A network of companies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is supplying fuel to a “shadow fleet” moving Russian oil in defiance of sanctions, according to an investigation by Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT conducted with 15min, Eesti Ekspress and Nekā personīga.
Tracking the “shadow fleet” tanker Blue, reporters found it refueled in March from the bunkering tanker Rina, which services ships transiting the Danish Straits. In October, Blue took on fuel from the bunkering tanker Zircone near Sweden’s Gotland island.
From June 2024 to March 2025, the bunkering tankers Rina and Zircone refueled 177 tankers carrying crude and oil products. At least 159 of those vessels called at Russian ports shortly before or after bunkering. At least 20 showed clear hallmarks of Russia’s “shadow fleet” (including lacking insurance from companies in the International Group of P&I Clubs). During that period, those ships bunkered with Rina and Zircone at least 30 times. Some tankers that took fuel from these vessels were later added to EU, UK or US sanctions lists.
Rina and Zircone are owned by FB Trade, a Dubai-registered company. Tracing the ultimate ownership led to the Estonian firm Fast Bunkering (Baltic Sea Bunkering), founded by one of Estonia’s richest men, Aleksei Chulec. Fast Bunkering subsidiaries and other affiliated companies operate in the ports of Riga and Klaipeda. Entities linked to Chulec also fully own Estonia’s Paldiski North Port.
In early 2022, an international journalistic probe found that Fast Bunkering transported Russian oil products from Belarus despite EU sanctions on the Lukashenko regime. In 2023, Estonian authorities opened an investigation into Fast Bunkering subsidiary NT Bunkering, suspected of falsifying documents to label Russian fuel as Kazakh. Estonia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declined to comment, citing an ongoing pretrial investigation.
By 2024, Fast Bunkering had sold its Baltic tankers. However, LRT’s investigation found that despite the formal ownership change, the two vessels - Rina and Zircone - remain under the control of companies linked to Fast Bunkering and continue supplying fuel to tankers carrying Russian oil, including those in the “shadow fleet.”
