Ukrainian maritime operations have disrupted the Kremlin’s yearslong gray scheme for covert oil shipments.
Russia is rapidly losing the ability to disguise its vessels under foreign flags after Ukraine began striking its “shadow fleet”, says Russian economist Vyacheslav Shiryaev.
Countries that in recent years effectively rented out their registries to the Kremlin for illicit oil transport are now urgently deleting dozens of ships. The reason is simple: Ukraine’s strikes have brought these schemes to light, and governments around the world no longer want to be drawn into Moscow’s risky maneuvers.
Shiryaev cited the example of Gambia. Ukraine attacked a tanker sailing under its flag and carrying Russian oil. The operation revealed that the vessel was using the flag illegally.
Formally, the ship turned out to be stateless. Such “ownerless” tankers, Shiryaev said, number in the dozens and even hundreds. And if a vessel is not recognized by any country, it can be struck without political consequences.
After sanctions on Russian oil, the Kremlin built a workaround. As Shiryaev explained, Russian intermediaries bribed officials in some of the poorest countries to hand control of their maritime registries to a private entity linked to Cyprus. Through this loophole, Russia quickly expanded its “shadow fleet.” In Gambia, the number of tankers jumped by thousands of percent in a year, reaching more than 100 ships with a combined tonnage of 2.1 million tons. The flags of Gambia and the Comoros long covered a significant portion of Russia’s gray fleet.
But after successful operations by Ukrainian sea drones in the Black Sea and the Atlantic, the scheme began to unravel quickly. The Comoros officially announced that six dozen tankers sailing under its flag had no connection to the country: the flags were counterfeit.
Gambia followed by acknowledging that 72 vessels using its flag were effectively masking Russian shipments. The governments of these countries do not want clashes with the Trump administration and are therefore seeking to distance themselves from Russian operations.
“Here’s what Ukrainian sea drones managed to do in just a couple of days!” Shiryaev noted.
