Off the Radar: The Success of Russia’s Maritime Sanctions Evasion Network

The global sanctions regime now faces an unprecedented test: Russia’s maritime evasion network. While other adversarial states such as Iran and North Korea employ complex sanctions evasion techniques and have done so for some time, Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers distinguishes itself with the scale and sophistication of its sanctions evasion. This fleet functions not only as a tool of economic survival for Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine, but also an instrument of state policy designed to undermine the integrity of the multilateral sanctions regime. No longer limited to the concealment of shipments, Russian maritime evasion now encompasses an entire parallel logistics network, outpacing Western sanctions enforcement.

From Evasion to Infrastructure: The Evolution of Russian Maritime Tactics

Shortly following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western governments imposed coordinated sanctions packages aimed at crippling Russia’s war machine. The United States, European Union, and others first targeted the Russian financial sector, freezing billions of the central bank’s assets and severing commercial banks’ access to the SWIFT international payment network. The Western bloc then shifted its attention to a principal source of Russian revenue, the energy sector. In March 2022, the Biden Administration announced a comprehensive embargo on imports of Russian crude oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal. The European Union soon thereafter introduced similar bans on crude oil and refined petroleum products. To more fully confront the challenge, the Group of Seven established a price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil in December 2022, seeking to limit Moscow’s ability to fund the war campaign while maintaining global market stability. Since then, Western governments have unveiled several sanctions packages intended to disrupt the Russian “shadow fleet” and other entities facilitating sanction evasion.

In the early stages of the conflict, Russia employed conventional sanctions circumvention tactics to obscure compliance violations. Russian commercial ships avoided detection through Automatic Identification System spoofing, for example. Per International Maritime Organization regulations, vessels over a designated size (e.g., tankers transporting Russian oil) must constantly provide their positions to international authorities through an Automatic Identification System. Russian ships, however, regularly manipulated or disabled their transponders to prevent maritime enforcement agencies from tracking their location. In addition, these commercial vessels embraced ship-to-ship transfers to disguise the origin and destination of Russian energy exports. These transfers likewise enabled Moscow to sidestep the Group of Seven’s price cap imposed by the United States and its allies. Furthermore, Russian tankers repeatedly exploited the practice of reflagging, switching their registration to states with limited enforcement (i.e., “flags of convenience”) to mask both control and ownership. Although these reactive sanctions evasion techniques proved effective, Russian commercial vessels needed to consistently gamble with high-stakes maneuvers to avoid penalties, or worse, seizure.

Over the course of the war, Russia shifted from short-term tactics to a more durable maritime sanctions evasion infrastructure. Russian shipping companies, for instance, gradually acquired and repurposed a fleet of aging Western tankers, which receive less scrutiny from both insurers and regulators. To support Sovcomflot and other sanctioned shippers, Moscow developed alternative insurance mechanisms to replace Western institutions, minimizing any exposure. These substitute insurers, affiliated with state-owned entities such as the Russian National Reinsurance Company, provide risk coverage for shipping companies. Moreover, the government helped establish parallel logistical networks to reinforce its sanctions evasion. These include shell companies with opaque corporate structures designed to conceal the ultimate beneficial owners. Moscow also diversified payment systems from traditional Western financial channels, leveraging substitute currencies and banking institutions in states that fail to rigorously enforce sanctions. This robust maritime sanctions evasion infrastructure allows the government to safeguard revenue streams by sustaining lucrative energy exports. Ultimately, the maturation of Russia’s maritime sanctions evasion infrastructure exposed the inherent fragmentation of Western enforcement regimes.

