Europe takes on Russia’s shadow fleet

 The European Union is stepping up pressure on the Russian ‘shadow fleet’ – that is, the fleet of oil tankers with opaque flag registrations and ownership structures that the Kremlin uses to circumvent the international sanctions imposed following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. On Saturday morning, Italian Navy personnel aboard the Thaon di Revel, currently the flagship of the European naval mission Irini, boarded the oil tanker Toa Payoh in the waters off Pantelleria to verify its flag status and documentation. The oil tanker had already been sanctioned by the United States a year ago, and had subsequently been added to the EU list on suspicion of transporting Russian oil after switching to a Cameroonian flag. Faced with the captain’s refusal to cooperate, Italian military personnel were fast-rope deployed from a helicopter onto the vessel, completing the inspection in around two hours in the international waters off Pantelleria, with the support of a Polish patrol aircraft and a Greek naval vessel. This was the second boarding of a ‘shadow fleet’ vessel in less than two weeks: on 20 July, sailors from the Thaon di Revel had also boarded the oil tanker MV South Star. This is a significant development, marking the first time that two such boardings have taken place within such a short period.

Defence sources report that, on the one hand, the operations of recent weeks reflect Brussels’ new approach: it no longer wishes to limit itself to monitoring the shadow fleet fuelling Putin’s war, but aims to enforce sanctions at sea as well, and is beginning to board vessels to verify their identity, flag and documentation – not necessarily to seize them, but primarily to exert pressure. But another detail has also emerged in recent days, as European intelligence has noted that the more Western restrictions on Russian oil increase, the more Moscow needs to use its ghost tankers to smuggle crude oil, especially now that the war in the Middle East has complicated shipping routes. Here too, there is a lesson to be learnt from Ukraine, which has meanwhile stepped up its naval attacks in the Black Sea, thereby reducing Russia’s ability to protect its maritime trade. Pressure on Russia’s shadow fleet began in 2025, initiated by the United States (the Biden administration) with a wave of sanctions targeting oil tankers, shipowners and intermediaries. But now Europe, too, is opening another strategic front – that of maritime controls – because it has realised that halting, or at least disrupting, Russian maritime traffic has a direct impact on the oil revenues with which Moscow finances the war. This shift began last March and is being spearheaded by EuNavFor Med Irini, whose command centre is hosted by Italy and is located at the Centocelle military airport in Rome.

When the European naval mission was launched six years ago, its mandate was to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya. For years, operations focused on monitoring trafficking in the central Mediterranean. However, following the large-scale invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s ongoing adaptation to new European sanctions, and with the renewal of the mandate approved in March this year, Brussels has expanded the mission’s powers. IRINI can now exercise the so-called right of boarding provided for under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to verify the nationality of vessels suspected of flying a false flag. In less than three months, five boarding operations have already been carried out (the first case under the EU’s March authorisation took place on 11 May on the MV Nelsa, followed by the MV Oneiroi on 1 June, on 7 June on the MV Sandhya, on 20 July on the MV South Star and, most recently, on 2 August on the MV Toa Payoh – with the last two involving the Italian component of the mission); this pace confirms the escalation of European pressure on this front. Furthermore, following the boarding of the oil tanker MV South Star on 20 July, the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, announced that member states have also authorised Operation Atalanta (the EU mission in the western Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, established to combat Somali piracy) to carry out flag verification boardings of suspected vessels in the Russian ‘shadow fleet’, exactly as Operation Irini already does in the Mediterranean. According to several observers, this is the prelude to increased pressure on Putin. What is also emerging from the Italian command is that, whilst there is a diplomatic risk in increasing pressure on Moscow, allowing Russian illegal trafficking to continue unchecked certainly carries far greater strategic costs, which is why the EU has decided to accept a higher level of exposure.