By Tom Sharpe*
Anyone who has been tracking the movement of oil out of Russia since its 2022 wider invasion of Ukraine will have realised that the measures put in place to limit Moscow’s exports are not working very well.
The idea of keeping some Russian oil flowing to avoid disastrous price shocks, but at a rate that minimises money into Putin’s war chest, is sound in principle. In practice, it has failed. And thus we now have the dark, parallel, grey or shadow fleet.
Analysts at the Royal United Services Institute note that these vessels are often very old, use deceptive shipping practices, have opaque ownership and management, are mostly uninsured and uninsurable, use weak flag states – if any – and do whatever they can to avoid being inspected.
Our response in the UK has been far from aggressive. We have been deeply reluctant to adopt a solution that is as old as navies: board and seize. But this might be about to change.
This shift in posture was flagged initially by the Defence Secretary after we enabled the US boarding of Marinera, previously Bella-1, 100 miles southeast of Iceland. RAF aircraft, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel and our air bases hosting US aircraft were all key enablers.
There was no way we could provide all this help without a shift in our previously stated policy. Sure enough, this week briefings were given to the effect that ministers believe we are now able to board dark fleet vessels under our Sanctions and Money Laundering Act 2018. I understand subsequent media surprise at the sheer number of these vessels passing the UK every week. I am annoyed (not surprised) that it took an event such as this to make our government lawyers step up and finally decide that boarding can legally be carried out.
I should note that the dark tankers actually pass through French territorial waters when heading east through the Dover Straits Traffic Separation Scheme – a sort of nautical motorway system in which ships keep to the right hand lane to avoid head-on collisions. Will we team up with the French on this? I believe we should.
From a military perspective we have everything that is needed to board and seize. Our Special Forces and Royal Marines are the best trained operators in the world for this. But there are not that many of them, nor the ships, helicopters and aircraft that we would need in support. To make a serious impact on the dark fleet we would need to work with others.
A move to regular seizures would also carry some risk. It would make UK flagged ships vulnerable to counter boarding, although the sad decline of our merchant fleet means this is not a big issue any more.
More seriously there is the ever-present risk of miscalculation. We know how erratic Russian maritime behaviour can be. Armed guards aboard dark fleet vessels would be problematic enough: the presence of Russian warships or aircraft, more serious still.
Despite these risks, we can act effectively if we choose to. Anything that squeezes Putin’s war chest should be applauded, even if we are late to the party. I just wish our government could come to these decisions on their own without being forced into it, either by the US or by the next Netflix documentary.
*Tom Sharpe is a former Royal Navy officer with experience of warship command and helicopter-borne boarding operations at sea
This article first appeared in The Telegraph and is republished with the Author’s permission.
