Russian Shadow Fleet Continues to Operate Undetected in Baltic Sea
Every day, Russian tankers carry billions of dollars’ worth of oil across the Baltic Sea. Despite sweeping Western sanctions, this trade continues to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine. While the Baltics are among the fiercest supporters of isolating Russia politically and economically, a network of companies in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia is helping to keep Moscow’s “shadow fleet” running.
The crew of the bunker tanker Rina are prepared for another day of hard work at sea. Operating like a floating fuel station, this vessel refuels other ships passing through the Danish straits. Work is plentiful here – the waterway connecting the Baltic and North Seas is one of the busiest in the world. On average, around 200 ships pass through daily.
Among them are tankers from Russia’s shadow fleet – old, uninsured vessels with unknown ownership, helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions by selling Russian oil and petroleum products globally and in doing so, helping keep the Russian war economy afloat.
Refuelling Operations Uncovered
On March 8, one of such vessels approached Rina for refuelling – a crude oil tanker named Blue, capable of carrying up to 1,000,000 barrels of oil – en route to Primorsk, one of Russia’s main oil export terminals. From there, it was scheduled to deliver crude to a refinery in Mangalore, India.
On that morning, as Blue took on fuel near Skagen port, an Antigua and Barbuda flag was fluttering on its deck. Formally the only vessel owned by an obscure Turkish company registered in an apartment in a small port town near Istanbul, the 20-year-old tanker routinely disables its Automatic Identification System (AIS) – a common shadow fleet tactic to conceal its route, the origin of its oil, and mid-sea transfers (STS) to other ships.
Investigation Reveals Widespread Refuelling Operations
An investigation by LRT, 15min, Eesti Ekspress, and Nekā personīga found that between June 2024 and March 2025, the bunker tankers Rina and Zircone conducted 286 ship-to-ship operations, refuelling 177 oil and oil product tankers, of which at least 159 had called at Russian ports shortly before or after these transfers.
We showed our findings to Anatalii Kravtsev, an analyst at the Kyiv School of Economics. According to his analysis, at the time Rina and Zircone supplied fuel, at least 20 of those tankers showed clear signs they were part of the Russian shadow fleet.
“Specifically, these vessels lacked insurance coverage from any member of the International Group of P&I Clubs, and their owners and management companies were registered outside the jurisdictions of the Oil Price Cap Coalition,” said Kravtsev. Over a period of nearly 10 months, the two ships refuelled them at least 30 times.
Consequences of Refuelling Operations
On August 17, 2024, in one such instance, the tanker Rainbow met Zircone between Gotland and Latvia while carrying 37,000 tons of refined oil from Russia’s Primorsk port to Brazil. MarineTraffic data show the ship-to-ship transfer lasted from 13:39 to 16:40.
A similar operation took place on December 14, 2024, when Rina refuelled Rainbow en route from Primorsk to Libya. Rina in Hamburg, 2024 | Wolfgang Fricke / Wikimedia Commons
While international sanctions permit exceptions for refuelling vessels transporting Russian oil, stringent legal conditions apply. “Bunkering companies must conduct thorough checks, maintain transparent documentation, and comply with all legal standards,” according to Petras
Original Article: Baltic companies secretly fuelling Russia’s shadow fleet — Lrt