has assembled to keep its oil flowing despite international sanctions. The fleet represents one of the largest organized efforts to evade economic restrictions in modern history, and it has transformed the geopolitics of global shipping in ways that will take decades to unwind.

How We Got Here

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world's most powerful economies faced a dilemma. Russian oil and gas account for roughly ten percent of global supply. Simply banning Russian energy exports would spike prices worldwide, hurting the very economies trying to punish Moscow. But allowing Russia to sell freely would fund its war machine.

The Group of Seven nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—along with the European Union, arrived at what seemed like a clever compromise. They would not ban Russian oil entirely. Instead, they imposed a price cap: Russian crude could only be sold at or below sixty dollars per barrel. The enforcement mechanism was elegant in theory. Western companies dominate the maritime insurance industry and shipping services. Any tanker wanting to carry Russian oil would need insurance from London or New York or Oslo. And those insurers would only cover shipments sold below the cap.

The logic was straightforward. Russia could still sell its oil, preventing a global energy crisis. But it would earn less money, limiting funds available for military operations.

Russia had other plans.

Building a Fleet in the Shadows

Moscow had been watching Iran and Venezuela for years. Both countries had faced their own sanctions and had developed "dark fleets" of tankers operating outside normal maritime channels. The playbook was proven. Russia just needed to execute it on a much larger scale.

The buying spree began almost immediately. Russian oil companies, state actors, and opportunistic intermediaries started purchasing tankers approaching the end of their useful lives. In the normal shipping industry, tankers become uneconomical after about twenty years. Maintenance costs rise. Insurance premiums increase. Classification societies—the organizations that certify ships as seaworthy—become more demanding about inspections and repairs.

But if you do not care about insurance and you are willing to cut corners on maintenance, these aging vessels become attractive. Their prices rose dramatically as demand surged. Sellers of geriatric tankers found themselves making enormous profits on vessels they had expected to scrap.

By the end of 2022, the shadow fleet had grown to over six hundred ships. Four hundred of those were crude oil tankers capable of carrying millions of barrels per voyage. By December 2023, estimates ranged from eleven hundred to fourteen hundred vessels. By 2025, the fleet had more than tripled from its 2022 starting point.

The Ukrainian government now maintains a catalog tracking these ships. As of November 2025, it listed twelve hundred and forty vessels.

The Insurance Gap

Here is where the scheme becomes genuinely dangerous—and not just for sanctions enforcement, but for the environment and for human life.

Western maritime insurance exists for a reason. When a tanker runs aground or collides with another vessel or catches fire, someone needs to pay for the cleanup, the lost cargo, the damaged ship, and any environmental remediation. Protection and Indemnity insurance—known as P&I coverage in the industry—handles these liabilities. Major P&I clubs are based in London, Oslo, and other Western capitals. They have centuries of experience, massive financial reserves, and rigorous standards for the ships they cover.

Two-thirds of ships carrying Russian oil now have what regulators politely call "unknown" insurers.

Some of these vessels present insurance certificates from legitimate-sounding companies that turn out to be fabrications. Investigators have documented cases of forged documents, expired policies presented as current, and certificates from insurers that lack the financial resources to actually pay a major claim. Russian insurers like Ingosstrakh have stepped in to provide coverage, but their policies may not be honored by international maritime authorities and almost certainly cannot cover a catastrophic spill.

This matters because these ships are old and poorly maintained. When you buy a twenty-year-old tanker specifically because it is too decrepit to get legitimate insurance, you are not investing in new engine components and hull repairs. You are running it until it breaks.

The Flags of Convenience

Every ship needs to be registered somewhere. That registration—the flag it flies—determines which country's laws apply aboard. Legitimate shipping lines often register in countries like Panama or Liberia, which offer favorable tax and regulatory terms. This is called sailing under a "flag of convenience," and while it has its critics, it operates within an established international framework.

The shadow fleet has found even more accommodating registries.

