Russia’s Shadow Feet: An overview of the fleet, how they operate, and the threat they pose to Western and Southern Europe

What is Russia’s shadow fleet and how big is it?

According to the UK Government policy paper ‘The ‘Shadow Fleet’: A Call To Action’, Russia’s shadow fleet “comprises ships engaged in illegal operations for the purposes of circumventing sanctions, evading compliance with safety or environmental regulations, avoiding insurance costs or engaging in other illegal activities”.  The Kiev School of Economics highlights that “Russia’s efforts to establish its own shadow fleet… began in the latter half of 2022 [and] continue to date”. Ships in Russia’s shadow fleet regularly engage in illictly smuggling Russian oil. Estimates of the size of Russia’s shadow fleet vary across multiple sources. For example, CNN in March 2023, estimated that the size of the shadow fleet was “at roughly 600 vessels, or about 10% of the global number of large tankers”. More recent publications such as The Spectator’s article ‘The shadow fleet helping Russia to evade sanctions’, published in May 2024, estimates that the fleet has grown by 17% in 2024 and is made up of “787 vessels… equivalent to nearly 14 per cent of the world’s total tanker tonnage”. Academic institutions such as the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) estimated in 2024 that the collection of ships within the fleet was “about 1,400 vessels worldwide”. Whilst estimates on the exact number of ships are obscure and vary between sources, the general consensus is clear: Russia’s shadow fleet’s activities have surged throughout the Russo-Ukraine war, allowing Russia to generate profits for its offensive in Ukraine whilst simultaneously undermining the effects of Western sanctions and posing a direct threat to the security of Western and Southern Europe. The shadow fleet, as noted by CEPA, “may operate in the shadows, but its indisputably there, and its activities are growing”.

Structure of the fleet and methods of operation.

In terms of structure, the shadow fleet can be separated into two different categories: dark fleets and grey fleets. Dark fleets, as defined in a Windward and Vortexa joint report, as ships/vessels/tankers that carry out “clandestine trade of sanctioned commodities, using diverse methods of obfuscating their origins”. According to the report, the dark fleet uses a variety of deceptive shipping practices (DSP’s) “such and ID and location tampering” as well as “the intentional disabling of the automatic identification system” to move wet cargo (oil). Grey Fleets, according to the report, are “a completely new phenomenon evolving from the [Russo-Ukraine) war”. These fleets are defined as “grey” due to the difficulty of determining the legality and sanction compliances of these vessels in a lot of cases. Grey fleet vessels regularly switch flags (known as ‘flag hopping’), making them hard to locate and verify. More generally, Russia’s shadow fleet has been known to operate under the radar by travelling without insurance, forging documents, and painting over the name of the vessels to disguise their true identity. According to Tayo Yousef in his September 2024 publication, ‘U.S Sanctions Are Ineffective: Russia’s Dark and Grey Fleet and its Circumvention of Sanctions’, vessels in Russia’s Shadow Fleet “have been outfitted with state-of-the-art spoofing technology… making the vessels difficult to track”.

Evidence of the evasion of sanctions by Russia’s shadow fleet and its increased activities during the Russo-Ukraine War.

In December 2022, the G7 introduced an oil price cap of a “maximum price of 60 USD [US Dollars] per barrel of crude oil” in an effort to limit Russia’s profit revenues from oil trading whilst simultaneously keeping the global energy market stable.  A recent report by S&P Global Commodity Insights “noted nearly 80% of Russian exports are potentially shipped outside of the G7 oil price cap”. Therefore, “a significant number of [Russian] oil transactions and shipments are… evading sanctions”. By shipping and trading oil above the set G7 price cap, Russia is able to generate enormous profits to help fund its war in Ukraine. A May 2023 Oil Market Report pointed out that “Russian oil supply has proved resilient following its invasion of Ukraine with crude exports re-routed to new markets as deep price discounts attract traders as well as refiners willing to risk handling the barrels”. In the same report, the International Energy Agency noted that Russia was still exporting 8.3 million oil barrels per day, which it described as “a post invasion high”. The report also estimated that because of this, Russian revenue “increased by $1.7 billion to $15 billion” due to the exportation of crude oil.

