The UK on Monday sanctioned as many as 30 tankers identified as belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet that circumvents the Western oil sanctions, in the single largest sanctions package aimed at Russia’s dark fleet and at stifling Putin’s oil revenues.
The UK imposed sanctions on 30 ships in Russia’s shadow fleet today. These vessels have been responsible for transporting billions of UK pounds worth of oil and oil products in the last year alone.
With half of the ships targeted today transporting more than $4.3 billion worth of oil and oil products like gasoline in the last year alone, today is the largest UK package of its kind, the UK government said.
The UK hopes that the latest sanctions package “will further constrain the Kremlin’s ability to fund their illegal war in Ukraine and their malign activity worldwide,” the government noted.
The sanctions announced today bring the total number of oil tankers sanctioned by the UK to 73, more than any other nation, demonstrating the UK’s leadership in tackling the shadow fleet, according to the cabinet.
To date, the UK has sanctioned 73 oil tankers in the shadow fleet, compared to 39 sanctioned by the United States and 19 by the European Union (EU).
Alongside the 30 oil tankers of the shadow fleet used by Russia, the UK is also sanctioning two Russian insurance companies, AlfaStrakhovanie and VSK, “for enabling the shadow fleet.”
The UK’s announcement comes as Foreign Secretary David Lammy is at the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Italy, where he is pushing other countries “to maintain pressure on Russia’s war machine, in parallel with efforts to step up military and financial support for Ukraine.”
Last month, Russia appeared to continue to find ways to circumvent Western sanctions and was defying one of the latest measures, the blacklisting of dozens of oil tankers for carrying Russian oil, by putting around one-third of these back to work to deliver its oil.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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