Zelenskyy announces stopping at least one in five Russian shadow tankers
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Oleh Luhovskyi (Photo: presidential Office)

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that at least a fifth of the vessels of the Russian "shadow fleet" used to circumvent sanctions have been stopped. This was stated by the head of state said after a report by the First Deputy of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SZR), Oleh Luhovskyi.

"I also instructed the SZR to provide our partners with new information on Russia's attempts to expand its tanker fleet. Thanks to our coordinated measures to put pressure on the shadow fleet, at least 20% of the fleet's vessels have stopped, and Russia is trying to compensate for this loss by attracting new vessels," the president said.

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Zelenskyy said that all of these ships should be included in the sanctions lists and announced that he would continue to put pressure on the crews, captains, insurers of these tankers and "the entire infrastructure of the 'shadow fleet'."

The head of state said that the current restrictions on Russian maritime oil exports should reduce Moscow's revenues by at least $30 billion over the next year.

"Additional pressure will definitely increase this volume of Russian losses, and thus reduce the financing of the Russian war. We will also inform our partners about new schemes of Chinese companies that help Russia to circumvent sanctions against the financial sector," the president added.

In addition, Luhovskyi informed Zelenskyy about the "non-public approaches" of Ukrainian partners to communication with Moscow and the "real attitude to Ukraine and of negotiations at this stage".

"It is important that all our positions are based on real prospects," the head of state added.

  • On January 10, USA stated that it would intercept all shadow fleet tankers transporting oil from Venezuela. These words were preceded by the detention of such vessels by the Americans. In particular, with the help of Britain, the tanker Bella 1 was arrested under the flag of the Russian Federation.
  • The WSJ, citing a company in the field, said that at least 15 shadow fleet tankers involved in the transportation of sanctioned oil have been reported in recent weeks, changed their flags to Russian ones.
  • Meanwhile, the British government has identified legal grounds that it believes allow the British military to board and detain "shadow" vessels.