EU Aims to Target 11 Russian Ships Involved in Sanctions-Busting

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The European Union has proposed restrictions on 11 vessels that contribute to Russia’s ability to sustain its war against Ukraine.

The proposed measures, if approved by member states, would ban the ships from accessing EU ports and anchorage zones, and complicate the logistics of operating them by barring them from using European companies for an array of services.

The vessels being targeted include four fuel tankers, two crude tankers, two gas-storage units used in Novatek PJSC’s future project to transship liquefied natural gas on the Kamchatka peninsula, and a cargo ship. One is a tanker named Andromeda Star, which suffered a crash while in the Baltic Sea and was found to have invalid European insurance when Bloomberg sought information about its documentation under a Freedom of Information request to Danish authorities.

Key Insurer Says Russia Oil Price Cap Increasingly Unenforceable

The proposals are part of the EU’s efforts to crack down on Moscow’s ability to circumvent a price cap on Russian oil through the use of a shadow fleet and to constrain the activity of vessels involved in the transport of goods generating revenue for Russia’s war machine, especially in sanctioned sectors.

The ban would apply to insurance and technical assistance including “bunkering, ship supply services, crew changes services, cargo loading and discharge services, fendering and tug services,” according to a draft document seen by Bloomberg. European providers would also be prohibited from engaging in ship-to-ship transfers, the draft says.

The sanctions would make it harder, among other things, for these vessels to obtain fuel, but the EU’s measures appear to be less restrictive than those applied by the US Treasury on several of the same ships.

As part of the same sanctions package, which would be the bloc’s 14th, the European Commission also proposed targeting several LNG projects and banning the transshipment of Russian LNG from the EU to third countries, Bloomberg previously reported. European exporters would be asked to step up due diligence on their trading practices and could face action if they fail to impede circumvention of critical items because of a lack of checks.

EU sanctions must be approved unanimously by the bloc’s 27 members states, and the package could change before it’s finalized.

Photograph: Oil and LNG tanker vessels; photo credit: Jeremy Suyker/Bloomberg