Data from Windward and Vortexa reveals that since the start of the Russo-Ukraine war, “the grey fleet has carried around 1.4 million crude oil barrels per day… each month post-invasion, which translates to a 111 percent increase when compared to pre-invasion levels. Similarly, the same comparison for the dark fleet is estimated at a smaller, but nevertheless considerable, 19 percent”.  Both companies also pointed out that in the Gray Fleet, there was a “69% increase” in the monthly average of oil product barrels exported per day. For the dark fleet, “there was a 22 percent increase in the monthly average of BPD [barrels per day]… after the start of the war”. The statistics and data extracted from Windward and Vortexa shows that Russia’s shadow fleet has seen an increase in its activities since the start of the Russo-Ukraine War. Additionally, evidence from S&P Global shows that Russia is using its shadow fleet to actively evade sanctions imposed on it by the G7 and the West. As of September 2024, a total of 74 vessels have from Russia’s shadow fleet have been sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Given that Russia’s shadow fleet is has seen an increase in the scope of its activities during the Russo-Ukraine war and has been proven to be evading sanctions, going forward, more needs to be done by the West to target Russia’s shadow fleet.

What threats does Russia’s shadow fleet pose to Western and Southern Europe?

The fleet poses significant threats to Western and Southern Europe. For example, according to the UK government, the fleet “poses serious maritime security and environmental risks” as many of the vessels in within the fleet are “old and unsafe”.  The fleets use of DSP’s also “flouts international maritime standards and increases the likelihood of catastrophic incidents”. Tayo Yousef adds weight to this argument, noting that, “suspected Dark Fleet takers have been involved in a barrage of collisions, fires and spoils, and in the case of a major incident will mean massive environmental consequences”. The fleet also posed a major security threat to Western and Southern Europe, as by evading sanctions, Russia is actively undermining Western polices. The fleet’s activities enable Russia to pursue and influence relationships with countries who are not bounded to uphold US or Western policies, whilst keeping a steady stream of income that it can use to support its offensive in Ukraine. Moreover, considering that the shadow fleets vessel’s insurance “do not cover sanctions invasions, Western countries might not have any choice but foot the clean-up bills that accrue as a result of a major accident”. This highlights that Russia’s shadow fleet also has potential financial risks and consequences for the West should any maritime environmental accidents occur either now or in the future.

What methods should the West use to deal with Russia’s shadow fleet in the near future?

As outlined in the previous section above, the fleet poses environmental, financial and security risks to Western and Southern Europe. So, how should the West tackle these issues? Going forward, the West must employ a multipronged approach to deal with the threats of the shadow fleet., and should consider these following recommendations:

1. The West and her allies should establish a joint Maritime Police Taskforce/Agency that caters to Western interests and “monitors the activities of entities suspected of being in cahoots with the Russian state”.
2. The West and her allies should “jointly develop a high-resolution satellite surveillance technology and program capable of monitoring maritime activities to a high degree of precision”.
3. Create a “real-time monitoring system that can track vessel movements, identify unauthorized ship-to-ship transfers, and detect spoofing techniques used to mask vessel locations”.
4. Collaborate with allied nations by using artificial intelligence (AI) to collect and analyse substantial amounts of information, including “maritime data… AIS signals, satellite imagery, shipping manifests and historical shipping patterns”. The use of AI could potentially make tracking Russia’s shadow fleet (and their dark/grey fleets) a potentially easier task.
5. Use AI to “develop algorithms capable of detecting anomalies in vessel behaviour, such as sudden changes in routes, disabling of AIS transponders, or irregularities in ship-to-ship transfers”.
6. Use machine leaning models and programs to greatly improve the accuracy of verifying and identifying suspicious vessels and their illicit activities.
7. Further develop partnerships with maritime, surveillance and cyber security companies to create “innovative solutions for tracking and verifying vessel movements”.
8. Look into “the use of blockchain-based platforms [and technology] for maintaining transparent and tamper-proof records of maritime transactions, including ship registrations, cargo movements, and insurance costs”.
9. Create joint task forces for coordinating responses to sanction evasion activities that occur across borders and assist in continuously monitoring the effectiveness of Western sanctions.
10. Place “stricter regulations on maratime insurance providers to prevent them from providing vessels engaged in sanctions evasion”.
11. Share more intelligence and data with international partners and organisations to improve the effectiveness of efforts to enforce sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet.
12. Sanction a larger number of vessels within Russia’s shadow fleet as only 74 vessels have been sanctioned by the United Kingdom, United States and European Union as of September 2024.
13. Immediately readjust and significantly lower the G7 price cap to “tighten the choke on the Kremlin’s revenue” from the shadow fleet.
14. Regularly conduct assessments of existing maritime technology “to identify areas for improvement and innovation”.
15. Continuously “adapt and refine strategies based on lessons learned and emerging threats in the evolving landscape of sanctions evasion”.