Western officials have long been concerned about Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, an assemblage of aged tankers created to covertly carry Russian crude oil around the world. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the worry primarily concerned the use of such off-the-books ships to circumvent Western sanctions and generate revenue to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.
But Russia’s shadow fleet may now present a more pressing danger to the West.
This week, Finnish commandos boarded an oil tanker that officials suspect had cut through vital underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, including one that carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The ship, the Eagle S, bears all the hallmarks of vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, officials said, and had embarked from a Russian port shortly before the cables were cut.
If confirmed, it would be the first known instance of a shadow fleet vessel being used to intentionally sabotage critical infrastructure in Europe — and, officials and experts said, a clear escalation by Russia in its conflict with the West.
“We know about Russia’s shadow fleet operating in our area, and we know Russia is systematically conducting hybrid warfare against its neighboring NATO/EU countries,” Lauri Läänemets, Estonia’s interior minister, said in an email to The New York Times. “It’s time to drop the illusions and face it.”
On Friday, a number of countries in the region announced the deployment of additional naval and coast guard resources to bolster security. NATO’s general secretary, Mark Rutte, responding to requests from the leaders of Finland and Estonia, both member nations, said the Atlantic alliance would “enhance” its military presence in the Baltic Sea.
“NATO stands in solidarity with Allies and condemns any attacks on critical infrastructure,” Mr. Rutte said in an earlier post on X, the social media platform.
For the Kremlin, the creation of a shadow fleet offered a solution to the problem of financing its war in Ukraine. After President Vladimir V. Putin ordered Russian troops to invade in February 2022, Western countries began to impose sanctions meant to strangle the Russian economy and cut off its access to the funds needed to keep the country’s army on the move.
Oil is a cornerstone of Russia’s economy, and a key target of the sanctions was Russia’s energy sector. But instead of a full embargo, which officials feared would cause a global spike in prices, the United States and its Western allies imposed price caps of $60 a barrel on all oil and oil products originating in Russia and transported by sea, a significant discount on the market price.
The idea to create a shadow fleet to circumvent sanctions is not new. The scheme has long been used by global pariahs like Iran and North Korea, as well as drug cartels, said Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has researched and written about shadow fleets.
Russia’s innovation, Ms. Braw said in an interview, was one of scale. Since Russia began assembling its fleet, the number of shadow vessels traversing the oceans has grown by hundreds and now makes up 17 percent of the total global oil tanker fleet.
“That makes it like a tumor,” she said. “When it was a small share, it could be managed, but now that it’s approaching 20 percent. it’s much less manageable, and obviously it’s growing.”
Nearly 70 percent of Russia’s oil is being transported by shadow tankers, according to an analysis published in October by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, a research organization based in Ukraine. Some experts put the total number of Russia’s shadow vessels at more than a thousand, though significantly fewer are used by Russia to regularly circumvent sanctions, the institute’s analysis found.
The authorities in Finland are still investigating whether the Eagle S engaged in a criminal act. But the sheer size of the shadow fleet might have made using some of these vessels for sabotage irresistible to Russia, Ms. Braw said.
“I think at some point that Russia realized, ‘Oh, we have all these vessels that we’re using; we might as well use a few of them to cause a little extra harm.’”
While it’s still not certain that this week’s cable cutting was done intentionally, the Baltic Sea, for a number of reasons, is an ideal arena to carry out sabotage operations. It is relatively shallow and is crisscrossed with essential undersea cables and pipelines that provide energy, as well as internet and phone services, to a number of European countries that are NATO members. Russia has relatively unfettered access to the sea from several ports, and its commercial vessels, protected by international maritime law, can move around international waters largely unmolested.
Even before the cables were cut, it was clear that the Baltic Sea was becoming a key arena in an intensifying competition between the West and Russia.
Since the Ukraine war began, NATO, which the Kremlin considers its primary enemy, has grown by two members, Sweden and Finland, both significant Baltic powers. NATO jets in the region are often scrambled to respond to Russian military aircraft, and each fall, countries in the Western alliance hold major naval exercises there called Freezing Winds, directed mainly against the Russian threat.
Months after the war in Ukraine began, explosions blew apart several sections of the Nord Stream pipeline beneath the Baltic, cutting off Western Europe from Russian natural gas deliveries. U.S. intelligence services have assessed that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack, but public details remain sparse.
The suspicions that Russia was using shadow vessels for more than just escaping sanctions existed before this week’s cable cutting. Last April, the head of Sweden’s Navy told a local news outlet that there was evidence such ships were being used to conduct signals intelligence on behalf of Russia and that some fishing vessels had been spotted with antennas and masts not normally seen on commercial vessels.
Since the war began, there has also been an uptick in suspicious episodes resulting in damage to critical undersea infrastructure.
Last year, a Hong Kong-registered ship, the Newnew Polar Bear, dropped its anchor and cut through a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. That ship was allowed to sail into international waters before the authorities could investigate. Officials responded more aggressively last month, halting a Chinese-flagged ship called the Yi Peng 3, holding it at anchor for nearly a month and eventually boarding it after two fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea were cut.
With the Eagle S, the response has been even more aggressive. Hours after Finland’s energy grid operator alerted the police that an undersea power cable was damaged on Wednesday, Finnish officers descended by helicopter to the ship’s deck and took over the bridge, preventing the vessel from sailing farther. By Friday, it remained at anchor in the Gulf of Finland, guarded by a Finnish Defense Forces missile boat and a Border Guard patrol vessel.
One reason for the intensity of the response might be because the ship so closely fits the characteristics of a Russian shadow vessel. The 70,000-ton crude oil tanker has changed ownership and managers within the past two years and lacks the types of insurance oil tankers usually have, all major indicators of a shadow vessel, said Yuliia Pavytska, manager of the sanctions program at the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, who works with Western officials to identify and impose sanctions on Russian shadow vessels.
The ship is also flagged to the Cook Islands, which is well known for its lax oversight. An inspection of the Eagle S in Ghana in September 2023 discovered 24 defects, including problems with fire safety and navigation systems, an astounding number, Ms. Pavytska said.
“This is like a record,” she said. “I can’t recollect whether we’ve seen so many deficiencies identified.”
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