Ukraine collected data on Russia's shadow fleet. There are 238 tankers on the list so far
In Ukraine, the War & Sanctions portal opened a section on the global shadow fleet, which provides multibillion-dollar revenues to aggressor countries, mostly Russia, and threatens global environmental security. This was reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Defense Ministry.
So far, the section presents a complete dossier on 238 shadow fleet tankers.
On the portal, tankers can be filtered by the main operators that appeared in 2022-2023 and played a key role in the formation of the Russian shadow fleet and ensuring the transportation of Russian oil under sanctions. These are companies and vessels associated with the Russian Sovkomflot, Gatik Ship Management (India), Fractal Marine DMCC (UAE), Radiating World Shipping Services LLC (UAE), Star Voyages Shipping Services LLC (UAE), Hennesea Holdings Limited, others.
For convenience, you can filter tankers by sanctions regime (Russia or Iran) and applied restrictions. It is also possible to trace who owns and operates the shadow fleet.
In total, the global shadow fleet includes more than a thousand mostly outdated, poorly maintained vessels without adequate insurance, with "confusing" ownership and management structures, located in "friendly" jurisdictions, under "convenient" flags.
The total deadweight of the shadow fleet is more than 100 million tons, which corresponds to about 17% of the global fleet of oil tankers.
Such vessels resort to deceptive tactics at sea to hide the origin of cargo, threaten "ecological chaos" to coastal countries due to the risk of disasters while passing through busy narrow international shipping lanes, and refuse pilotage services. Since February 2022, more than 50 incidents involving shadow tankers have already been recorded from the Denmark Strait to Malaysia.
Since 2022, Russia has spent about $10 billion on the creation of its shadow fleet.
- On November 25, 2024, Britain immediately imposed sanctions against 30 ships of the Russian Federation and major insurers.
- On December 4, the United States introduced new sanctions against Iran's "shadow" oil fleet .
