The tanker is sailing without a national flag – a requirement of international law – and an urgent message is relayed to the ship’s bridge.
But what happens next is unprecedented, and very dangerous. Out of nowhere, a Russian Su-35 fighter jet arrives to escort the tanker. Unsurprisingly, the Estonian patrol vessel peels away; the boarding is aborted.
It marked the first time that Russia had dispatched a military asset to chaperone a vessel from the fleet – and in Nato airspace, no less. The Su-35 was hastily escorted away by Nato fighter jets.
An Su-35 fighter jet – last month Russia scrambled such a jet to escort a shadow fleet vessel (Photo: Mikhail Degtyarev/Telegram via AP)But beyond that, the episode has rung alarm bells across Western capitals about the risk that an incident involving the shadow fleet could trigger a major clash between Nato and Russia.
The birth of the shadow fleet
As punishment for Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier that year, the G7 and its allies introduced a cap on the price of Russian oil of $60. The aim of the cap was to keep Russian oil flowing because of its importance to the global economy, while squeezing the revenues Putin relies on to fund his war.
Vladimir Putin formed the shadow fleet in a bid to avoid Western oil sanctions (Photo: Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik via AP)In a bid to get round the cap, the shadow fleet was born.
Sometimes the ships fly false flags or switch between different ones. In the case of the Jaguar, the ship moved from the register of Gabon to Guinea-Bissau, before sailing flagless.
Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat MP and former Army officer who sits on the Commons Defence Committee, told The i Paper that the emergence of the fleet was part of a broader pattern of Russia continually shifting its behaviour to evade sanctions. “You put sanctions on, they develop a shadow fleet,” he said. “It’s basically like whack-a-mole.”
Most obviously, the oil exports are “fuelling the war in Ukraine”, in the words of one Western official. If the UK wants to tighten the screws on Putin to force him to negotiate just terms with Ukraine, it has to tackle the fleet.
Because it is shady and dangerous work, the ships are also often crewed by poorly trained seaman with limited experience of European waters.
In January, a suspected shadow fleet vessel lost power and steering in German waters. The Panamanian-flagged Eventin was carrying about 99,000 tonnes of oil when it was secured by German tugboats. It was eventually confiscated by Germany in March.
Cable cutting
As well as the potential for serious environmental harm, accidents can affect human infrastructure, which brings us to another threat to Nato countries – whether such incidents, when they happen, are really accidents at all.
The outages seemed to occur at the same time as a shadow fleet vessel, the Eagle S, crossed them. The ship had been moving erratically – at one point, it made a suspicious change of course, before continuing its initial route. Finnish authorities suspected that the damage had been caused by Eagle S dragging its anchor, and escorted it into custody.
A Western official said that it is often genuinely unclear whether damage to undersea cables is “just an accident or somehow orchestrated”. The official added that firmly attributing such damage to deliberate malign activity by a state “takes so much more time and effort”.
Russia is certainly intensely interested in undersea cables – last November, a Royal Navy submarine was given the unusual authorisation to surface in close proximity to a Russian spy ship, the Yantar, which had been loitering over critical undersea infrastructure.
If the shadow fleet does pose such a serious threat, how can it be tackled?
At the G7 in Canada last week, Sir Keir Starmer announced sanctions on 20 more tankers and two companies involved in crewing and managing vessels in the fleet. The military agency leading the development of Russia’s underwater intelligence gathering operations, GUGI, was also targeted in the package.
UK Government sources insist the sanctions are working, pointing to one estimate that over 200 ships in the fleet have been sidelined, leading to a nearly 50 per cent reduction in dedicated capacity.
According to an official from a Nato power ultimately, what is driving the fleet is the appetite of countries like India to keep buying Russian oil. They suggested that the only thing likely to completely stamp it out are secondary sanctions – sanctions levelled on third countries which keep trading with Russia. Ukraine is pushing for such measures and Donald Trump has publicly flirted with the notion in the past, but he has gone quiet on the idea of late and European leaders remain highly reticent about it.
“As long as there is that demand for the oil, you’re always going to have this shadow fleet,” he said. “If you really want to get to this problem, that’s where you want to hit [it].”
‘There is a risk of a clash’
That raises the question about whether Nato countries should take a more aggressive approach to intercepting ships. Given rising maritime tensions, it is unsurprising that the Royal Navy was the big winner of the Strategic Defence Review earlier this month, with Starmer announcing an ambition to build ‘up to’ 12 new nuclear-powered attack submarines.
In the Strategic Defence Review, Sir Keir Starmer promised ‘up to’ 12 new attack-submarines (Photo: Andy Buchanan/WPA Pool/Getty)The intent to get to grip with these issues was demonstrated on Friday when the UK joined with 13 other European countries to put out a statement on Russia’s “destabilising” shadow fleet.
The statement promised a “coordinated approach by our national authorities to address Russia’s shadow fleet”. It added: “We intend to compile a common set of guidelines in line with international law to promote responsible behaviour at sea, strengthen compliance with international law, and ensure transparency across maritime operations.”
But it also raised the nerve-jangling possibility of a military entanglement between Russia and Nato involving a tanker.
“That’s the reality at the moment – we’re testing each other.”
On the chances of a clash with Russia, they said: “There is a risk.”
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