Forty-nine kilometers of beach stained with oil. Two hundred thousand tons of potentially contaminated soil. Vladimir Putin must have faced the facts: the coasts of the tourist region of Krasnodar (southwest of Russia), which are home to Sochi, Anapa and Gelendzhik, where one of the president's bunker palaces is located, come to suffer an ecological disaster. On December 15, the disaster that many feared occurred in the Black Sea, in the Kerch Strait. Two Russian tankers sank during a storm: the Volgoneft 212 and the Volgoneft 239, each around fifty years old, were carrying more than 9,000 tonnes of oil, around 40% of which could have spilled into the sea , according to Russian authorities.
For months, Western capitals have been warning of the danger posed by dilapidated boats like these, used by the Russians to export their oil by escaping the price ceiling (60 dollars per barrel) set since December 2022 by a coalition of countries. Western countries, the G7 + (the G7 States, the European Union and Australia). Russia is said to have invested $10 billion in these clandestine tankers intended to circumvent sanctions. Hundreds of buildings purchased on second-hand markets, then stripped of any link with the G7+ States, to free themselves from the price cap: ownership, management, flag and especially insurance. They constitute Moscow's famous “ghost fleet”.
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“In recent months, almost 70% of Russian oil exports have been transported by these tankers and therefore do not fall under the price cap, reports a study by the KSE Institute (Kyiv School of Economics) published in October 2024. This includes almost 90% of crude oil, which has been trading above $60 per barrel since mid-2023.” A boon to fuel Vladimir Putin's war machine in Ukraine. The additional margin generated by this armada of obsolete tankers by exceeding the ceiling of 60 dollars would alone represent 10 billion dollars this year, according to the KSE. Or 8% of the Russian defense budget in 2025!
Ecological time bombs
Despite the commonly used name “ghost fleet”, these ships do not go unnoticed, far from it. “The nebulous aspect of this clandestine fleet concerns above all the identity of the real owners,” explains economist Benjamin Hilgenstock, co-author of the KSE Institute report. For example, a ship may belong to an ad hoc company domiciled in the Marshall Islands, with the only address being a post office box. So you have no idea who the real owner is. The same goes for the companies that manage these boats: at the slightest sanction, the ship changes management. of flags, which are completely opaque I saw a tanker change flags three times: in the Cork Islands, in Honduras and… in Mongolia, a country which does not even have an opening to the sea! What is not at all obscure, however, are the activities of these ships. We know where they are. We often talk about these boats deactivating their transponders. [NDLR : ces dispositifs électroniques permettant de recevoir la position, la vitesse et le cap des bateaux alentour]but they can't do it for the whole trip. In the Baltic Sea, for example, it would be completely insane to cut this system. In the Black Sea, which is a war zone, it is possible, but you must reactivate it when approaching the Bosphorus Strait. Therefore, we know almost at all times where these ships are, where they are going and where they are coming from.”
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Hence the increasingly pressing calls to strengthen controls and sanctions on these boats, real ecological time bombs. Ironically, the Russian coasts are the first to be affected. But the countries bordering the Baltic are not safe from another oil spill, because Russia still relies on its production and export infrastructures overlooking this sea shared with the Baltic and Nordic countries. Several incidents have already occurred with these aging boats but none has yet had serious consequences: either the ship was empty during the collision, or it was loaded but was able to narrowly avoid the collision. “These tankers cross the waters of the Baltic several times a day,” continues Benjamin Hilgenstock. “A major disaster is only a matter of time.”
However, most of these boats do not have insurance or non-compliant coverage for this type of disaster. The coastal states in the region know this: if a major accident happened, the bill – hefty – would de facto fall to them. In a joint statement published on December 16, all the states bordering the Baltic and the North Sea committed to taking new measures to “deter the Russian ghost fleet, confront the risks it poses, prevent operations illegal and increase the costs” for Moscow. In particular, they are asking their maritime authorities to require proof of insurance from these ships… but also to collect clues about possible malicious activities carried out by these boats.
