Germany turned away a Russian-linked oil tanker from entering its territorial waters in the Baltic Sea this week, marking the first known instance of a European country blocking a vessel in Moscow’s shadow fleet, Bloomberg reported Jan. 16. <\/p>\n
The Aframax-class tanker, identified by the name Arcusat, abruptly changed course earlier this week as it neared German waters, instead rerouting north toward Russia’s Arctic coast, according to Bloomberg<\/a> and other outlets.<\/p>\n The ship was reportedly sailing through the narrow strait between Denmark and Sweden and had signaled a destination in the Gulf of Finland before reversing direction. German media<\/a> reported that federal police forced the vessel to turn away, citing irregularities in its documentation and identity.<\/p>\n According to open source databases, as well as shipping industry insiders, the Arcusat is listed as having “never existed.” A ship registry maintained by the International Maritime Organization likewise shows no matching record for the vessel’s IMO identification number.<\/p>\n Shipping records indicate the tanker was delivered last year from a Chinese<\/a> shipyard, though databases disagree on the flag it is sailing under, with some listing Tanzania and others Cameroon. The vessel also reportedly appeared under a provisional name before disappearing from maritime registries.<\/p>\n Germany’s decision to turn away the tanker may signal a shift in how European countries address Russia’s shadow fleet<\/a>, a network of aging and opaque vessels used by the Kremlin to circumvent Western sanctions on its oil exports.<\/p>\n In recent months, the United States has seized<\/a> several tankers linked to Russian and Venezuelan shipments, while European governments have signaled plans to step up enforcement against vessels operating as part of the shadow fleet<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany turned away a Russian-linked oil tanker from entering its territorial waters in the Baltic Sea this week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-701042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115907773199357805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}