The Limits of Western Economic Statecraft

Moscow’s maritime sanctions evasion infrastructure poses a significant challenge to Western states seeking to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Its “shadow fleet” of tankers operates outside established maritime oversight mechanisms, exploiting Western enforcement gaps. For example, the United States and its international partners lack fully coordinated sanctions programs. As of August 2025, the European Union and United Kingdom jointly sanction almost 250 vessels in the “shadow fleet.” The number of tankers sanctioned only by the United States, meanwhile, decreased by 85 ships since January 2025, namely because Washington failed to simultaneously designate certain vessels. Moreover, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India continue to import Russian energy products, which became much cheaper following the imposition of Western sanctions. The United States and partner states notably lack a unified vision to address this economic activity. In September 2025, the Trump Administration requested that the European Union introduce joint tariffs not to exceed 100 percent on the PRC and India for their imports of Russian oil. Leaders in Brussels, however, remain cautious given the potential for trade reprisals from both Beijing and New Delhi. These disparities stem, at least in part, from contrasting national priorities: Washington amplifies near-peer competition with the PRC, while Brussels seeks to avert energy shocks and preserve trade relations. European government representatives likewise discussed secondary sanctions against both states, but no collective action has yet been embraced by the United States and its international partners. This uneven enforcement weakens the overall impact of sanctions and permits Moscow to capitalize on regulatory gaps.

The limits of Western coercive diplomacy continue to become increasingly evident in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For one, the durability of Russian energy exports reflects greater agency of Global South economies. Beijing and New Delhi act not merely as “spoilers,” but intend to reshape the global trade system. Their participation underscores a profound legitimacy problem for Western sanctions, namely that many states in the Global South perceive them as serving the United States and its partners’ geopolitical interests, not universal norms. This alternative vision of the international economic order, as evidenced here, will manifest in selective participation in Western-led regimes. Thus, in the future, the United States and others will need to operate under a weakened assumption of their primacy in both global trade and finance. As Russian energy exports persist, the institutional foundations of Western economic statecraft gradually fracture. Over time, this structural erosion could standardize selective compliance as sanctions slowly transform into contested instruments grounded in geopolitical divisions. 

A More Coherent Western Sanctions Strategy

To strengthen sanctions enforcement against Russia’s “shadow fleet,” Western states must move beyond fragmented measures toward a more coordinated transatlantic regime. The United States and its partners should, as an initial priority, develop a consistent approach to target third parties that facilitate Russian sanctions evasion. States like Singapore and the United Arab Emirates provide vital logistical hubs for “shadow fleet” oil tankers, while the PRC and India furnish sizable markets for Russian energy exports. With respect to the former gap, Western enforcement efforts should consider diplomatic engagement with mid-sized economies that balance opportunistically between Moscow and the West. Secondary sanctions risk proving counterproductive, pushing governments like the United Arab Emirates closer to Moscow. Instead, the United States and others should pursue joint diplomatic efforts to encourage these states’ adherence. The West, for example, could offer conditional incentives for compliance linked to clear, verifiable enforcement criteria. The Trump Administration, in particular, could extend tariff reductions to governments implementing policies in line with the Western sanctions regime. In addition, the United States could supply Department of Treasury-led training programs to insurers and port authorities, as well as sanctions-monitoring technology (e.g., upgraded maritime tracking systems). Ultimately, these measures could restore the image of Western sanctions as a universal instrument of strategic deterrence, not splintered economic coercion.

Regarding major economies with sizable volumes of Russian energy imports (i.e., the PRC and India), the West should consider embracing a more assertive strategy. Despite threats to do so, the Trump Administration has not yet introduced secondary sanctions on Beijing. American unilateral tariffs on India for its imports of Russian energy products represent a pragmatic preliminary response in reinforcing the viability of Western sanctions (of course, with limited impact due to their unilateral nature). To strengthen their effectiveness, such measures should be integrated into a coalition-based approach. In the PRC’s case, the United States could coordinate with other Group of Seven economies to implement secondary sanctions to target maritime insurance as well as financial service firms implicated in Russian oil imports. The West could likewise establish an expanded export controls regime to prioritize restricting the sale of dual-use shipping and maritime technology. As for India, the West could tie market access and investment guarantees to a quantifiable decrease in Russian energy imports. Moreover, the Group of Seven could bolster energy diversification capacity-building through programs like its Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. In short, multilateral action would reconfigure isolated U.S. countermeasures into a unified framework with greater leverage. Russia’s maritime evasion network demands strategic alignment from the West—an effort that, while challenging, remains indispensable to preserving the international rules-based order.

Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: Carnegie Endowment