The French counted. The Russian shadow fleet is almost a thousand ships

The Russian Shadow Fleet has about 900 ships – said the Vice Admiral of the French Navy Benoit de Guibert before the Parliamentary National Defense Committee. The shadow fleet serves Russia, but also North Korea and Iran to celebrate international sanctions – he added.

Earlier, Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur suggested that the Russian shadow fleet has about 500 ships.

“The task of the state is primarily to carefully observe this fleet, according to our estimates, it can have about 900 ships, of which 10 are monitored every day on the La Manche channel,” said De Guibert, the prefect of the La Manche channel and the North Sea channel. The person performing this function is directly subject to the government and is responsible for protecting the interests of the state and its citizens, maintaining order at sea, as well as for the security of goods and people.

“The fleet consists of most of the tankers with medium load capacity, often outdated, recently acquired by entities that are difficult to identify,” said De Guibert. In addition, the owners of these units do not apply to safety rules many times. He noted that it was not clear whether they were insured.

De Guibert added that the shadow fleet serves not only the interests of Russia, but also Iran and North Korea. According to Vice Admiral, this is due to the fact that “international maritime law is quite liberal and sea transport – opaque.”

As the AFP agency reminded, as part of the 18th Package of Sanctions towards Russia for its aggression at Ukraine, the European Union intends to add 70 ships from the shadow fleet to the sanction list, on which 342 units already appear. (PAP)

AWM/ AKL/