The War & Sanctions portal reveals a dossier on 238 "participants" of the shadow fleet of old oil tankers, which provides billion-dollar revenues to the aggressor state and threatens global environmental security.

Fossil fuel exports are a key source of funding for building up the military power of aggressors and feeding "bloody" regimes. In 2023, russia earned $188 billion from oil exports, while Iran earned almost $53 billion.

Oil revenues provide authoritarian actors with resources to implement nuclear programs, develop modern drones and missiles, provide ongoing financial and material support for the terrorist activities of their regional proxies, and pay for the services of transnational crime networks.

The shadow fleet consists of more than a thousand primarily outdated, poorly maintained vessels without proper insurance, with confusing ownership structures located in "friendly" jurisdictions, under "convenient" flags, and with a total deadweight of more than 100 million tons (approximately 17% of the world's oil tanker fleet).

Such vessels resort to deceptive tactics at sea to conceal the origin of cargo, threaten "environmental chaos," and cause billions of dollars in losses to coastal countries due to the growing risk of disasters when passing through busy, narrow international transport routes and refusing pilotage services. Since February 2022, more than 50 incidents involving shadow tankers have been recorded globally from the Danish Straits to Malaysia.

Against the backdrop of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, russia has lost traditional buyers of marine oil in the EU. It has also experienced Western restrictions on its energy sector, including the most significant russian state-owned shipping company, Sovcomflot, which serves the oil interests of russia's largest oil and gas companies and traders.

However, it found new clients in Asia, mainly India and China. It began building up its shadow fleet of outdated tankers without "ties" to the G7+ countries, which can transport oil in violation of the price ceiling. In addition, russia uses the services of the "Iranian ghost armada."

Since 2022, russia has spent about $10 billion to create its shadow fleet.

The War & Sanctions portal reveals the secrets of the shadow tanker fleet. It launches the world's only dataset with facts and evidence of shadow activities.

The list includes 238 (and counting) shadow tankers that help russia and Iran deliver sanctioned oil mainly to their Asian customers, China and India. These tankers violate the G7+ oil embargo and transport russian oil from russian ports in the Baltic and Black Seas to EU countries, mainly through raid transshipment and STS hubs in the Black and Mediterranean Seas near European countries. In addition, they are violating the price ceiling and other restrictions on russian oil.

Among them are vessels classified by the international NGO Greenpeace as a shadowy fleet of tankers that transport russian oil through the Baltic Sea, threatening its ecosystems and environment, and those that, according to the American human rights group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), have been converted from Iranian oil to transport russian oil.

The portal's section is also unique in its ability to sort tankers by major groups: shadow fleet operators who appeared out of nowhere in 2022-2023, quickly assembled a fleet of outdated vessels such as Arfamax, Suezmax, etc., and played a key role in ensuring the transportation of russian oil in the interests of the Kremlin.

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The War & Sanctions is the only portal in the world that will tell you about thousands of Western components in russian weapons and foreign industrial equipment for the production of missiles and military equipment; ships that transport weapons, earn petrodollars for the aggressors, and steal grain; about the people involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children, the theft of relics, and other means of war in the bloody hands of the aggressors.