Despite cooperation between London and its allies on sanctions against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is increasing the means to circumvent them, in particular thanks to the formation of a “ghost fleet of tankers”, according to a British parliamentary report published Wednesday.
“We are concerned by growing evidence that Russia has been able to circumvent sanctions, including through third states and ghost tanker fleets,” writes the House of Lords European Affairs Committee, responsible for drafting the report.
On this issue, “the United Kingdom and its allies must take decisive action,” she said.
Oil embargo, cap on the price of Russian crude oil including a ban on providing services enabling maritime transport (trading, freight, insurance, shipowners, etc.) for companies based in EU, G7 countries and Australia , a similar mechanism for petroleum products… Many Western sanctions were in fact aimed at hitting Russia’s financial windfall.
To circumvent these sanctions, Moscow has reduced its dependence on Western maritime services by building a “shadow fleet” of tankers, buying old vessels to which it offers its own insurance services, according to Rystad Energy.
“179 full tankers from the Russian ghost fleet left Russian ports in November 2023,” says the Kiev-based Ukrainian economic institute KSE in its December “Russian Oil Tracker” report.
As of October 2023, the shadow fleet enabled the export of approximately 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day in addition to 800,000 barrels of petroleum products per day, according to the KSE institute.
Furthermore, the parliamentary report points out the fact that “gaps and flaws result from divergences between sanctions regimes, which weakens their effectiveness”, calling for them to be “as limited as possible”.