“In addition to Dubai, there are many holding companies in India, China, Russia and small island states”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
According to journalists, only one company registered in Dubai owns 24 ships that are on the sanctions lists of the European Union and Great Britain.
The ship Eagle S, which is suspected of damaging the cable between Finland and Estonia in the Gulf of Finland, also belongs to a Dubai company.
The editors investigated approximately 150 vessels of the Russian shadow fleet, which were included in the Western sanctions lists. The investigation shows that Russia has created an extensive international network through which it can circumvent Western economic sanctions.
Journalists note that the names, flags and owners of the ships used by Russia repeatedly change: about a third of the ships changed their names during or after the month that corresponds to the month of approval of the sanctions decision, almost as many vessels changed owners and management companies, more than part of the ships changed the flag.
According to the investigation, owners register many vessels in so-called “flags of convenience” – tax havens such as Barbados, where there is little oversight and shipping companies pay virtually no taxes.
Russia’s “shadow fleet” includes tankers brought from abroad, as well as vessels that previously belonged to Russia. Many companies registered in Dubai own vessels that previously belonged to the Russian shipping company Sovcomflot.
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The journalists found out that 13 Dubai companies own a total of 55 vessels that are under sanctions. In Dubai, information about company owners is not public, so the real owners of the ships remain unclear. However, there are indications from the companies that own the ships that they only operate in Dubai on paper – the companies have indicated that their addresses are, for example, luxury hotels.
Constant changes make it difficult to identify the true owners and operators of vessels.
The “Shadow Fleet” consists of a number of old, uninsured oil vessels that are used to circumvent Western sanctions against Russia and maintain a source of income for the Kremlin. The ships carry Russian crude oil and petroleum products, which were banned after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the Atlantic Council, almost three quarters of Russian oil supplies are carried out using the “shadow fleet”. These data, as The Guardian newspaper writes, illustrate the problems experienced by Western countries that are trying to reduce Russia’s income from oil exports by introducing a so-called price ceiling on Russian oil.