Dozens of tankers belonging to Russia’s “shadow fleet” were identified in the Gulf of Finland in the space of a week, Finnish broadcaster Yle reported Monday, as experts warned the ageing vessels increased the risk of an oil spill.
Yle has identified 31 vessels found on the EU’s sanctions list of ships from Moscow’s “shadow fleet” — vessels, with dubious ownership used to skirt western sanctions on oil — trafficking the narrow Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea over the course of a week in October.
Mikko Hirvi, Head of Maritime Safety at the Finnish Border Guard was not surprised by the numbers.
“Russian shipments in the Gulf of Finland are at pre-war levels, which means that this traffic is largely carried out by the shadow fleet,” Hirvi told AFP.
Last week, the European Union added over a 100 more tankers to its blacklist as part of a new sanctions package, with the vessels banned from port access and receiving services within the EU.
The EU is also looking to increase the ability of its member states to carry out inspections on the ships.
Mainly transporting crude oil, but also refined products such as gasoline and diesel, the vessels mostly serving the Russian Baltic seaports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk constitute a “ticking environmental time bomb,” according to experts interviewed by Yle.
“The risk of environmental accidents, especially in the Baltic Sea and particularly in the Gulf of Finland, is clearly at an elevated level,” Hirvi said.
“This is due to the poor condition of the shadow fleet’s old ships, combined with GNSS jamming,” he said, referring to disabling navigational tracking systems.
Only six of the ships identified by Yle were less than 15 years old.
Depending on the severity of a potential oil spill accident, it “could cause very significant costs,” for Finland, according to Hirvi.
The semi-enclosed Baltic Sea is surrounded by industrial and agricultural nations Germany, Poland, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the three Baltic states.
Connected to the Atlantic only by the narrow Danish straits, the Baltic Sea is known for its shallow, low-salinity waters, which are highly sensitive to environmental changes.
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© Agence France-Presse
