Shadow Fleet: Military personnel journey on Russian tankers | EUROtoday

According to this, most of the ships examined by the newspaper normally had two folks on board who weren’t sailors however had a army background – for instance within the army, the GRU army intelligence service or the previous Wagner mercenary pressure. Several of them had beforehand been in Syria and Ukraine. Their deployment on the ships got here after the beginning of the NATO Baltic Sentry mission round a 12 months in the past, which is meant to guard the underwater infrastructure towards assaults by the “shadow fleet”.

The report from the Finnish home intelligence service Supo says that using the folks serves to make sure that captains and crew members (who’re usually not Russian) act within the pursuits of the Kremlin. After a cable break on the finish of 2024, Finland’s border guards managed to arrest the ship accountable, the Eagle S. This was solely doable as a result of the ship’s crew cooperated and headed for Finnish territorial waters. If the ship had remained in worldwide waters, Finland would have needed to let it go. There, maritime regulation makes it unattainable to arrest somebody after cables have been destroyed. Russian army officers on board may serve to forestall cooperation with the authorities. They is also a hyperlink between the armed forces and the ships.

According to Finnish and Swedish consultants, Russia’s “shadow fleet” consists of round 1,000 ships. These are sometimes outdated and dilapidated tankers that sail beneath the flags of small states. This is how Russia circumvents the oil worth cap. According to consultants, at the very least 5 of those ships are at all times crusing within the Baltic Sea. Many are solely inadequately insured, and a few will not be insured in any respect. There is nice concern within the area about an environmental disaster.

Russia might be utilizing the military-style “security groups” on the ships as a deterrent measure, the report says, citing workers of Western secret providers. This will increase the inhibition threshold for measures taken by Western authorities. “Two potentially armed people definitely changes our risk calculation when we have to decide whether to stop or seize a tanker,” an intelligence official is quoted as saying.