As sanctioning countries have actively responded to ‘shadow’ vessel threats, Russia has stepped up, adding vessels directly to the Russian flag registry. Since January 2025, 107 vessels have been added to the Russian flag registry through to the end of June 2026. 72 of the 107 vessels delivered EUR 7.5 bn of Russian fossil fuels globally as of the end of June 2026.
Between the start of January 2025 and June 2026, the registry grew 36%, from 280 vessels to 382. Detentions and seizures have focused on vessels violating maritime law by flying false flags, a technique that became common among ‘shadow’ vessels once flags of convenience states began complying with sanctions directives from the EU, UK, and the US. Eighty-seven percent of the vessels that joined the Russian ship registry between January 2025 and the end of June 2026 were already under sanctions at the time of their shift in flag status.
‘Shadow’ fleet vessels have been funnelled into the Russian ship registry as their other options have been slowly closed off. Russian ‘shadow’ vessels had relied on open registries, due to their low registration costs, light regulation and opaque ownership. Under diplomatic pressure from sanctioning countries, many open registries began significantly withdrawing their flagging services for ‘shadow’ vessels.
With vessels increasingly being removed from open registries, many vessels turned to false flags — a practice that leaves them uninsured and, by law, stateless. Now, however, Russia is adding the vessels to their flag registry, a move that does not alleviate the high seas and coastal countries specifically from the risks posed by aging tankers with no insurance. In March 2026, Russia’s Arctic-Metagaz suffered an explosion and drifted uncontrolled for over a month. At the time, it was carrying 60,000 tonnes of Russian LNG through the Mediterranean. Russia mounted no salvage operations, leaving Libya, Malta and Italy to manage the crisis.
Under UNCLOS Article 94, a flag state is required to exercise effective jurisdiction over its ships. Russia’s failure to do so shows that the Russian flag confers legal standing without maritime governance.
Key findings
- Detentions have driven the number of ‘shadow’ vessels flying false flags down from a peak of 101 in October 2025 to 45 by the end of June 2026.
- Russia’s ship registry increased 36% from 280 vessels at the start of January 2025 to 382 by the end of June 2026.
- Eighty-seven percent of the vessels that joined the Russian flag registry between the start of January 2025 and the end of June 2026 were already under sanctions at the time of their shift in flag status.
- Monthly Russian flag registration additions fell from a peak of 25 in December 2025 to just three in June 2026.
- Only 12 vessels have left the Russian registry between the start of 2025 and the end of June 2026, two of which have since returned to it.
- Of the vessels that joined the Russian registry after January 2025, 56% flew at least one false flag between being sanctioned and joining the Russian registry.
- Comoros and Gambian registrations of ‘shadow’ vessels collapsed within months of their June and October 2025 peaks, respectively, following EU and UK sanctions on Intershipping Services LLC, which operates the Comoros and Gabon registries. 41 of the sanctioned vessels that Comoros flagged at its peak, and 31 of Gambia’s fly the Russian flag as of June 2026.
- Following pressure from sanctioning jurisdictions, Barbados and Palau removed all sanctioned ‘shadow’ vessels from their registries, while Panama cut the number of sanctioned ‘shadow’ vessels in their registries by almost two-thirds since May 2025.
- The case of the Russian-flagged LNG carrier Arctic Metagaz, which drifted uncontrolled following an explosion, exposed Russia’s failure to fulfil its flag-state obligations and left coastal states to manage the risks posed by its ageing ‘shadow’ vessels.
Policy recommendations
The growth of the Russian flag registry demands a coordinated response that addresses both the legal protections afforded by the flag and the structural loopholes that enable sanctioned vessels to continue operating.
- Pre-empt the next flag of convenience or fraudulent registry.
- Develop enforcement frameworks for Russian-flagged vessels and Mediterranean incident-response capacity.
- Implement flag certification at EU maritime chokepoints.
- Continue and expand Nordic-Baltic inspections and detentions.
- Defend open access to maritime tracking data at the IMO.
- Make greater use of satellite imagery, remote sensing technologies, and vessel-tracking systems to identify and investigate suspected illegal oil discharges from tankers.
