On Thursday, January 22, a person walking their dog in the morning and looking out over the English Channel from Dungeness Beach might have spotted a familiar silhouette: the long hull of an oil tanker.
The ship passing a few miles off the British coast was the Hyperion, part of Russia’s notorious “shadow fleet” rapidly retreating across the Atlantic from Venezuela.
Like the Marinera, a tanker seized by US forces in early January, the Hyperion is one of hundreds of sanctioned vessels used by Moscow to transport oil to and from South America.
Unlike the Marinera, which is currently detained in the Moray Firth, Scotland, the Hyperion was able to safely cross the English Channel and proceed unhindered to the Russian oil port city of Ust-Luga.
The voyage of a sanctioned tanker along the British and French coasts is not an isolated incident. Across the Dover Strait, it’s a story that repeats itself every day, allowing President Putin to finance his war in Ukraine – right under the noses of Kiev’s allies, The Times reports.
Since the beginning of 2022, Russia has transported 550 million tons of oil (roughly four billion barrels) across the English Channel, worth 239 billion pounds.
The analysis is based on data provided by the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research (CREA), a Helsinki-based think tank that has recorded every oil export from Russia since it invaded Ukraine four years ago. CREA tracks shipments using a variety of sources and metrics, including historical and current shipping data, customs information and the think tank’s own models to estimate volumes and goods exported with each shipment leaving Arctic and Baltic ports. Researchers also track recorded oil trades to calculate exports.
The analysis shows that over a four-year period, ships carrying Russian oil made 9,584 trips through the Dover Strait. Their number rose sharply during the war in Ukraine: in 2022, 958 tankers carrying Russian oil were registered, rising to 2,919 in 2023 and 2,987 in 2024, before falling slightly to 2,720 in 2025. In just one week last December, 57 shipments were registered. On one day this week, 11 ships left Russian ports to make the unhindered passage through the English Channel.
Shadow fleet ships are known for their flagrant violation of the laws of the sea. To avoid detection, many travel with their AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders turned off, a mandatory marine tracking system, or falsify their location so they cannot be tracked by satellite.
In the Mediterranean, they line up side by side to perform ship-to-ship transfers at sea, dangerous maneuvers that can cause massive oil spills. Recently, NATO has observed dark vessels approaching cargo ships and exchanging AIS identifiers to confuse the agencies monitoring them. Many of them are stateless and not registered under any flag. While the European Union has imposed sanctions on around 600 ships and the UK on 500, the true size of the Russian fleet is estimated at 1,400.
With Western sanctions failing, Britain and its European allies are finally starting to act. In recent weeks, the Royal Navy has drawn up proposals for a shadow fleet command center on the east coast, from where a flotilla of unmanned boats would be remotely controlled and used to guard the North Sea as tankers arrive and depart from Russian ports.
As Europe tries to divest itself of Russian oil and gas, our investigation has shown that oil exports to China and India have grown exponentially. The bulk of Russian oil, worth 85.5 billion pounds, was sent to India between 2022 and 2025.
Exports increased dramatically as the war in Ukraine continued. While India received 29 million tonnes in 2022, this volume doubled to 67 million in 2023 and peaked at 71.1 million tonnes (about 521 million barrels) in 2024. However, those sources of revenue may finally be cut off after President Trump signed a trade deal with India last week. As part of the deal to cut tariffs, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to stop buying Russian oil.
Shipments to China totaled 21.1 billion pounds over the same period,
jumping from 10.2 million tons in 2022 to 18.9 million the following year. Turkey, a NATO member that maintains an ambivalent stance toward Russia, has received hundreds of millions of barrels from ships transiting the English Channel.
Oil remains a strategic commodity for Russia despite the imposition of sanctions, said Petras Katinas, energy analyst at CREA. He said the Western sanctions were designed less to stop exports than to limit the money Moscow makes from them.
The main mechanism was a price ceiling introduced in December 2022 that allowed Russian crude oil to be sold to third countries once its price was $60 a barrel or lower. It was designed to keep oil flowing to world markets, avoiding a spike in prices but reducing revenues flowing to the Kremlin. The sanctions were thought to work largely because the global oil trade depends on shipping insurance, financing, brokerage and tanker certification, all of which are dominated by Western companies.
