Author: Robert Břešťan, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
There are over a thousand tankers sailing the world’s seas and oceans under various registrations and flags that actually belong to Russia. They are transporting sanctioned Russian oil to the world. Often, these ships are very outdated and in poor technical condition, with the risk of an environmental disaster in the event of an accident. These vessels have already had several accidents.
“The dependence on Russian gas has been solved and the Russians are still looking in vain for outlets elsewhere. It is different with oil. Russia can also export oil to distant markets, primarily to India and partly to China, via the so-called grey fleet of Russian tankers,” says Czech political geographer Michael Romancov.
Shadow vessels carrying sanctioned goods, often oil, are not entirely new in the world: similar tankers are also used to transport Iranian and Venezuelan oil, and their number in the world’s seas and oceans has increased sharply since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The risk of an accident is increasing
In European waters, Russian shadow fleet tankers operate mainly in the Baltic Sea, primarily around Denmark. “There have already been two collisions with another ship, fortunately always when the tanker was returning empty back to Russia,” Romancov pointed out.
The collisions in the southern part of the Denmark Strait took place at the end of March this year. Although it was clear from the circumstances that the ship was carrying Russian oil, as Bloomberg reported, the owner of the Andromeda Star was listed as “with unknown owner” in the registers.
According to Reuters, Russia sends about a third of its oil exports to the world via the Denmark Strait, accounting for 1.5% of global supplies. The risk of an accident looms with each new passage.
The Swedes have repeatedly warned about the abundant movement of the Russian grey fleet in the Baltic Sea. According to them, the shadow vessels are also equipped with communication equipment that standard merchant vessels do not need in any case and that they can also serve for espionage purposes.
According to the US think-tank CEPA (Center for European Policy Analysis), these unacknowledged Russian tankers are “worse than pirates”.
That the risk of an accident and environmental disaster is not theoretical in the slightest is proven by the collision of tankers in Malaysian waters this July. A Russian ‘shadow ship’ collided with a legally operated tanker and both caught fire, yet the tanker carrying Russian oil sailed away promptly.
According to CEPA, the fact that ships in Russia’s shadow fleet try to limit their ability to be tracked by disabling or otherwise tampering with automatic identification systems (AIS) also contributes to the risk of accidents. The age of the ships is also an issue, with most of them having been in service for more than 15 years. With this comes the risk of oil spills at sea and damage, which Russia would be hard pressed to claim.
They sail because we let them
A report by the Kiev School of Economics in April this year said that ship managers from the United Arab Emirates, China and Greece are playing a major role in transporting Russian oil.
While some specific Russian tankers have been identified and placed on the sanctions list, the Kremlin has managed to replace them with others. They fly the flags of third countries, such as Swaziland and Gabon, and also misuse the identification data of ships that are no longer in service.
Even within individual countries, they change their registrations as needed, for example to different companies based in the United Arab Emirates.
The total size of the Shadow Fleet is only estimated at one to two thousand vessels. “Many of these ships are only sailing because we allow them to. Those ships also sail without insurance. Which also means that in the event of an accident, the result could be a huge ecological problem, and Vladimir Putin really doesn’t care about ecology,” Romancov said.
