Shadow fleet vessels exposed in Sweden

In the evening on March 12, the Swedish Coast Guard boarded a ship that was suspected to be a shadow fleet vessel near Trelleborg. Swedish Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin reported that „the vessel is called Sea Owl 1 and is suspected of not being registered to any state. It is listed under EU sanctions and transports oil or other liquid fuels. Like the previous operation, called Black Coffee, this operation involved a national task force and was coordinated with the relevant authorities.” The tanker was sailing under the Comorian flag, which was supposedly fake and not included in the ship’s register. In that case, no state can vouch for safety on board, and the vessel cannot be treated as harmless passage.

As the Minister mentioned, it was not the first time that the Swedish Coast Guard had exposed a sanctioned Russian vessel. On March 6, Sweden detained the vessel Caffa in the Baltic Sea. It was suspected of sailing under a false flag and violating maritime law and security regulations. The vessel had a Russian captain who was arrested after the ship’s detention.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha thanked Sweden for the detention and explained the importance of such operations: „Russia’s shadow fleet helps finance its war against Ukraine and threatens our European security. It must be confronted decisively and without hesitation.” The so-called shadow fleet is used by Russia to transport oil and other fossil fuels, disregarding the sanctions imposed by the EU. Although new ships sailing under false flags keep getting exposed, Russia seems to be unfazed.