WSJ: Ukraine Could Undermine Already About A Dozen Tankers Of The Russian Shadow Fleet
- 3.12.2025, 15:00
The second energy front will proliferate.
Ukraine's Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has admitted for the first time that it organized the November 28 attacks in the Black Sea against two sub-sanctioned tankers that were on their way to Novorossiysk to pick up a cargo of Russian oil.
In fact, the war in international waters has been going on for months, The Wall Street Journal has found out. And a second energy front (in addition to the airstrikes on Russian refineries) will proliferate, military experts said.
In addition to the Nov. 28 attacks, at least seven Russian-linked vessels have been hit by explosions between now and Dec. 23, 2024, which security experts and maritime intelligence and open data analysts believe bear the imprint of Ukrainian operations, the WSJ calculated. "The war between Russia and Ukraine has clearly become a threat to the safety of shipping in the Black Sea," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated on Monday.
And not just in the Black Sea. Two incidents occurred in the Baltic, including explosions on the ammonia tanker Eco Wizard in the port of Ust-Luga in July. Two more occurred off the coast of Libya (Russia is using ties to the country's controlling general Khalifa Haftar to smuggle oil products to Europe): an explosion in June on the Vilamoura tanker carrying one million barrels of oil was reported without comment by Ukraine's military intelligence agency on its website. Three other incidents occurred in different parts of the Mediterranean Sea (between Spain and Algeria, off the coast of Italy and Turkey).
Adi Imsirovic, an energy lecturer at Oxford University and former global director at Gazprom Marketing & Trading in London, told the WSJ:
This is the best strategy Ukraine has: it can hit the economy to put pressure on Russia in [peace] talks.
The SBU confirmed that the Nov. 28 operations were carried out jointly by its 13th Main Directorate of Military Counterintelligence and the Ukrainian Navy, and posted video from drones involved in the attack on the Kairos and Virat tankers. This dealt a "significant blow to the transportation of Russian oil," with the tankers suffering "critical damage" and "effectively put out of service," an SBU spokesman told the Financial Times.
In addition, four explosions hit the tanker Mersin, carrying Russian oil products, off the coast of Senegal on November 29. The Mersin is not under sanctions, but has frequently called at Russian ports since late 2023 and has been carrying exclusively Russian cargoes since March 2025, and has repeatedly manipulated transponder readings to hide its true location, Benjamin Hilgenstock, an oil sanctions expert at the Kiev School of Economics, told the FT.
And on December 2, the tanker Midvolga 2, loaded with sunflower oil, was attacked off the coast of Turkey. The crew was not injured and did not request assistance. Ukraine has said it was not involved in the incident.
The latest attacks have begun to affect Russian oil transportation operations. The Turkish company that owns the Mersin said it would no longer operate flights related to Russian interests, citing sharply increased risks to ships and crews. In addition, war risk insurance for ships sailing to Russian Black Sea ports for seven days has risen to 0.65-0.8 percent of the ship's value, sources in the shipping and insurance industries told Reuters the previous day. It was 0.6 percent a week earlier.
The shadow fleet tankers attacked by naval drones on Nov. 28 were going empty. Attacking them indicates "a deliberate extension of Ukrainian long-range strikes from fixed Russian energy infrastructure to mobile elements of the oil export system," as well as mitigating environmental and political risks, said Konrad Muzyka, director of Poland's Rochan Consulting, which tracks the war.
Ukraine has significantly ramped up strikes against Russian energy facilities since August. In November, it sent an average of 180 drones a day into Russian territory, the FT calculated based on data from the Institute for the Study of War. Many of them attacked refineries and oil terminals.
Attacks on tankers, on the other hand, are aimed at undermining the operation of "the wider Russian energy supply chain, increasing the costs, risks and complexities associated with oil exports," Muzyka said. Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, adds:
If Ukraine intensifies attacks on tankers in the shadow fleet, it could cut off one of the most important transportation routes for Russian oil, lead to a reduction in exports and severely affect the Russian budget.