By Rostyslav Averchuk
Lviv (EFE).- Ukraine has opened another chapter in its fight to hinder the opponent’s war effort by attacking two sanctioned oil tankers with maritime drones while they were en route to Russian ports in the Black Sea. Ukraine is also urging its foreign partners to ensure that sanctions against oil exports are effective.
Both tankers damaged in an attack by “Sea Baby” drones of Ukraine’s Security Service in late November were heavily involved in the shipments of Russian oil, according to Ukrainian monitors.
These strikes show that the «shadow fleet» is not «untouchable» and can hit Russia’s ability to circumvent international sanctions, wrote Maksym Gardus, from the “Razom We Stand” energy-focused analytical platform, referring to hundreds of ships with obscure ownership used to transport Russian oil.
Black Sea oil flows
Currently, Russia exports about 25-30% of its crude oil through the Black Sea, where fighting continues even though Ukraine was able to reopen the maritime trade from its ports by damaging or sinking over a third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
While Ukraine’s attacks against the tankers became its first strikes against civilian ships in the area so far, Russia has been regularly attacking port infrastructure and civilian ships along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and the Danube estuary.
By targeting tankers involved in exports of Russian oil, Ukraine will increase “logistical risks for Russian oil carriers by adding to insurance and freight costs” and “creating pressure on international counterparties,» which “will directly reduce Russia’s profits and amplify the effects of international sanctions,» wrote Gardus.
The analyst underlined that Ukraine’s strategic goal is to achieve a complete embargo on Russian energy resources through diplomatic and political methods, yet since “not all states are guided by moral or legal arguments,” Ukraine has to combine diplomacy with targeted actions to reduce Russia’s ability to finance the invasion.
Oil infrastructure under attack
Attacks on oil tankers complement Ukraine’s tactics of almost daily long-range strikes against Russia’s oil exportation and refining infrastructure.
On Saturday morning, a strike temporarily halted oil exports from Russia’s Novorossiysk port on the Black Sea, leading to a complaint from Kazakhstan, whose oil is shipped through the facility as part of a consortium co-owned by Kazakh, United States, and Russian companies.
“None of the actions of the Ukrainian side are directed against the Republic of Kazakhstan or other third parties,” spokesman Georgiy Tykhyi commented on Sunday night.
“All of Ukraine’s efforts are focused on repelling full-scale Russian aggression within the right to self-defense guaranteed by Article 51 of the United Nations Charter,” he underlined.
Europe’s role
As Kyiv seeks ways to curb Moscow’s pursuit of maximalist goals in Ukraine, it also expects its European partners to more actively counter Russian oil tankers.
Despite international sanctions, the flow of Russian oil from its Baltic Sea ports reached almost 12 million tonnes in October, a record since Ukraine’s Black Sea Strategic Research Institute started monitoring it in April 2024.
The Institute’s director, Andrii Klymenko, explained to EFE that Russia and its trading partners use a variety of methods to avoid detection of oil transfers and payments.
While European partners send billions of euros in support to Ukraine, Russia keeps earning just as much thanks to the oil that keeps flowing through European waters, resulting in “a perpetuum mobile of the war,” he underlined.
European Union sanctions limiting access to European ports or services for oil tankers fail to affect those that travel to China, India, and other buyers.
Klymenko argued that if Europe is serious about disrupting Russia’s war machinery, the only way to enforce the sanctions is to limit or halt the passage of oil tankers through the Baltic and Danish Straits. He noted that Ukraine’s partners have the legal grounds and tools to do this, but they need to demonstrate the political will to do so. EFE
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