European Ships Keep Russia’s Shadow Fleet Afloat

From the Singapore Strait, the Greek oil tanker Aris transmitted its last signal in 2023, seemingly marking the end of nearly two decades on the water.

But just two weeks later, the aging ship was back at sea — flying a Cook Islands flag and under a new name, Canis Power. It would also end up serving a new purpose. According to a June 2024 U.K. sanctions notice, Canis Power was transporting Russian oil. Its Greek owner, Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd, had sold it to a company registered in the Marshall Islands that paid 21 million euros for the vessel. 

Western shipowners have earned a total of over $6.3 billion selling aging tankers that have become part of a so-called “shadow fleet,” a network of around 600 ships circumventing sanctions to sustain Russia’s oil exports, according to a Follow the Money investigation done in collaboration with OCCRP and journalists from more than a dozen news organizations around the world. These Europe- and U.S.-sold vessels amount to nearly 40 percent of the Russian shadow fleet, or around 230 ships, Follow the Money and OCCRP found.

The KSE Institute at the Kyiv School of Economics identified the ships in the network, deeming a tanker part of the shadow fleet if it is shipping Russian oil, has an opaque ownership structure, and has no reliable Western oil spill insurance.  

Direct sales of oil tankers to Russian entities are prohibited under EU sanctions imposed in 2023. But indirect sales to companies from countries that are not participating in sanctions are not illegal, opening up a significant loophole in the effort that is supposed to be limiting Russia’s ability to bankroll its ongoing war against Ukraine.

Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the KSE Institute, said the sanctions effort has not been effective enough if these tankers can ultimately wind up in the shadow fleet.

“You can resell the tanker three times in three weeks,” he said. “The companies that sell tankers know what they have to do to avoid trouble.”

A lawyer for Tsakos Energy Navigation Ltd., Clio Hatzimichali, said that “in all its business dealings,” the company “always adheres to all applicable rules and procedures, as well as sanctions regulations of the competent authorities.” She did not respond to specific questions about the sale of the Aris. OCCRP has not seen evidence that Tsakos Energy Navigation was aware that the ship would end up in the shadow fleet when it was sold to its Marshall Islands-registered buyer.

However, sellers from EU nations are required to ensure that their ships are not circumventing sanctions, according to David O’Sullivan, the EU’s International Special Envoy for the Implementation of EU Sanctions. As part of a ban against direct sales to Russian companies, the EU mandated that European shipowners must report to national authorities when they sell a ship to a buyer outside the bloc. Sanctions officials can’t block those transactions, but the regulation is intended to make companies stop and reflect before making sales that could circumvent sanctions, O’Sullivan said.

”People selling vessels have to notify, and they have to prove, that they have checked the vessel does not undercut the sanctions or the price cap,” he said. Although “there's always going to be a degree of circumvention,” O’Sullivan said the question is whether the sanctions are “slowly but surely making it harder, making it more expensive, making it more complicated, for the Russians to continue their economic activity.”

Despite the rules in place, more than half of the tankers identified in the Follow The Money and OCCRP investigation were sold by 54 Greek-operated companies for a total of at least $3.7 billion. Besides Tsakos, this includes Marla Tankers, which sold two 15-year-old oil tankers for a reported $84 million in 2024.

Other prominent firms owned and operated by Greek concerns — including Toro Corp (which is based in Cyprus), Prime Marine, and Thenamaris — have also taken advantage of demand for tankers as Russia scrambles to maintain its fleet. Toro Corp, for example, resold six aging tankers for $195.4 million in 2023 and early 2024, around two years after buying them, earning them $111.7 million. After the five tankers wound up in the shadow fleet, each of them was sanctioned by the U.K. when they were caught transporting Russian oil.

Marla Tankers, Toro Corp and Prime Marine did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Thenamaris wrote: “Please kindly note, as per our corporate policy, we do not comment on business matters.”

Although shipowners operating from Greece have sold the most ships that the KSE Institute identified as being part of the shadow fleet, vessels were also sourced from several other E.U. countries. In particular, Chemikalien Seetransporte GmbH, a shipping company based in Hamburg, Germany sold at least five tankers in the group of ships identified by KSE, while the Belgian marine transport company Euronav earned $135 million by selling five vessels in 2022 and 2023 that also wound up in this group.

