EU prepares legal grounds to stop Russian 'shadow fleet' vessels - media
Kyiv • UNN
The European Union is preparing legal grounds to stop at least 16 suspicious oil tankers if they enter the Baltic Sea. This is due to the risks of oil spills and cable cutting from Russia's "shadow fleet."
The EU is preparing legal grounds to stop at least 16 suspicious oil tankers if they enter the Baltic Sea in the future, as drone threats increase the risks of oil spills and cable cutting originating from Russia's "shadow fleet," EUobserver reports, writes UNN.
Details
According to internal documents obtained by EUobserver, the EU plans to blacklist an additional 120 Russian "shadow fleet" oil tankers as part of the 19th sanctions package. This would bring the total number of listed vessels to 568.
Listing them prohibits them from entering EU ports and doing business with European companies, such as insurance companies or bunkering service providers.
The EU blacklist has so far had a limited effect, as "shadow fleet" vessels do not enter EU ports at all and can still freely pass through EU countries' Baltic waters, transporting Russian oil to consumers in Asia thanks to the "right of innocent passage" enshrined in the 1994 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1857 Copenhagen Treaty.
However, under Article 110 of UNCLOS, states are free to intercept "passing" vessels if they are "without a flag."
According to leaked EU documents, 16 of the 120 new listings had "undefined" flags.
They also lacked genuine flags, according to the maritime industry database Eqasis.
The 16 flagless vessels named by the EU included: Adonia, Apate, Apus, Aquilla II, Bolu, Briont, Ethera, Everdine, Leona, Manaslu, Myra, Nemrut, Omni (now called Evali), Samos, Tagor, and Tassos.
"Stopping them will require NATO's courage, as well as adherence to legal norms," the publication writes.
As for the remaining 120 vessels to be blacklisted by the EU, the main non-Russian flag states were Palau (13 vessels), Panama (11), and Comoros (7).
Azerbaijan, Barbados, Djibouti, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, Liberia, Oman, Sao Tome, and Sierra Leone each issued one or more flags.
However, according to Michelle Wiese Bockmann of the London-based consulting firm Windward Shipping, EU states and the UK are also "twisting the arms" of flag states to delist vessels that the EU has added to its ever-expanding blacklist.
"If a vessel is sanctioned, Barbados usually removes it from its registry. It used to have over 100 non-black fleet tankers, and now it has about 25," she said.
Gabon also had over 100 in 2024 and now has about 25, while Panama (the world's second-largest flag issuer) began delisting sanctioned vessels a year ago, she added.
This means that several more of the 120 tankers soon to be included in the EU sanctions list are likely to join the 16 flagless tankers, losing protection under UNCLOS, the publication notes.
This does not mean they will not try workarounds.
"The new problem is fraudulent registries - people setting up websites and issuing licenses, and then we have vessels under fake flags sailing in European waters," said Wiese Bockmann.
"They are effectively operating lawlessly and outside the rules-based international order," she added.
"Windward has currently identified 13 fake flag registries, but we estimate… 62% of sanctioned tankers on our 'dark fleet' list use fake flags," she said.
The EU blacklist and arm-twisting also do not mean they will be completely stopped, said David Osler of the London-based maritime consulting firm Lloyds' List.
Beyond EU ports and waters, there are many port authorities in the world that "don't care" about the rules, he said. "Their governments want the country to take oil, so port calls [by vessels without or under a fake flag] are allowed," he added.
Meanwhile, the EU's new focus on enforcement is reportedly due to Windward's calculation that few Russian "shadow fleet" ships remain to be listed. But, for its part, Ukraine wants the EU to add four more vessels to the 19th package of measures against Russia: Anlan (Panama), Ionian Sailor (Panama), Oceanid (Panama), and New Pride (Liberia).
Most of the sanctioned vessels, as indicated, were also insured by marginal companies or had forged insurance documents, which meant that EU states would have to pay the bills in the event of an oil spill.
"If there's a $1 billion oil spill, who pays the costs?" said Wiese Bockmann.
"Good luck trying to get that from whoever owns the ship on paper - it's probably a nominee director who couldn't afford the $35 million the ship cost, let alone compensation," she added.
"Shadow fleet" ships are also linked to cable and pipeline cutting incidents in the Baltic Sea. And the fact that the tanker Boracay, detained by France on Wednesday, was suspected of launching drones that closed Danish airports ahead of this week's EU summit, highlighted a new danger - Russia's deliberate weaponization of its "shadow fleet," the publication writes.
"It is clear that the Danish security services are actively investigating the possibility of drones being launched from one of the three ships that were in the vicinity at the time... Astrol-1, Oslo Carrier 3, and Boracay," states a Lloyd's List article from September 30.
Ukraine's reaction
Reacting to media reports that the EU is preparing legal grounds to stop Russian "shadow fleet" vessels, Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak noted that "our sanctions proposals from last year may transform into decisions."
"The use of international law mechanisms and the readiness of NATO countries to ensure their implementation is a key signal to the Kremlin: its attempts to circumvent sanctions are not working. Russia's capabilities must be limited faster. Moscow is already waging a hybrid war against Europe, and speed plays a significant role here," Yermak emphasized on Telegram.