Shadow Fleet Tankers Used for Spy Drones, Intelligence Gathering: Experts Warn
Vladimir Putin is launching spy drones from shadow fleet tankers and flying them above critical energy sites in his escalating hybrid warfare campaign against the UK and Europe, intelligence experts have warned.
While the shadow fleet provides an economic lifeline to Russia’s wartime economy, evidence points to the Kremlin increasingly “weaponising” the vessels by using them to carry out intelligence gathering and to target underwater energy and data cables. Security guards recruited from Russia’s armed forces and intelligence services are now routinely being deployed on the ships, intelligence experts monitoring the tankers have discovered.
Shadow Fleet Operations Linked to Drone Incidents
Sources told The i Paper that there is a “close correlation” between drone flights and the movements of the shadow fleet or Russian commercial vessels. ACLED, an independent conflict monitoring organisation, tracked 56 incidents involving drones potentially launched from shadow fleet vessels to surveil critical infrastructure from Germany to Ireland and Spain to Norway in the last 18 months, up from 31 in the previous three years – an 80 per cent increase.
Intelligence sources told The i Paper that there is a “close correlation” between drone overflights close to the European coastline, including over UK North Sea energy installations, and the movements of shadow fleet or Russian commercial vessels. ACLED also tracked four incidents of damage to cables in the Baltic Sea, suspected of having been caused by Russian oil tankers, since the beginning of last year.
Kremlin’s Hybrid Warfare Campaign Expands
Moscow generates revenues worth £156m a day from oil exports carried on a fleet of up to 1,300 ageing, sanctions-busting tankers making dozens of transits a week through British and European waters en route to and from Russian fossil fuel export hubs on the Baltic Sea. Military planners fear that the Kremlin has drawn up a blueprint also to use clandestine merchant vessels, including oil tankers, to hit British and European targets in the event of a direct clash with Nato.
Among the potential tactics available to Moscow would be the use of special forces on board tankers to harass or sink Western civilian shipping and deploying drones or missiles concealed in shipping containers. UK commandos conducted an operation against a Russian ship sailing under a false Cameroonian flag earlier this month, sparking discussions on British defences capabilities against further Russian aggression.
European Countries Step Up Seizures of Shadow Fleet Vessels
Several European countries, led by France, have in recent months stepped up seizures and boardings of shadow fleet vessels in an attempt to disrupt the flow of funds into the Kremlin’s war coffers. Earlier this month, British commandos seized an illegally flagged tanker in the English Channel. Meanwhile, France on Thursday announced the detention of another vessel off Sicily, bringing the total number of tanker seizures by European states since January to nine.
The escalating hybrid warfare campaign has prompted concerns among security experts that the Kremlin is increasingly using its shadow fleet as a “hybrid warfare platform” acting alongside Russian special forces and intelligence services.
Original Article: Putin is flying spy drones over critical UK sites from his shadow fleet tankers — Co