More than 200 sanctioned Russian tankers have sailed through UK waters since Sir Keir Starmer announced new powers to seize “shadow fleet” ships, The i Paper can reveal.
The Prime Minister said he was going after the fleet of vessels sailing under false flags to evade sanctions, arguing that Vladimir Putin “should be in no doubt” that Britain would fight against the illicit network.
Since his announcement, at least 205 sanctioned tankers have sailed through the UK’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), according to data provided by Starboard Maritime Intelligence. Of those, 84 entered Britain’s territorial waters – a buffer zone of 12 nautical miles (13 miles) from the coast where authorities have more power to act under international laws.
As UK intelligence chiefs warn against the Kremlin’s daily attacks on the UK through sabotage, cyber attacks, and disinformation, the shadow fleet has continued to enjoy free passage past UK shores.
Emboldened Putin
In January, the UK strengthened its legal position to enable it to detain sanctioned Russian ships near its waters, and on 25 March, Starmer authorised military personnel to carry out forced boardings.
As a result, a number of sanctioned vessels started to avoid traversing the English Channel, opting for the longer and more costly route around the northern tip of Scotland.
However, as time has passed without action, vessels have returned to the international passage off Britain’s southern coast, often accompanied by Russian naval vessels. On Thursday, at least six shadow fleet tankers sailed through the English Channel.
A Russian warship and a Kremlin support vessel have passed UK shores three times in the past two months, working in tandem to provide military escorts for sanctioned tankers suspected of delivering military supplies and oil across the globe.
The Ministry of Defence told The i Paper that the UK is “disrupting and deterring shadow fleet vessels and their harmful maritime activity,” and revealed that more than 700 shadow fleet vessels with unknown insurance in the English Channel had been “challenged” to provide proof of their insurance.
This week GCHQ Director Anne Keast-Butler used her first annual lecture to warn that the UK has entered a “new era of radical uncertainty” in a “space between peace and war”.
During a speech at Bletchley Park, Keast-Butler said Russia was “scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the UK and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace – relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust”.
While the warning is not new, the gesture of delivering it was important, a UK intelligence source told The i Paper.
Securing UK infrastructure was vital, they said, but “educating the public” who “continue to pose the biggest risk” to UK national security was more important, the source added.
Lack of determination at sea
For months, officials in Whitehall and the Armed Forces have worked to establish the legal framework required to intercept vessels suspected of fuelling Moscow’s war in Ukraine. British naval units and Special Forces teams are on standby to intercept and secure vessels.
However, as previously revealed by The i Paper, the UK is not entirely ready to launch seizures due to the Government’s nervousness about the legality of operations at sea, the risk of interdictions going wrong, and the need for any seizure to require sign-off at the highest level.
While the UK is yet to seize ships, European allies in Belgium, France, Sweden and Finland have launched forced boardings against suspected shadow fleet vessels. The US has also seized a number of Russian and Iranian-linked tankers, following the interdiction of the Bella-1 off the coast of the UK earlier this year.
James Park, a futures fellow at Nato, said the question of how many tankers were passing matters less than “how determined” the UK is to seize them.
“A ship or two that the UK could have actually seized – and indict the fleet sailors – would be a strong signal against Putin,” he told The i Paper. “But the current stockpile shortages across the Europe obviously allow no escalation.”
The shadow fleet has become a lifeline for Putin’s war effort, with ships sailing under false flags in order to evade blockades and continue to make money from sanctioned oil. Around 75 per cent of Russia’s crude oil is transported by Putin’s decrepit and aging fleet of ships.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We will not comment on specific operational planning or give a running commentary as this could compromise our ability to successfully take action against these ships, only benefitting our adversaries.
“Any target ship will be individually considered by law enforcement, military and energy market specialists before an operation is executed.”
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