Gabon, a small nation on Africa's Atlantic coast, more than doubled its ship registry in 2023. An estimated ninety-eight percent of tankers now flying the Gabonese flag are considered high-risk vessels with no identifiable owner. The country lacks the resources or inclination to inspect these ships or verify their insurance. Other flags appearing on shadow fleet vessels include those of the Comoros Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Benin.

The incidents are mounting. Groundings. Collisions. Engine failures. Fires. The rate has climbed to roughly two per month. When something goes wrong with one of these ships, recovering the cost of rescue and cleanup is nearly impossible. There is no real owner to sue. There is no insurance company to file a claim against. The coastal nation where the accident occurs is simply stuck with the bill.

The Anchor That Closed the Bosphorus

In January 2024, an eighteen-year-old tanker named Peria was transiting the Bosphorus—the narrow strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and runs directly through Istanbul. The Peria was already on sanctions lists. Its anchor mechanism failed.

A ship adrift in the Bosphorus is not like a car broken down on the highway. The strait is only about half a mile wide at its narrowest point. Hundreds of vessels pass through daily. When the Peria lost its anchor, it blocked all traffic. No ships could enter or exit the Black Sea until the problem was resolved.

This is the reality of the shadow fleet. These ships are operating critical maritime chokepoints with equipment that has not been properly maintained because their true owners—hidden behind corporate shells—do not feel obligated to meet international standards. They sail with transponders turned off to hide their locations. They conduct ship-to-ship transfers of oil in open water to obscure the origin of their cargo. Each of these practices increases the risk of collision and spillage.

Ukraine Fights Back

By late 2025, Ukraine had decided that diplomatic pressure and sanctions were not enough. It began attacking the shadow fleet directly.

In November 2025, Ukraine's Security Service conducted drone strikes on two shadow fleet tankers—the Virat and the Kairos—off the Turkish Black Sea coast. A few days later, Ukrainian forces hit another tanker, the Dashan, which was already under European Union sanctions. A Turkish company promptly halted all Russia-related operations after its vessel Mersin was damaged in the strikes.

In December 2025, Ukraine executed its first long-range Mediterranean strike, targeting a tanker that had recently delivered oil to India. The geographic expansion was significant. Russia could no longer assume its shadow fleet was safe once it left the Black Sea.

According to The Atlantic, the Trump administration approved intelligence sharing to support these Ukrainian attacks, viewing them as a strategic tool to pressure Russia.

Cat and Mouse in European Waters

The shadow fleet has become a persistent headache for European navies and coast guards. The incidents read like a spy thriller, except they are happening in some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

In April 2025, the Estonian Navy minehunter Admiral Cowan stopped a flagless tanker called the Kiwala in the Baltic Sea. The vessel was pretending to be registered in Djibouti but was actually on both EU and UK sanctions lists. It was heading to load oil at the Russian port of Ust-Luga. Estonian forces seized the ship, held it for over two weeks, and then released it.

That same Kiwala would reappear in September, this time in French waters near Saint-Nazaire, now flying the flag of Benin and calling itself the Boracay. French naval forces seized it again—making it perhaps the only ship in maritime history to be captured twice by different NATO navies in a single year. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the French seizure "an act of piracy." French authorities found that the ship was suspected of launching drones over Denmark that had disrupted operations at Copenhagen Airport.

The Drone Question

European security services have grown increasingly concerned that shadow fleet vessels are being used for more than just sanctions evasion. They may also be platforms for espionage and potential sabotage.

In May 2025, unidentified drones were spotted over a military site in Kiel, Germany. Authorities asked the Dutch Coast Guard to intercept a freighter called the Dolphin, flagged in Antigua and Barbuda and crewed entirely by Russians. Dutch forces boarded and searched the vessel but found no evidence of drone operations.

Days later, Estonian naval forces escorted a Gabonese-flagged tanker called the Jaguar out of Estonian territorial waters. The operation involved helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and a Polish MiG-29 fighter jet. A Russian Sukhoi Su-35 violated Estonian airspace the same day. Portuguese F-16s scrambled in response.

