Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is now believed to be over 1,000-strong.
- It is reckoned that in 2025 more than 800 shadow fleet tankers passed through the English Channel. They were carefully tracked by radar and satellite.
- Any country that detains a ship from another country must have a very good reason, because the detention can be deemed an act of war.
By Tom Arms | London
Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is now believed to be over 1,000-strong. The ships are 20-25 years old. Putin has neither the time nor the money to build all the ships he needs.
And he needs a lot because a major slice of Russia’s oil exports are seaborne. International oil sales provide 20 percent of the government’s revenues and the government is spending 40-60 percent of its revenues on the Ukraine War.
The floating rust buckets in the shadow fleet are uninsurable and an environmental disaster waiting to happen. But Putin doesn’t care about their seaworthiness. They are cheap to buy and run and thus make the big profits he needs to feed his war machine.
Stop the Shadow Fleet and you seriously damage the Russian war effort.
Trump has shown the way– possibly. Those are words that have never before appeared in this blog and are unlikely to ever appear again. But as far as dealing with the growing sanctions-busting shadow fleet of oil tankers goes, the US president could be the trend setter.
In recent weeks, Donald Trump has ordered the boarding of seven oil tankers; arrested the crew; sailed the ships to a safe port; impounded the vessels and their cargo and announced plans to sell both.
It was a bold move and the legal framework for Trump’s moves is—to say the least—dicey. The procedure goes something like this—the US tracks a vessel with satellites; monitors its signals; checks to see if it is manipulating its Automatic Identification System (which is illegal); watches to see if it is transferring oil to other ships (also illegal); is uninsured or operating under a false flag (both illegal).
Read: Hundreds of Russian shadow tankers trigger military alarm transiting NATO waters: report
If it is doing anything likely to contravene the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) then it can be deemed a suspect “stateless vessel.” As such it can be boarded. Its cargo, registration papers, insurance documents can be checked along with the ship’s seaworthiness. If it is found wanting in any of the above then it is confirmed as “stateless.” The crew is arrested. The ship sailed to a safe port and the vessel and cargo are impounded.
The Royal Navy would love to follow suit. So would the French and the Scandinavians. The French have already detained one shadow fleet tanker in the Mediterranean (the Grinch) and the Royal Navy participated in the detention of a ship in the North Atlantic (the Marinera).
But it is in the Baltic and the English Channel where the shadow fleet is most vulnerable. A large proportion of the Russia’s tanker-borne oil is loaded at Primorsk or Ust-loga and sails through the Baltic, the Danish Straits and then the North Sea and the English Channel on their way to Asia via the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.
That first leg is largely British and Scandinavian territorial waters where local navies could easily board the shadow fleet tankers.
It is known that governments are actively investigating ways of doing so. But their actions need to be legally watertight.
One method could be simply following the legal precedent currently being set by the Trump Administration. In the case of the British, they are also examining using the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act (SAMLA). This law is the post-Brexit legislation for creating and enforcing sanctions. It allows the government, among other things, to “seize or detain property involved in sanctions evasion.”
It is reckoned that in 2025 more than 800 shadow fleet tankers passed through the English Channel. They were carefully tracked by radar and satellite. On several occasions Royal Navy patrol boats were dispatched as escorts so that, according Armed Forces Minister, said: “Putin knows that we know exactly what he is doing.”
But so far the government has not used SAMLA or any other legal mechanism to detain any of the shadow fleet tankers. The reason is because for every law there is usually a countervailing law to contradict it. In this case the contradiction is found in UNCLOS and is termed the right of “innocent passage”
UNCLOS became the cornerstone of international maritime law in 1982. Its legal antecedents, however, stretch back to 1609 and Hugo Grotius’s “Freedom of the Seas Doctrine.” Basically, it says that a coastal state must allow foreign ships to pass through its territorial waters as long as they move “continuously and expeditiously” and do not threaten the coastal state’s peace and security.”
There are a few loopholes that could be used against the shadow fleet such as the ship must follow safety rules and cannot turn off or manipulate its Automatic Identification System. But the bottom line is that any country that detains a ship from another country must have a very good reason, because the detention can be deemed an act of war.
Read: Observations of an Expat: What’s Next
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Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and a regular contributor to “The New World”. He also lectures on world affairs and is the author of two editions of “The Encyclopedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain.”
