Elizabeth Brough is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization,” and a regular columnist for POLITICO.,
An ever-increasing headache, Russia’s shadow fleet, which operates outside official maritime zones and offers unclear ownership as well as almost non-existent insurance, is now threatening Gotland, and thus Sweden.
Since these ships are not part of any armed forces, NATO cannot do anything about them. And while Sweden now hopes EU sanctions can do the trick, the solution will be slow. So, what to do in the meantime?
To reach their destinations, which are often Indian and Chinese ports, Russia’s shadow ships have to travel through the waters of some NATO countries, as a large part of Russia’s oil transits through its Baltic Sea ports. . But the journey of these rickety, virtually uninsured tankers through the Baltic Sea poses an environmental threat to NATO members there – and this is made even worse by the fact that the shadow ships are in poor repair. To make matters worse, many of them refused piloting when navigating Denmark’s difficult and narrow Great Belt.
Adding to this environmental threat, these shadow tankers have also recently stepped up Exploring Gotland’s East Coast, where they are engaged in risky ship-to-ship transfers of oil. They’re doing so just outside the 12-nautical mile limit that marks a country’s territorial waters — meaning that even though the shadow ships are in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, the country can do almost nothing to keep them out. Could.
This matters not just because their presence is provocative and could cause massive environmental damage, but also – as the Swedish Navy reported in late April – These tankers also carry communications equipment This is not required on any merchant ship. They appear to be evolving into listening stations.
None of this surprises Solveig Artsman, a lifelong resident of Gotland. In fact, quite the opposite. Artsman recalls that in 2016, a car carrier traveling from St. Petersburg began regularly stopping by the port of Visby and simply hanging out there – even though its cars were not bound for Visby. “It came very regularly and always lasted a long time,” she told me. “And it was always back and forth to St. Petersburg. , , I remembered this car carrier when the shadow ships started coming here. If you live in Gotland, you get used to strange things.
Later, I saw the car carrier mentioned by Artsman: it is still working. Of course, there may be a logical explanation for its presence at the port of Visby, but on Gotland one never knows. After all, it is the Baltic Sea’s – and now NATO’s – most strategic island.
And extraordinary things have been happening in Gotland long before this current standoff with Russia.
One day in April 1961, the lighthouse keeper at Nar on the south-east coast of the island saw an emergency SOS from a nearby ship. He immediately called the coast guard, while a visiting lighthouse keeper responded to the SOS signal. However, both men observed that the ship appeared to be anchored and not in danger.
About 30 minutes later, two Soviet naval officers – the ship’s captain and a subordinate – reached the shore by lifeboat and walked to the lighthouse. The junior sailor immediately changed his mind and returned to the ship, but the captain remained there, and appeared to have something to say. Later, as the coast guard arrived and called the police, the mysterious captain turned out to be a Lithuanian-Soviet citizen named Jonas Pleskis, who wanted to flee to the West. Yes, this is the same Jonas Pleskis who was later immortalized in the film “The Hunt for Red October.”
And in 2007, a company with majority ownership in Russia arrived in Gotland and asked for permission to exclusively rent the eastern port of Slite for several months. Artsman, who was a member of the island’s council at the time, protested against granting this right to the company, but lost and was condemned as a Russophobe. However, today it is clear that hosting that business may not have been the best idea: the company was Nord Stream.
As Artsman said, unusual things really do happen in Gotland. And spying on the island matters even more now that Gotland is part of NATO. “The other day, two buses full of NATO officers were in Slight and had their photos taken before they left,” Artsman told me. And of course, Russia wants to know what Sweden and NATO are doing on the Baltic Sea’s largest island.
So, what to do about today’s Shadow Fleet and its twin threats of environmental disaster and constant espionage?
According to Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, the European Commission has agreed to this Tackle shadow fleets in next round of EU sanctions, But while sanctions against this dangerous fleet are undeniably better than no sanctions at all, the process will take a long time: the fleet is believed to include more than 1,400 ships that must be identified and investigated, and their owners found. will be. Moreover, for every ship accepted, at least one more ship is likely to join the fleet. The United States Office of Foreign Assets Control already imposes such sanctions, and it is laborious, cumbersome work.
In the meantime, however, EU countries can take two steps that will have a rapid impact on dark fleets: First, through the European Defense Agency’s Maritime Surveillance Project (MARSUR), identify all suspicious shadow vessels sailing the EU. Can investigate further. In the waters of its member countries.
Then, the EU can also use it Baltic Sea Action Plan, This intergovernmental agreement, which Russia has also signed (as has the EU), is “a strategic program of measures and actions to achieve good environmental status of the sea, which will ultimately lead to the healthy status of the Baltic Sea”. Will take in.” Since ship-to-ship transfers of oil certainly do not comply with the agreement, its other signatories would have the right to try and intervene if such transfers occur.
These two measures will not block the Shadow Fleet – in fact, it is not possible to block this destroyer armada. However, they will make the fleet a little less dangerous to Gotland, even if mysterious events continue to occur on and around the island. That’s the nature of being located right between the West and Russia.