Ukraine’s allies have gradually persuaded flag-of-convenience states to stop providing registration for Russian ships. This quiet campaign has forced Moscow to re-flag the ships as Russian to prevent them from being seized, but that comes with a heavy financial penalty.
A flag-of-convenience vessel can often get away with selling Russian oil in violation of sanctions at the market rate, while the false flags give service providers, buyers, and equipment suppliers plausible deniability. When ships are forced to sail under Russian colors, they cannot evade the international price cap on Russian oil, reducing the Kremlin’s income and the flow of funds for its war on Ukraine.
Flags of convenience are nothing new. Countries such as Liberia and Panama have raised revenue for decades by flagging ships with few questions asked or standards enforced. Shipping companies are attracted because they can evade safety, labor, and environmental standards, as well as sanctions
Moscow has taken advantage of this loophole-filled system, including the fact that ships can operate as normal under a “temporary” flag for 90 days, while the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) verifies its data, then change flags again before the temporary period ends.
After a year-and-a-half-long process, the IMO released its first-ever voluntary ship registry guidelines in April. The new guidelines recommend procedures for flagging nations to follow when a vessel requests to use its flag. The IMO does not have any power to enforce the guidelines on its sovereign members. The US Federal Maritime Commission also started an investigation into flags of convenience in May 2025, but has yet to report.
While a tighter regime is awaited — and Ukraine doesn’t have the luxury of time — Western diplomacy and arm-twisting is being applied behind the scenes to press the worst offenders to clean up their act.
The European Union has sanctioned 632 shadow fleet vessels for evading Russian sanctions and has successfully persuaded Cameroon to remove 55 sanctioned tankers from its shipping registry.
There are still 150 sanctioned vessels listed as flagged by Cameroon, although it says at least 20 of these are false flags. Cameroonian officials claim some ships were registered fraudulently by criminals based in Turkey, Georgia, and Montenegro using pirated signature software.
Comoros, Gambia, and Palau have also deregistered vessels, and the EU has stepped up its scrutiny of the shadow fleet, with Italy and France stopping ships for inspection. Germany announced on September 1 that it will increase pressure on the fleet in response to a Russian drone attack on Leipzig airport.
Despite progress, problems persist.
The number of shadow fleet ships flagged by Equatorial Guinea continues to grow, for example, despite Lloyd’s of London being hired to modernize its registry.
It has severed ties with the Turkish company, which previously ran vessel registrations on its behalf, a common arrangement, but one that meant the government had little knowledge of what was going on under its flag. Even so, 44 shadow fleet vessels still fly its colors.
Sierra Leone, which outsources its shipping registry to a company in Cyprus, has 98 shadow fleet vessels using its flag and is in the process of updating its shipping legislation.
All these governments are susceptible to pressure. Cameroon and Sierra Leone, for example, have free trade agreements with both the EU and the UK, and need their markets for exports more than they need Russia.
The loss of revenue from shipping registries is small compared to the possible loss of trade if they fail to comply with European sanctions regimes.
The countries flagging the shadow fleet should be given whatever evidence they need to remove ships from their registries, and those that persist need additional pressure to comply with international standards.
Ukraine and its allies must keep the pressure on until every single shadow fleet vessel is flying a Russian flag or headed to the scrapheap. And bankers and insurers must do more to ensure ships’ paperwork is legitimate and in compliance with international standards.
Mitchell Polman is a US-based specialist in public diplomacy, media, and international politics.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
