WARSAW, POLAND – One of the great mysteries of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is how he continues to underwrite the war effort.
Economic bad news on Russia continues to roll in. This news now includes recent reporting about Russian banks might soon requiring government bailouts to prevent them from going under.
Putin in 2021. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
So how is Putin managing to generate the revenues needed to keep his war machine running?
Russia’s The Oil and Gas Challenge
The answer is that his attempts to destroy Ukraine and the basic survival of the Russian economy, period, come down to two words: oil and gas.
Exports of energy commodities have long been what keeps Russia’s shaky economy from collapsing, as the nation exports very few manufactured products that are big sellers, other than weapons.
Putin rules a nation with an economic profile that a decade ago prompted the late Sen. John McCain to quip, “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.” The US, the EU, and the G7 nations have all tried to choke off Putin’s cash by slapping sanctions on Moscow and enforcing a price cap on Russian oil exports.
However, the biggest “un-secret secret” is that Putin operates a “shadow fleet” of tankers that keep shipping Russian oil around the world despite the current sanctions regime.
The ships are “flagged” to make them appear to be conducting business for other countries. The ownership of the vessels is made an issue so murky that determining the true operators and management becomes a shell game.
When Legal Means Do Not Work Anymore
Speaking with Ukrainian intelligence officials earlier in the year, who were in a third country at the time, one of them said, “We know the details, names, registries, etc. of all of these [shadow fleet] vessels. We have also informed the US and others of which ships they are and where they are.”
This leaves very few excuses for not impounding these tankers or taking other legal means, said another of these officials.
The US and its partners have made numerous attempts to block the operations of the shadow fleet. However, what can be done that is above board is limited.
Legal, open enforcement efforts have on many occasions been hamstrung by restrictions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, commonly referred to as UNCLOS.
This international convention is the legal document that dictates the norms of international maritime law. Its central codicil is a guarantee of freedom of navigation. Since the economies of Western nations depend on this principle being upheld and not undermined, they have an incentive not to set precedents by creating loopholes to restrict these movements.
In addition, the options available for obstructing the movements of this fleet are increasingly infeasible to employ. Boarding these ships while at sea or using other methods is now difficult because the shadow fleet is often escorted by Russian naval vessels or supported by Russian fighter aircraft that can be scrambled to fly air cover for them.
So, when legal means do not work, “other measures” must be called upon, said a former Ukrainian intelligence officer in Kyiv who spoke to National Security Journal.
Mysterious Attacks
On 6 July, two explosions tore apart the engine room of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Eco Wizard while loading in the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga. Explosions hit another tanker in the same Ust-Luga facility in February.
This incident was the sixth tanker to suffer an unexplained explosion so far this year. On each occasion, the ship attacked was either in a Russian port or had recently departed Russia. One of these incidents occurred while the vessel was in Turkey, and there were two in Ust-Luga, one while anchored off the coast of Italy, and two more off the coast of Libya.
All of these ships, except for the Eco Wizard, had a record of anchoring off Malta, and four of them had made visits to Libya.
No cause for these explosions has been determined yet. Still, the London Daily Telegraph reports that the smart money is that these explosions are from the old, traditional magnetic limpet mines, a technique that dates back to WWII. One media source has stated that these were Russian-made BPM-1 and BPM-2-model mines.
The mine’s designator comes from its Russian acronym: Bolshaya Prilipayushchaya Mina, which translates to “Large Clinging Mine.” This type of mine is usually attached by a diver who plants them at some spot on the hull of a ship where they are likely to do the most damage.
However, as more than one report has pointed out, with all the tasks now being performed by underwater sea drones in this war, these mines could have easily been planted by one of these unmanned vehicles. The question is why Russian-made mines are being used to attack these shadow fleet ships. When it is the Russian government that depends on these staying in operation to survive, why would their mines be used to try to disable or sink them?
Ukraine Attacking Russia’s Ghost Fleet?
“What is most likely happening is that the Ukrainians are planting these mines,” said a retired NATO intelligence officer who commented on this story. “If you were the Ukrainians, and you wanted to confuse everyone about who was responsible – if you wanted people to be asking this very question and thereby deflect suspicion – this is exactly what you would do.”
“It is also what you do when you are fighting an existential war and the pedestrian international norms do not work for you anymore,” he continued. “Just ask the Israelis.”
About the Author
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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