Putin's chameleon-like phantom fleet comes to light

Berlin and LondonWhile the U.S. Navy pursued an old, dilapidated oil tanker from Venezuela into the Atlantic in recent days, the fugitive vessel kept changing its identity. Formerly known as Beautiful 1The tanker was renamed as MarineraIt no longer claimed to be from Guyana. Its new flag, hastily painted on the hull by the same crew, was the Russian tricolor.

According to maritime experts, the tangled business of a Russian identity was probably intended to deter the United States from continuing the hunt and to invoke the threat of a potential response from Moscow to any seizure. Even so, the Navy continued and is intercept the ship Wednesday in the waters between Iceland and Scotland, with British collaboration. So far, the Kremlin has not offered a significant response. However, the ship's adoption of the Russian flag is part of a broader trend: the so-called oil tankers of the shadow fleet They seek the Russian seal of protection as Western countries intensify law enforcement against illicit oil trade worldwide.

Five tankers that have recently operated in Venezuelan waters – including the Marinera– have changed their flag to the Russian flag in recent days, according to an analysis by New York TimesAll have been subject to US sanctions for transporting Iranian or Russian oil. In fact, the Marinera It had been sanctioned by the United States for transporting Iranian oil, and according to data from Kpler and TankerTrackers.com, two companies that track global crude oil shipments, there is no record of it having transported any Russian oil in recent years. Last month, 17 ships from the shadow fleet flew the Russian flag, according to Lloyd's List, a maritime intelligence and data publication, and more than 40 others have done the same since last June.

"Essentially, this is an attempt to achieve greater security," says Richard Meade, editor-in-chief of Lloyd's List"After having gone through four or five false flags, now we see ships that are basically registered in Russia." For years, aging ships of the shadow fleet, like the MarineraThey have been a vital element for states like Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, as well as for non-state actors like drug cartels, allowing them to circumvent sanctions by covertly shipping oil around the world. They often fly flags of convenience from places like the Cook Islands, or none at all, concealing their links to the countries that use them.

Too vulnerable

But this way of operating also made the ships vulnerable. US officials have stated that the Guyanese flag under which the ship was registered Beautiful 1 It was a fake. This made it a stateless tanker, liable to be boarded under international law when the Coast Guard approached the Caribbean late on December 20. The ship is believed to have been headed to load oil in Venezuela before turning around and fleeing. And while the Coast Guard pursued it, the ship was registered in the Russian Maritime Registry. Russia then made a formal diplomatic request asking the United States to stop the pursuit.

"The risk of boarding a Cook Islands-flagged vessel is negligible, because the Cook Islands simply won't retaliate," says Elisabeth Braw, a senior research fellow at think tank Atlantic Council. "But if you board a ship flying the Russian flag, you should have thought twice," because the risk is much higher. But this time, deterrence didn't work. Moscow sent a Russian ship, presumably to provide an escort. But the U.S. Navy boarded the Marinera before the Russians arrived.

The Russian government's initial reaction has been restrained, with laconic statements issued by the Foreign Ministry and the Transport Ministry. This response comes at a time when Moscow is investing efforts in improving relations with President Trump, who He has led an initiative to try to end the war in Ukraine and which, at times, aligned itself with the Kremlin's demands. In recent months, Russia has deliberately downplayed points of friction with the United States, aiming not to jeopardize this rapprochement.

For years, the Kremlin has denied using ships from the so-called shadow fleet to transport fuel, even though experts have identified hundreds that Russia uses for this purpose. An analysis published two years after the start of the war against Ukraine by the Kyiv School of Economics concluded that almost 70% of Russian oil was transported by tankers from the shadow fleet, a phenomenon that began in 2022 as Moscow's response to Western sanctions.

While the United States seized that ship without incident, Russia has acted more aggressively to protect those in the shadow fleet that are closer to its shores. Last May, Estonian authorities attempted to detain the tanker called JaguarThe ship, which was sailing in the Baltic Sea and which Estonia had deemed stateless, was escorted by Russia with a fighter jet as a show of force. It had loaded Russian oil and was sailing towards India. The Estonian navy escorted the ship into Russian waters.

"There has been a lot of controversy in Europe about what to do with these tankers," explained Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a British center for defense and security studies. "They had never taken such a drastic measure."

The European Union and the United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on nearly 600 ships in the shadow fleet linked to the illegal trade of Russian oil. After a series of incidents in which these ships were linked to damage to undersea cables, the countries also began resorting to military action. In December 2024, Finnish commandos took control of a tanker suspected of cutting several cables, and last October the French navy boarded another suspected tanker.

© The New York Times