Braving the storm: It's time to board Russia's shadow fleet

Japan Times

2 days ago

Attempts to strangle Russian President Vladimir Putin's war machine with endless sanctions are starting to feel like Europe is shouting into the void.
Each fresh package of measures is met with a shrug by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, Russian tankers slip through European waters, quietly ferrying oil worth billions — the very finances that fuel the conflict sanctions are meant to extinguish: A shadow fleet that operates outside of regulatory frameworks.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted an unprecedented wave of punitive economic measures from the European Union, Group of Seven and United States. The goal was to cripple the Kremlin's capacity to wage war by striking at the heart of its economy — oil and gas. These commodities comprise roughly 60% of Russian exports and nearly 40% of state revenue.
The EU recently announced its 17th sanctions package, agreed by the bloc's foreign ministers on May 20th. This lists major corporate actors and an additional 189 vessels — bringing the total to 342 — linked to Russia's shadow fleet. While such actions might appear robust, look under the surface and the flaws are glaring. Because, thus far, and despite all sanctions and bans on Russian oil and gas by the U.S., the U.K. and Brussels, Russia has earned over $973 billion in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of its full-scale invasion — including approximately $230 billion from European Union countries alone.
At the end of 2022, the G7 and Australia first imposed a ceiling of $60 per barrel on Russian crude, seeking to cap Moscow's revenues while allowing global markets to function. The Kremlin's answer? A clandestine flotilla of aging tankers, often operating under flags of convenience, transferring cargo ship‑to‑ship on the high seas and delivering millions of barrels to willing customers — primarily China and India — far from Western regulatory reach.
Estimates of this shadow fleet vary. Some reckon it numbers over 1,600 vessels at peak, others put it closer to 650, but most experts agree it remains the lifeline of Russia's oil exports. The vessels slip through choke points like the Bosporus and Gibraltar Straits and crucially, nearly half of them transit through the Baltic Sea en route to the Danish straits and then the North Sea.
At this point, Europe's own waters become conduits for Kremlin cash — and a lot of it.
Russia's shadow fleet has effectively rendered the price cap regime a paper tiger, circumvented with ease and impunity. Last year alone, the clandestine flotilla allowed the Kremlin to rake in an estimated $9.4 billion in additional revenue. These funds fuel Putin's war machine and his campaign to rewrite the rules of the international order, threatening European and global security.
The Russian president knows exactly what he is doing. A vessel's inclusion on a sanctions list may bar it from ports and restrict its access to service providers, but it does nothing to impede its right to transit.
This is because, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)'s principle of innocent passage, a foreign ship may traverse a state's territorial sea so long as it does not threaten peace, security or the environment: Sanctions‑evasion, however reprehensible, does not per se qualify as a 'non‑innocent' act under a strict interpretation of UNCLOS.
Hence a Russian shadow tanker steaming through the Baltic cannot be boarded or detained without concrete evidence that it is responsible for sabotage or pollution.
The EU's paralysis on this point is astonishing: Through the umpteenth sanctions package it shows its resolve but refrains from translating this resolve into enforcement at sea.
While Finland invoked its security exceptions to seize the Eagle S ship last December on suspicion that it had cut undersea cables in the Baltic — an incident framed as a threat to critical infrastructure — this is not sufficient. Nor is the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Estonia telling their maritime authorities to request proof of insurance from suspected shadow vessels as they pass through European waters.
These remain splashes of enforcement; sporadic and largely reactive. The shadow tankers simply steer clear of the prying eyes of diligent inspectors, disable their transponders or adopt new names and flags. They slip into peripheral ports and off-load their cargo without a murmur. For every tanker turned back, far more slide through, undetected.
To navigate this storm, the EU must embrace a more audacious interpretation of innocent passage, one that compels shadow vessels to demonstrate their compliance with sanctions before they enter the bloc's waters.
Picture a regime where any tanker flagged under a jurisdiction notorious for open registries must show verifiable proof of valid insurance, seaworthiness and legitimate ownership at designated checkpoints such as the Danish Straits or the Fehmarn Belt between Germany and Denmark. Vessels failing to comply would be deemed non-innocent and subject to interception or seizure under UNCLOS' security exception.
Critics might howl that this would amount to legal overreach. The principle of innocent passage remains unviolated if a ship doesn't actively discharge oil, smuggle contraband or fire weapons. But consider the unavoidable truth: Can systematic sanctions evasion be viewed as innocent when it directly undermines the peace and security of the sanctioning states? Does the facilitation of wartime finances not amount to a form of hostility?
Of course, a robust transit regime would provoke Russian ire — perhaps even military posturing in the Baltic or North Seas. Yet, let us recall that Russia has no qualms about leveraging hybrid tactics or aggressive interrogations of NATO airspace when its interests demand it.
Europe must demonstrate that some lines can't be crossed — that its own security architecture, from undersea cables to coastal power grids, is sacrosanct. If that necessitates a flotilla of EU coast guard cutters shadowing every tanker on the Sound Strait between Denmark and Sweden, so be it.
If it involves a Franco‑German‑Dutch task force boarded under the auspices of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, so be it. A measure of confrontation and a reluctance to feel threatened by Russian retaliation, is precisely what is missing from the current sanctions paradigm.
Beyond enforcement, the EU must close legal loopholes. It should press for amendments to UNCLOS through the International Maritime Organization, expressly defining sanctions‑evasion as a noninnocent act infringing on the security of coastal states. Simultaneously, Brussels must harmonize its member states' laws so that port‑entry bans, service provision embargos and maritime fines are applied uniformly.
Oil is a lifeline for the Kremlin. Choke it and the consequences are not marginal — they are existential. A decisive European crackdown wouldn't merely disrupt shipping patterns; it would strike at the heart of Russia's war economy.
But more than that, it would signal something far greater: That Europe is no longer content to play the role of spectator in the theater of global power.
Some may wonder whether the bloc can afford such muscularity. But the true cost of inaction is far higher. Every barrel of discounted Russian oil that reaches global markets tells Moscow — and every autocrat watching — that Europe's resolve is brittle, its laws aspirational.
If Europe fails to stand firm now, it invites greater instability later. The lesson is as old as the continent itself: Peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of strength.
Thomas O. Falk is a London-based political commentator and journalist.