Later that month, a German Coast Guard patrol boat called the Potsdam was shadowing a Russian-crewed freighter named the Luga in German waters when unidentified drones overflew the patrol boat for three hours. Belgian authorities eventually searched the Luga but found nothing.

In August 2025, Danish investigative journalists obtained internal correspondence from DanPilot, the state-owned pilotage company. The documents described reports of "extra crew members"—presumably Russian—wearing uniforms and actively photographing infrastructure like bridge passages as they transited Danish waters. Swedish television later reported that the Swedish Amphibious Corps had received similar reports of armed and uniformed personnel aboard shadow fleet vessels, believed to be hired through private security companies.

The Undersea Cable Threat

The shadow fleet's most alarming potential role involves the network of undersea cables and pipelines that crisscross the Baltic Sea. These cables carry electricity between nations. They also carry internet traffic. They are critical infrastructure, and they are almost impossible to defend.

In late 2024, Finnish authorities launched an investigation into a tanker called the Eagle S, which they suspected of sabotaging the Estlink 2 power cable connecting Estonia and Finland. The Estlink 2 incident prompted the Estonian Navy to begin protective operations around undersea cables in the Baltic.

In May 2025, a shadow fleet tanker named the Sun, flying Antigua and Barbuda's flag, was spotted sailing suspicious patterns around a 600-megawatt power cable linking Sweden and Poland. A Polish aerial patrol scared the vessel off. The Polish research ship Heweliusz then swept the area to check for damage.

Russia Sends an Escort

Perhaps the clearest sign of how high the stakes have risen came in June 2025, when the Russian Navy began escorting shadow fleet tankers in convoy formation.

The tankers Selva and Sierra—both under UK and EU sanctions—were tracked heading toward Russian ports to load oil. They were being guarded by the Boykiy, a modern corvette from Russia's Steregushchiy class armed with anti-ship missiles. The convoy transited through the English Channel on June 22.

This was unprecedented. Russia was now using its actual navy to protect its sanctions-evading fleet from interference by NATO coast guards. The shadow had stepped into the light, daring Western nations to respond.

The Caribbean Gambit

The shadow fleet does not operate only in European waters. In November 2025, the American destroyer USS Stockdale intercepted a Comorian-flagged tanker called the Seahorse in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel was on sanctions lists and was heading toward Venezuela—itself under American sanctions. The Stockdale forced the Russian tanker to change course and divert to Cuba instead.

The incident illustrated the global reach of both the shadow fleet and the efforts to counter it. Russian oil was flowing not just to China and India but to Latin American allies, using vessels that could theoretically dock anywhere their flags and paperwork would not be scrutinized.

The Legal Puzzle

Why cannot Western nations simply block these ships from entering their waters?

The answer lies in international maritime law, specifically the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, known by its acronym UNCLOS. The convention grants ships the right of "innocent passage" through territorial waters—the twelve nautical miles extending from a nation's coastline. As long as a vessel is merely transiting, not stopping or conducting operations, the coastal state has limited authority to interfere.

The convention does contain provisions for restricting navigation that poses serious environmental threats. Vessels must also obey the laws of countries they transit, including requirements for proper insurance and seaworthiness. But enforcing these provisions against a moving ship in international waters is legally and practically complex.

The Danish Straits present a particular challenge. These narrow passages between Denmark, Sweden, and Norway connect the Baltic Sea to the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Under the Copenhagen Convention of 1857, merchant vessels are guaranteed peaceful passage through these straits. Denmark—despite facing significant environmental risks from barely insured shadow fleet tankers transiting its waters—has limited legal tools to stop them.

The Eventin Test Case

In January 2025, a tanker called the Eventin departed the Russian port of Ust-Luga, heading for Egypt. The ship flew the flag of Panama. A few days into its voyage, it lost engine power and drifted into German waters.

