Russia places security guards on “ghost fleet” vessels. Former GRU agents or commando troops preferred
Two employees of a Russian private company in charge of crew surveillance and operative data collection were on board the Boracay, an oil tanker from the so-called Russian “ghost fleet” seized by France last September and whose captain is on trial on Monday, informs France Presse, citing two French sources familiar with the case, reports Agerpres.
“Two Russians were on board the Boracay”, seized by a marine commando off the coast of Brittany, said a French source, on the condition of anonymity; an information that was confirmed by the French lawyer of the oil tanker captain. Aleksandr T. (34 years old) and Maksim D. (40 years old), the latter a former policeman involved in the well-known Wagner mercenary group, had been employed by the Russian private military company (PMC) Moran Security Group, according to the first source.
This company, which is under US sanctions, was founded in 2009 by former officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and has close ties to the authorities in Moscow, according to the mentioned source and several experts. Contacted by AFP, neither the Moran Security Group nor the Russian Foreign Ministry had responded to requests for comment by Monday.
Seizures of the French Navy
According to the American television channel CNN, the two were listed as “technicians” on the crew list and had boarded Boracay on September 20 in Primorsk, near Saint Petersburg. The ship, which was carrying “an important cargo of oil”, according to the French judiciary, was seized a week later due to “the inconsistency presented by the tanker regarding his nationality” and the absence of a flag.
The Russian “ghost fleet,” estimated to be between 600 and 1,400 vessels, is used by Russia to evade Western sanctions against its oil sales.
French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly stated his intention to increase pressure on the ghost fleet to prevent Russia from funding its war effort in Ukraine. Another tanker, the Grinch, was seized on January 22 by the French navy.
The presence of the two Russians on board was confirmed by the lawyer of the Chinese captain, tried on Monday by a correctional court in Brest (west) for refusing to stop the ship and allow an inspection on board.
“There were two citizens of Russian nationality on board, I believe they represented the cargo,” declared Henri de Richemont, adding that they were not sailors. “My client has nothing to do with this presence, he is not the one who takes the Russians on board his ship,” added the lawyer.
The captain and his deputy were remanded in custody in early October before setting sail again with the two Russians, who disembarked during a stopover in Suez a few days later.
Espionage and ship captain control missions
Their mission on board was “to ensure the protection of the ship and to ensure that, in accordance with Russian interests, the captain obeys the orders given, but also to collect information,” one of the sources, who requested anonymity, told AFP.
According to her, “dozens of ships in the ghost fleet are equipped with such EPE (crew protection equipment), especially to escort them in the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean”, all provided by the Moran company. “When they pass European coasts or military targets, they take pictures of our buildings,” this source explained.
Boracay is also suspected of being involved in drone overflights that disrupted air traffic in Denmark in September, with no link officially established.
At the request of AFP, the head of the intelligence service of a country bordering the Baltic Sea confirmed “the presence (representatives) of Moran on board the vessels of the “ghost fleet” from last year. “The number of ghost fleet vessels in the Baltic Sea, where about 60% of Russian oil transits, continues to grow,” he said.
Some oil tankers, under sanctions, are suspected of sabotage, especially of submarine cables in the Baltic waters, but “it is difficult to obtain evidence of the intention of sabotage”, and “European countries rarely communicate this kind of information”, said Vice-Admiral Didier Maleterre, former No. 2 at NATO's maritime command.
A company with ties to Wagner
In 2024, the US Treasury sanctioned the Moran company, led by Russian Aleksei Badikov, for working under contract with Russian public enterprises.
On its website, Moran indicates that it is looking for profiles of “active or reserve officers who have served in special forces units (GRU, Airborne, Naval Commandos)”. The company claims a long experience in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria) and in Africa, where it has carried out combat operations against maritime piracy, especially in Nigeria and the Indian Ocean.
President Moran, Viaceslav Kalashnikov, is a reserve lieutenant colonel in the FSB, according to the Polish think tank Warsaw Institute. Two other managers on the company's website are former commanders of nuclear submarines. Moreover, “the connection with Wagner is historical”, as two former employees of Moran, Evgheni Sidorov and Vadim Gusev, “founded in 2013 the private security company Slavonic Corps, whose heir is the Wagner company”, according to the French source cited above.
To weaken Russia, the European Union had hoped to adopt new sanctions on Monday that would specifically target its ghost fleet, but a Hungarian veto blocked this process. As for the Boracay ship, which now flies the Russian flag and has been renamed “Phoenix”, it was anchored on Monday near the port of Rizhao (in northeastern China), according to the Marine Traffic website.