A spokesperson for Chemikalien Seetransporte GmbH said that while the tankers had previously been managed by their company, they were sold in 2023 and 2024 after “comprehensive due diligence reviews of the respective buyers were conducted by all parties involved, following strict compliance procedures.”

The spokesperson added that Chemikalien Seetransport “has always conducted, is conducting, and will continue to conduct its global operations in full compliance with international laws and regulations. The company adheres to all current sanctions imposed by the E.U., the U.S.A, and the United Nations and will continue to do so in the future.”

Euronav spokesperson Katrien Hennin said the company did not know that its former vessels would be added to Russia’s shadow fleet.

“We have no insight into what happens to the ships after the sale and that is not our responsibility,” Hennin said. “To whom the buyer resells a ship or how he operates the ship legally or illegally is beyond our control.”

The sales by Western companies are not in violation of EU, U.S., or U.K. sanctions because the vessels are sold to firms registered in jurisdictions that are not part of the sanctions effort, such as India, Vietnam, Hong Kong, or the Seychelles, before ending up operating as part of the shadow fleet. In several cases identified by OCCRP, the ships were also sold a second or third time through a different country before arriving in the shadow fleet.

For example, the two Marla Tankers ships — the Fos Picasso and the Fos Da Vinci — were sold late last year to Phuong Dong Petrol Transportation, a company based in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Both ships were renamed, and the flag under which they operated was changed from Malta to Panama, one of several countries that do not enforce international maritime rules.

Less than a month later, Automatic Identification System (AIS) records show the tankers set course towards Russia. At the Baltic port Ust-Luga near the Estonian border, more than 150 million liters of Russian fuel oil and crude were pumped into the tankers, according to data provided by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), an independent research organization. The oil would be expected to fetch at least $60 million.

Phuong Dong Petrol Transportation did not respond to requests for comment.

In response to a question of whether additional ships will be sanctioned, European Commission spokesman Olof Gill said the E.U. “has made public that the shadow fleet will be actively countered, including via additional designations of vessels.”

The shadow fleet has succeeded in propping up Russia’s oil revenue, which funds a significant portion of its federal budget and its war effort. Despite a G7 cap introduced in late 2022 aimed at limiting the price of seaborne Russian-origin crude, Russia earned over 800 billion euros from fossil fuel exports since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fleet has also been accused of spying on Russia’s enemies.

Besides undermining the effort to exert financial pressure on Russia’s coffers, the shadow fleet’s reliance on aging tankers increases the potential of maritime disasters. Many of the tankers have reached an age where they are typically retired because essential maintenance costs exceed what can be earned by selling the ship for scrap metal, and ships in the shadow fleet lack Western oil spill insurance. The combination increases the likelihood of accidents and major environmental damage.

The U.S., U.K., and EU have responded to the shadow fleet’s growth with a concerted effort to target individual vessels with sanctions.

Western governments have thus far sanctioned a total of roughly 300 tankers. In January 2025, the U.S. sanctioned 155 tankers — the most extensive effort yet to disrupt the fleet. Nearly 80 of the tankers FTM and OCCRP linked to Western companies are among those that have been sanctioned.

However, enforcement remains inconsistent, partly due to resistance from EU member states with a heavy reliance on the shipping industry.

Greece, Cyprus, and Malta — countries with significant maritime industries — have expressed concerns over stricter enforcement measures.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides told Politico in 2023 that his country would support further EU sanctions, but only if it was compensated for lost revenue. The country’s shipping industry earned an average of 14.1 billion euros annually between 2018 and 2021, which amounted to almost 8 percent of its economy, according to the Greek private research organization the Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research.

“Revenue loss due to stricter sanctions enforcement is no trivial matter” for nations with smaller economies and a reliance on shipping,” said Petras Katinas, an energy analyst for CREA. Still, he said, these nations “must consider the EU's collective security goals.”

“Sanctions against Russia, after all, are a response to aggression against Ukraine,” Katinas added. “The EU faces a fundamental challenge: To impose swift and robust sanctions, it requires unanimous approval from all 27 member states, a hurdle that complicates effective action.”