To get around this, the Kremlin created a shadowy fleet with unclear ownership, untrained crews and minimal insurance to reduce the cost of shipping its oil around the world since it could no longer sell it in Europe.
By disguising the ownership of its ships, the shadow fleet is difficult to disrupt legally. There are strict international maritime laws, such as freedom of navigation and innocent passage, even for suspicious vessels. To detain them, Britain and Western allies must have solid evidence that the ships are violating international maritime law, for example by flying a false flag.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia exported negligible amounts of oil to India, mainly due to the distance. To make money, Russia has increased its oil shipments through the Baltic Sea, the Danish Straits and the English Channel. This remains the fastest and most cost-effective route to market, according to Bridget Diacoon, senior risk and compliance analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Expansion of the Shadow Fleet
Russia’s oil industry has survived by building one of the world’s largest shadow fleets by acquiring vessels through a network of brokers and dealers.
Russia is taking advantage of the experience of Iran and Venezuela to acquire ships and expand its fleet, according to the Dossier Centre, an investigative organization that tracks Kremlin activities.
Crews are often low-paid seafarers from Asian countries. Maintenance and service is often minimal. There are suspicions that Russia has begun deploying soldiers and intelligence officers on some ships.
Among the sanctioned vessels that regularly cross the Channel are the Mirabel, Sierra, Karabakh, Breeze and Proxima – all huge tankers acquired through opaque sales and quickly re-registered in jurisdictions with lax oversight.
For security reasons, the Russian state does not purchase ships directly. The dossier The center identified a small group of vessels linked to the sanctioned Russian shipping company Sovcomflot – about 100 tankers, representing less than 10% of the fleet. The rest are scattered among ship owners and operators whose identities are withheld.
Some of these participants have no direct connection with the Kremlin and transport sanctioned oil and oil products solely for the purpose of profit. However, there are notable exceptions. Putin’s aide Nikolai Patrushev appears to be involved only in the largest and most complex shadow fleet schemes. Most of them are run by various oligarchs, offshore companies, businessmen, gangsters and terrorists.
Even the Kinahan cartel, one of the world’s most notorious gangs based in Dubai, is involved. The first evidence of his involvement emerged after the seizure of the cargo ship MV Matthew off Ireland in 2023, carrying more than two tonnes of cocaine. Police linked the vessel to Symphony Marine, a Dubai-registered company set up by the cartel to operate the MV Matthew. Our investigation found that Symphony Marine also operates a second vessel, a tanker formerly known as Pontus I, now renamed Serena. It has been sanctioned by the EU, US and Australia for smuggling Russian oil from Baltic ports near St Petersburg, including Vysotsk and Vistino.
John Healy, the defense secretary, said he was working with allies to seize more ships, and some reports suggested that the Special Boat Service, the Navy’s elite special forces unit, could be deployed.
From the navy’s proposed shadow fleet command centre, the UK would monitor, gather information and potentially intercept sanctioned ships as they pass.
In the future, these boats equipped with surveillance technology will be sent to monitor Russian tankers, helping to detect those sailing under a false flag or name and providing accurate data on their movements. The hope is that by the time the stealth fleet tanker reaches the English Channel, the Ministry of Defense will have gathered enough information to determine whether the vessel can be legally detained.
How would Russia and its representatives react?
Russia has already begun deploying warships in the English Channel and Denmark Straits to protect its assets.
Boykiy and Soobrazitelny, two ships of the Russian Baltic Fleet, and the Russian destroyer Severomorsk of the Northern Fleet are being monitored by NATO in the area, but few believe either side would risk an armed confrontation over an oil tanker. It is more likely that Russia would change course and divert its oil supplies to cross the west coast of Ireland, where it would be safe but exposed to the dangers of the Atlantic.
An oil spill in the English Channel would kill fish, seabirds and other wildlife, while severely polluting coastal areas. Beaches could be closed, which would discourage tourists. Hotels, restaurants and local attractions would face bankruptcy.
This happened Dnes, for the important things during the day, follow us and in Google News Showcase.
date:2026-02-08 19:00:00