German customs made an unprecedented decision. They seized not just the ship but its cargo—roughly one hundred thousand tons of Russian crude oil. In theory, this transferred ownership of both vessel and oil to the German state. It was the first time a Western country had actually confiscated shadow fleet cargo rather than simply detaining and releasing a ship.

Russia and the tanker's operators challenged the seizure in court. In December 2025, a Munich court ruled that ships entering restricted waters while in distress cannot be seized and suspended Germany's action. The fate of the oil aboard remains the subject of ongoing litigation.

The case illustrates the legal gray zones that the shadow fleet exploits. What happens when a sanctions-busting tanker genuinely breaks down? Does distress at sea override sanctions enforcement? These questions have no clear answers, and Russia's lawyers are eager to find sympathetic interpretations.

The Environmental Reckoning

In December 2024, two shadow fleet tankers caused an oil spill that became the worst environmental disaster in the Black Sea this century.

The details were depressingly predictable. Russian operators. Neglected maintenance. Inadequate insurance. And when catastrophe struck, no one to hold accountable. Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to Ukraine's president, confirmed that both vessels were part of the shadow fleet.

The spill galvanized international attention. Ukraine called for global action to deter the fleet. Latvia demanded that shadow fleet vessels be banned from European Union waters entirely.

In December 2024, twelve countries agreed to cooperate on disrupting the shadow fleet: Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, the five Nordic nations—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The coalition announced new sanctions and promised coordinated enforcement.

The Sanctions Catch Up

For two years, the shadow fleet operated with relative impunity. As of late 2024, only 118 vessels had been sanctioned by the United States, European Union, or United Kingdom. Just three ships were sanctioned by all three jurisdictions.

That began to change in 2025.

In January, the U.S. Treasury added approximately 180 vessels to its sanctions list, along with scores of trading companies, major Russian oil firms, and senior executives. In June, Australia sanctioned sixty shadow fleet vessels. In July, the United Kingdom designated 135 tankers plus two Russian companies: Intershipping Services LLC and Litasco Middle East DMCC.

The sanctions targeted not just ships but the ecosystem supporting them. Trading firms in Dubai and Hong Kong that had been brokering shadow fleet cargoes found themselves designated. Insurance companies suspected of providing fraudulent coverage faced investigation.

In Norway, the insurance company Ro Marine cancelled coverage on three tankers after investigators identified them as non-compliant with price cap rules. But the problem went deeper. Fake insurance documents bearing Ro Marine's name had been circulating, used to deceive NATO countries and port authorities. Norwegian police launched an investigation. Flag states that had accepted the forged certificates began revoking ship registrations.

What Comes Next

The shadow fleet is not going away. Russia has too much invested in it, both financially and strategically. Oil exports remain vital to funding Moscow's war effort, and the shadow fleet ensures that those exports continue flowing regardless of Western price caps.

But the operating environment is tightening. More ships are being sanctioned. More ports are scrutinizing documentation. Coast guards across Europe are boarding suspicious vessels with increasing frequency. Ukraine has demonstrated that it will attack tankers directly.

In June 2025, the European Union published a briefing titled "Russia's 'Shadow Fleet': Bringing the Threat to Light." It outlined Moscow's tactics and called for stricter enforcement. The following November, the EU voted to ensure full implementation of existing sanctions.

The fleet continues to evolve. Russia has begun using its navy as escorts. Chinese crewmembers have been found aboard some vessels—including the captain and first mate of the Kiwala when French forces seized it. Shell companies multiply. Flags of convenience shift. The game of cat and mouse intensifies.

And in shipping lanes from the Baltic to the Caribbean, in the narrow passages of the Danish Straits and the Bosphorus, aging tankers keep sailing. Their hulls rust. Their engines strain. Their insurance documents lie. They carry fortunes in oil through waters where, eventually, probability suggests, something will go very wrong.

The question is not whether the shadow fleet will cause another major disaster. The question is when, and where, and who will pay to clean it up.