Russian Vessels Flying False Flags to Skirt Sanctions: Report
Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air says 113 Russian vessels have flown a false flag in the first nine months of 2025.
A total of 113 Russian vessels have flown a false flag in the first nine months of this year, transporting some 11 million tonnes of oil valued at 4.7 billion euros ($5.4bn), according to the report published on Thursday by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank.
The report highlights Russia’s use of “shadow vessels” to skirt sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine. These vessels are registered under non-Russian flags, allowing them to evade scrutiny and transport sanctioned commodities, especially oil.
False-Flagged Vessels Carrying Russian Oil
According to the report, false-flagged vessels carried 1.4 billion euros ($1.6bn) worth of Russian crude oil and oil products through the Danish Straits in September alone. This highlights the scale of Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows countries to grant their nationality to ships and fly their flag. Some countries provide open registries that allow foreign-owned or controlled vessels to use their flag, a practice favoured by some shippers due to lower regulatory burdens and registration costs.
Sanctioned Vessels Flying False Flags
In its report, CREA said that 96 sanctioned vessels had flown a false flag at least once this year as of the end of September. A total of 85 vessels registered at least two flag changes six months after being sanctioned by the European Union, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) or the United Kingdom.
Shadow Fleet Exploiting Capacity Limitations
Six flag registries that had not flagged a Russian ship before Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had at least 10 such vessels each in their fleet in September 2025, according to CREA, for a total of 162 shadow vessels. This highlights the extent to which Russia is exploiting capacity limitations of economically weak nations to gain passage rights and deliver sanctioned oil.
Experts Call for Reform
Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said the CREA’s findings aligned with previous reports on Russia’s shadow fleet. She called on the EU and the UK to reform their flagging regulations and practices to better track and enforce sanctions.
With sanctions enforcement becoming more difficult due to the growing illicit trade, countries would need to target vessels, intermediaries, and buyers to significantly reduce Russia’s oil sales. However, this comes with costs, including potential retaliation from China, a major buyer of Russian oil.
Original Article: Russia’s ‘shadow vessels’ using false flags to skirt sanctions, report says — Aljazeera