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March 16th, 2025 | 3:51 PM ET

Russia’s Billion-Dollar ‘Shadow Fleet’

Russia has used aging vessels to navigate around western sanctions - and keep cash pouring in to the Kremlin

DEEP DIVE
The unmaneuverable tanker “Eventin” is moored in the Sassnitz roadstead between Binz and Sassnitz at sunrise. (Photo by Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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Posted: February 13th, 2025

By Elaine Shannon

Elaine Shannon, contributing editor at The Cipher Brief, is a former correspondent for Time and Newsweek. Her latest book is Hunting LeRoux (Harper Collins, 2019).

DEEP DIVE – On January 10, the oil tanker Eventin was steaming westward from Russia along Germany’s Baltic coast, bucking eight-foot waves and biting winds, when its systems shut down in a total blackout. The 19-year-old Panama-flagged vessel, the length of three football fields, was drifting and declared “unmaneuverable.”

Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies scrambled a team of specialized operators to rescue the 24-man crew, struggling to survive the lashing winter storm without heat or light, and to prevent the ship from crashing into rocks and disgorging its cargo – 109,000 tons of Russian crude oil destined for Egypt – onto the pristine beaches and chalk cliffs of Germany’s storied Rügen Island. The risks of environmental disaster and a shutdown of vital commercial shipping lanes loomed. 

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