Russia

Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the UK and other European countries had taken “numerous actions” against the shadow fleet, focusing on regulatory challenges such as requesting proof of insurance. “There’s been heavy engagement with flag states to get them to deregister sanctioned tankers and clean up their registries,” he said. “But rarely have we seen these type of detentions... Europe has traditionally shied away from this type of interception because they’re highly contentious...The US has pierced this veil of uncertainty regarding whether these actions could be lawful. And the drive that the US has been really showing in boarding these vessels, intercepting them, proceeding with the seizures might create a precedent for greater action against the shadow fleet... Estonia had attempted to seize a vessel on the same grounds the US employed to take the Marinera, he said — that these vessels are using false or illegitimate flags and are therefore stateless. “But once the Bella 1 switched flag to Russia, I think we were all holding our breath to see whether the US would continue and go ahead with the detention. And they did.”

If there is some sort of formal ceasefire in place, even if that were to happen tomorrow, you only need to look to 2015 and the initial phases of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and there was a ceasefire in place at various different points, and they were routinely violated. So there is always a risk if there were to be some sort of military presence of NATO forces in Ukraine."

It is broadcasting the IMO number of a vessel that has been scrapped or deregistered – essentially attempting to disguise itself as a different unsanctioned vessel. It has changed names and flags and claims a different identity to avoid detection.”