“The shadow fleet” has become one of the most commonly repeated labels for Russian oil and gas shipments. In political statements, media coverage, and announcements of sanctions, it can sound that almost any tanker moving Russian energy outside the Western-controlled shipping and insurance networks is unlawful by definition. The legal position is far more complicated.
The first problem is semantics. “Ghost fleet” is a media term, not a category of international maritime law. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) uses the words “dark fleet” and “shadow fleet” in its Assembly Resolution A.1192(33), enacted in December 2023. However, the resolution is an IMO Assembly resolution, rather than a treaty imposing a universal offense. It targets ships engaging in activities such as sanctions evasion, disregard of safety or environmental regulations, insurance avoidance, and other possibly illegal actions.
This distinction is important. The Western sanctions on Russian energy are mainly EU, US, UK, and other national or regional restrictions. They are not UN Security Council sanctions, and the IMO does not impose them. The legal restrictions on a vessel, owner, insurer, cargo, or transaction will therefore be dependent upon the jurisdiction and the particular measure in question.
A Sanctioned Ship Is Not the Same as a “Shadow Fleet” Ship
The difference is especially essential when talking about numbers. Sanctions and other restrictions imposed by Western governments have been creeping upwards in terms of the number of vessels affected. The European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom each have their own sanctions regimes, with differing legal authorities, criteria, and effects.
A vessel banned by the European Union is not always banned under American or British law. And a ship outside of the Western insurance and banking networks is not automatically a sanctioned vessel.
The term “shadow fleet” has thus become a catch-all description for a variety of categories: specifically sanctioned ships, ships operating outside the Western insurance and services networks, ships suspected of sanctions circumvention, and ships with opaque ownership or management structures.
These categories may overlap, but they are not legally the same.
That’s a crucial distinction because sometimes in public conversation it goes from “this vessel has characteristics associated with the shadow fleet” to “this vessel is illegal. They are not equivalent statements.
AIS Blackouts Do Not Automatically Prove Sanctions Evasion
The strongest example of this problem is AIS.
The Automatic Identification System transmits information about a vessel, including its identity, position, speed, and course. However, since the AIS information is transmitted in the open, it might also create a security concern.
The IMO has acknowledged that security considerations can justify turning off AIS. Its guidance permits the master of a vessel to stop transmitting if continuous broadcasting could be a threat to the safety or security of the vessel or if a security crisis is imminent.
This is an essential caveat to the increasingly popular Western narrative that an AIS outage in and of itself demonstrates covert activity.
No, it does not.
A blackout obviously can be suspicious, particularly when it is accompanied by unexplained ship-to-ship transfers, misleading locations, suspect ownership, cargo irregularities, or other indicators of sanctions evasion. But the lack of an AIS signal does not, by itself, prove the reason a captain shut the system down.
The relevant question is therefore not simply whether AIS was switched off.
The real question is, why was it switched off? Where was the vessel? What was happening at the time? And is there independent evidence of unlawful activity?
AIS Is an Open Signal in a Hostile Maritime Environment
AIS gives a constant, up-to-date electronic representation of a ship’s position. Its signals can be picked up by ground stations, satellites, and commercial tracking systems.
That transparency is useful in regular commercial navigation. It informs other ships, ports, and maritime authorities about the location of ships and assists with collision avoidance and traffic management.
But the same transparency also opens up vulnerabilities in times of military confrontation or other security risks.
By transmitting its specific location, heading, and identification, a vessel can possibly be easier to find. In a world of drones, missiles, observation aircraft, submarines, and other intelligence-gathering equipment, publicly available maritime information can be of practical use to an adversary.
Thus, a captain operating in a truly hazardous environment has good grounds to examine whether constant public communication represents a bigger danger to security.
This does not mean that every Russian ship (or even Western or Ukrainian in the Black Sea) switching off AIS is doing it legitimately. It means that the mere act of switching off AIS cannot be taken as definitive evidence of sanctions evasion without looking at surrounding conditions.
If a vessel switches off AIS in a secure commercial environment and simultaneously engages in suspicious ship-to-ship transfers or falsifies its location, the circumstances are very different from those of a vessel transiting an area affected by military threats.
The sanction, the Nord Stream investigations, the illegal seizure of Russian ships by the Europeans, and the alleged targeting of Russian ships by the Ukrainians definitely prove that Europe is a clear and present danger to the Russian shipping.
Context is important.
The Security Environment Cannot Be Ignored
Since Russia’s war on Ukraine began, the marine environment around Russian energy exports has changed considerably.
Merchant ships engaged in the delivery of Russian energy have been increasingly active in an atmosphere of military monitoring, drone warfare, and attacks on marine infrastructure and shipping.
And that poses an obvious security concern.
The same Western democracies that criticize AIS camouflage have formidable naval surveillance capabilities. It is also apparent that Russia has a strategic interest in limiting the amount of information that is publicly available regarding the movement of critical energy cargoes, especially when those cargoes have significant economic worth.
Again, this does not prove that all AIS blackouts are authentic. It indicates that there can be valid security concerns behind the practice.
Therefore, the distinction between concealment for the sake of security and concealment for the purpose of sanctions avoidance must be established by evidence and not by inference from the lack of an AIS signal.
Russia is building a new Arctic route
Another initiative that could eventually reduce the importance of Europe’s existing maritime routes for Russian energy exports is the Northern Sea Route.
Russia has been investing considerably in Arctic transportation infrastructure, ice-class ships, ports, navigation systems, and icebreaker capability.
Russia has a marine corridor through the Northern Sea Route that connects its Arctic territory with the Pacific, lessening reliance on traditional routes via European waterways.
Of particular importance is the creation of more capable ice-class ships. These vessels are able to operate in harsh Arctic circumstances and can access waterways that would be closed to regular tankers, depending on the vessel’s ice classification and seasonal conditions.
Russia is also boosting its nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet. Together, icebreakers, Arctic infrastructure, and ice-class cargo ships are designed to make it possible to navigate the Arctic year-round or for a longer season.
This does not eliminate Western sanctions. Nor does it make sanctions legally irrelevant. But it gives Russia another logistical option.
The more Russian energy exports may be diverted to Arctic shipping routes, the less the country’s maritime energy commerce relies on the traditional European corridors.
The Real Issue Is Evidence, Not the Label
There is genuine evidence of Russian oil being transported through vessels specifically sanctioned by Western governments. There is additional evidence of opaque ownership structures, multiple changes of flags, ship-to-ship transfers, and AIS manipulation in specific circumstances.
Western governments therefore have a legitimate basis for investigating specific vessels and transactions.
But that is not the same as classifying the entire fleet of Russian-linked tankers as an illegal “shadow fleet.”
The vocabulary has broadened beyond the law that underlies it. “Shadow fleet” is a catch-all word often used. AIS silence has become a headline indicator. And sanctions imposed by different jurisdictions are sometimes discussed as though they constitute one universal international prohibition.
They don’t.
The more true picture is much more nuanced: yes, there is a real issue of “western” sanctions avoidance with certain ships and transactions, but “shadow fleet” is not a catch-all legal term in itself, and an AIS blackout does not in itself constitute proof of illicit activities.
The overriding question for every given vessel must thus be simple: Which flag has approved it, under what legal document, for what conduct, and what independently verifiable proof supports that conduct?
That is a much higher evidentiary threshold than just designating a vessel as part of a “shadow fleet.”