Fleet of espionage… and sabotage
Because some would not be content with transporting hydrocarbons. “Today, the Swedish Navy reports that the ghost ships in the waters of Sweden's exclusive economic zone are not only carrying out their usual activities: they are also equipped with communications equipment that ordinary merchant ships have no need, indicates researcher Elisabeth Braw in a note for the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank based in Washington. “The Russian shadow fleet appears to be at the same time a spy fleet.” Even sabotage.
This is evidenced by a series of malicious acts committed at the end of the year under the Baltic Sea, where four cables were damaged, including the EstLink 2 electricity cable on Christmas Day. The Finnish police immediately opened an investigation for “aggravated sabotage”. She suspects the Eagle S, an oil tanker coming from a Russian port, flying the flag of the Cook Islands and suspected of being part of the “ghost fleet”. The boat, which was carrying unleaded gasoline loaded into a Russian port, was boarded and escorted by a Finnish patrol boat. At the same time, NATO announced the strengthening of its military presence in the Baltic Sea.
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The area is particularly vulnerable, accessible directly from the ports of Saint Petersburg and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, in northern Poland. Neighboring states are on alert. “Maritime critical infrastructure is one of our security priorities,” Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center, told us a few months ago. “Our services are aware of the dangers and capabilities of the Russians. We have aerial and underwater drones, sensors aimed at detecting suspicious movements under the sea, divers on alert. We also have preventive measures which consist of placing nets to secure specific places in order to arrest. intrusions before they reach critical infrastructure.”
The physical field of action of the threatened States, however, remains limited, even though this Russian fleet “threatens security and the environment, while financing Russia's war budget”, as the head of the Russian Federation recalled on December 27. of European diplomacy – and former Estonian Prime Minister – Kaja Kallas. Impossible, for example, to prohibit these suspicious vessels from its waters. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants all boats a “right of innocent passage”, that is to say the right to “navigate freely in territorial seas”. Without even talking about a ban, the systematic inspection of these boats does not seem – yet – to be on the agenda, in order to avoid any escalation. “If the coast guards of these or other countries approached the supposedly civilian vessels and demanded to examine their equipment, the Russian and Chinese governments could interpret this as a provocation and retaliate,” emphasizes Elisabeth Braw.
L’option “Armageddon”
The European Union, however, has taken other measures against this clandestine fleet. In June 2024, in its 14th set of sanctions, relating to Russian oil, it introduced a measure aimed at prohibiting access to ports for certain Russian ships. “To date, the EU has included 79 ships on this list, including tankers carrying Russian oil and engaging in dangerous and illegal maritime transport practices,” specifies the European Council website. In the Western arsenal, the American blacklist remains the most effective, thanks to the threat of secondary sanctions – which neither the EU nor the United Kingdom practices – against any refinery, tanker, oil trader or port authority complicit in the evasion of sanctions by the Russians. “For most of the global oil trade, this amounts to a death sentence because at least part of their business is conducted in dollars or otherwise affects the U.S. financial system,” the report said. the KSE Institute.
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There remains the “Armageddon option”: purely and simply banning Russian oil from the market, the only effective way to cut off supplies to Moscow and undermine its ability to continue its war. “So far, the response from Western capitals has been clear: it is out of the question,” reports economist Benjamin Hilgenstock. The entire strategy of Western sanctions against Russian oil is in fact based on maintaining export volumes in order to avoid an oil crisis scenario which would, of course, cause the Russian economy to collapse, but would risk taking away the European economies. “If we want to remove Russian oil from the market, we must consider a broader agreement with other producers who could supply part of the missing oil, such as Saudi Arabia,” continues the expert.
We are still far from consensus on this subject, especially since many European states still buy – and even more than ever – Russian petroleum products via third countries. Imports of refined oil from India thus reached record levels in 2023 (+ 115%), at the same time as imports of Russian crude from New Delhi doubled. However, one of the largest Indian refineries, located in Vadinar, is 49% owned… by the Russian energy giant Rosneft.
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