How Russia circumvents sanctions via the North Sea The shadow fleet part 1 Zembla

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Published on Nov 6, 2024

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A smuggling network of hundreds of oil tankers is sailing through the North Sea with Russian oil. The export product with which Putin finances the war with Ukraine and which to this day continues to pass unhindered through Dutch waters. It is virtually impossible to find out who these risky, rusty ships belong to. But they have unclear insurance and are loaded with many millions of tons of sanctioned merchandise. Months of data research by Zembla has shown that in the first half of this year a tanker with Russian oil passed the Dutch North Sea coast 437 times. That is two to three ships per day, with which Vladimir Putin circumvents the war sanctions imposed by the West. Zembla mapped out the size of this so-called shadow fleet. It mainly concerns old and poorly maintained ships with shady ownership structures and it is unclear whether they are insured. “It is a disaster in the making. “It is not a question of whether something will go wrong, but when,” according to Russian Vladimir Milov, a dissident and deputy energy minister under Putin for six months in 2002. The Ministry of Climate and Green Growth calls the situation ‘undesirable’ but states that it cannot intervene on the open sea. Zembla’s data research also shows that Russian tankers often continue on to refineries in Turkey, India and China. In these countries, which do not participate in the sanctions, Russian oil is processed into products such as diesel, petrol and aviation fuel. These products are then legally imported into the Netherlands. Zembla worked with the Center for Research and Energy on Clean Air (CREA) during the research. An NGO that advises the European Union on sanctions evasion. Vaibhav Raghunandan of CREA: “Within the EU, the Netherlands is the second largest importer of products from these refineries and specifically from refineries in Turkey.” CREA calculated, among other things, that a Turkish refinery has exported all kinds of products to the Netherlands in the past six months that are made from no less than 98 percent Russian oil. The NGO also calculated that Dutch imports from Turkey, China and India in the first half of this year indirectly yielded 650 million euros to the Russian state treasury. Milov indicates that this income is of great importance to the Kremlin: “You can say that every barrel of oil that is bought, processed and traded as a refined product contributes to the financing of the war. Without that, Putin's war machine would not have been able to continue operating. So it is blood money, in the literal sense.” Research by: Jan van Lieshout and Rob Meekes. Watch the full broadcast via NPOStart: https://npo.nl/start/serie/zembla/sei... Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/ZEMBLA_BNNVARA Listen to our investigative stories in our podcast: Spotify podcast: https://spoti.fi/2UBbCQ6 Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3wVX4ZA Follow us here: Instagram: / zembla_bnnvara Facebook: / zembla.tv Twitter: / zembla LinkedIn: / zembla-bnnvara

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