UK imposes historic sanctions on Russian ghost oil tankers

Britain has implemented its most extensive sanctions yet against Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers, aimed at circumventing Western oil export restrictions following the invasion of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the UK government announced that 18 additional ships will be barred from British ports and maritime services, raising the total number of sanctioned vessels to 43.

Experts say that this so-called ghost fleet, operating under unclear ownership and lacking proper insurance, has enabled the Kremlin to sustain its oil exports despite ongoing sanctions and a price cap on global sales.

The UK has also highlighted environmental concerns associated with the shadow fleet, citing its disregard for essential safety standards. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) remarked that these sanctions are “starving Putin’s war machine of crucial revenues.”

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“A significant number of the ships targeted by the UK to date have been forced to sit idling, uselessly, outside ports,” the FCDO noted in a statement.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy emphasized, “I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, tightening the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal.”

However, a recent report from the Kyiv School of Economics revealed that the volume of Russian oil exported via shadow tankers has nearly doubled, reaching 4.1 million barrels per day in the year ending June 2024. The report indicates that despite Western sanctions, 70 percent of Russian oil exports by sea are now handled by ghost tankers.

The latest UK sanctions also target vessels owned by Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, and include sanctions against four LNG tankers as well as the Russian gas company Rusgazdobycha JSC.

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