Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since 2014 has led to widespread sanctions from Western powers, many of which focus on reducing the amount of oil and gas (O&G) the EU imports from Russia.
As a result, Russia has had to resort to new ways of selling its gas to member states. Since the start of the war Russia has been building up a so-called shadow fleet which not only allow Russia to evade regulations, but are fueling Vladimir Putin’s invasion in Ukraine.
What is a shadow fleet?
It is a term that has regularly appeared in the media to describe Moscow’s latest weapon of its hybrid war against the West.
Most ships will be recognized by radars and high-end technology, and could therefore be easily intercepted, but Moscow has began to utilise a loophole by using old ships long past their expected retirement age. These ships are not officially registered by the EUs port authorities, fly under other nation’s flags, are often uninsured, and are virtually untraceable, and can therefore secretly transport sanctioned oil from Russia through the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean.
The shadow fleet operates in a legal grey zone, causing doubts on EU countries as to how they should be handled if the ships cannot be identified as Russian owned and operated.
On May 21, Polish authorities spotted an unidentified vessel in the Baltic Sea, operating between Sweden and Poland. The National Intelligence raised concerns that Russia may have stationed the ship in the area to sabotage a power cable connecting the two countries, an event that has fractured telecomunication links and gas pipelines various times since the full scale invasion in 2022.
The ship was deterred by Polish forces and was identified as the Sun, sailing under the Antigua flag. Despite this, Reuters reported that the ship is widely suspected to be part of the Russian Shadow Fleet, something Moscow declined to comment on, but has previously denied involvement in undersea sabotage.
Why is Russia operating a Shadow Fleet
Since 2022, the G7 has imposed a price cap on Russian gas, causing lower revenue for Russia from its sales on gas exports. It was initially set at $60 for the barrel, which was lowered to $45 in the European Union last week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested a further price decrease to $30, though this remains a pending negotiation. Price caps ensure that Russia gets less funds from its exports, while keeping the global supply of oil afloat.
This type of operation by Russia has been often referred to as a “hybrid war”, with instances of cables being cut in the Baltic Sea, oil tankers shipping Russian gas sold at higher than permitted prices and espionage activities being reported.
More recently, Russia has resorted to this same tactic in the Southern Front, more precisely in the strait between Greece and Cyprus. Ukraine has warned earlier this week through its Main Directorate of Intelligence (HRU) that Russia has engaged in ship-to-ship oil transfers, which constitutes another violation of the imposed sanctions.
The HRU has identified the ship to be another tanker, and revealed these were done offshore, which therefore lead to an evasion of regular legal procedures required at European ports. Such procedures often disable automatic identification systems (AIS), and in some cases, may even require the falsification of the ship’s legal documents.
In this report, the receivers were revealed to be ships under Greek registration, but Russian ships are registered under a number of European nations. The Ukrainian Intelligence believes that about another 500 Shadow Fleet ships are to be found in European waters, while around 150 are estimated to be directly involved in the evasion of sanctions. The EU has tried to fight back against it, with the sanctions package in May addressing the ship-to-ship transfers, but this may prove to be insufficient.
Final Thought: The EU must tighten its grip, or face an ironic consequence
Since 2022, the European Union has reassured Ukraine it would support in any possible way, and yet Russian gas imports continue to stream into Europe, both through legitimate and illegitimate routes. The irony cannot be stressed, with the EU funding the Russian invasion through oil transfer while supporting Ukraine financially (and in some cases, militarily). For Ukrainians, this has led to increasing frustration with their Western counterparts as Europe has demonstrated to lack firmness against Russia’s hybrid war.
Since the Cold War, the battleground is no longer the most important front. Russia has always been a step ahead of the West as it has innovated in how it can create multiple fronts, hitting energy grids and fundings its war in new loopholes.
The EU needs to treat the hybrid war efforts as a direct assault on the EU’s supply lines, diplomatic relations and strategic organisation, more than solely a threat to Ukraine’s national territory. There have not been adequate sanctions for Russia’s wrongdoings on European waters, while additional sanctions packages are often too slow to catch up with Russia’s mischievous strategies.
The shadow fleet is another example of Russia’s provocations not going unnoticed, but remain unpunished. As shadow fleets in the Baltic Sea were often linked with undersea cables being cut in Scandinavia, no clear results have been achieved when it comes to investigations.
Yet, both Baltic and Polish Intelligence authorities have come to the conclusion such operations constitute a threat to national security. Despite that, the EU has failed to react adequately.
For a long time, the EU was known as the legislation-nation. Bureaucracy can achieve real changes, but those are too slow in wartime.
Western nations need to understand Russia is in a direct, hybrid war with them, and as such, the EU needs to act as if it’s defending its territory and independence.
There is little time for legislation, and the EU needs to decide if it wants to genuinely help Ukraine, or whether it will keep a double-face as it continues to fund Russia’s war through legal loopholes when it comes to gas imports.
Featured image via MartinLueke / Shutterstock.
