Strained by War, the Russian Navy is a Shadow of its Former Self

 

Russia’s Navy is facing huge pressures, primarily as a byproduct of President Putin’s over-ambitious attempts to claim great power status.

The most obvious pinch-point is in the Black Sea, where Russia’s fleet has pulled back out of danger and forced into distant ports, primarily by the effectiveness of Ukrainian drone attacks. Even more astonishing because Ukraine lost most of its obsolescent naval vessels in early rounds of the conflict, the net effect is that Russia has lost control of the Black Sea, and Ukraine has now been able to resume imports and exports through Odesa and other ports in the south-west of the country. The residual capabilities which the depleted Black Sea Fleet retains are the ability to launch cruise missiles from the Eastern Black Sea, and to deter offensive naval operations which Ukraine might otherwise have sought to mount along the Crimean coast.

In the Mediterranean, it is a similar story. The Russian Navy has lost the homeport for what was once its Mediterranean Flotilla in Tartus, where it perhaps retains a foothold but not apparently the right to dock and support warships. This loss is compounded by the Russian Navy’s inability to support its flotilla in the Mediterranean by rotating warships though the Bosporus, which Turkey has unilaterally closed to all warships, as is its right in times of war under the 1936 Montreux Convention. The net effect has seen Russia’s naval presence reduced from a standing force of about five warships and a submarine operating out of Tartus, to the occasional deployments to the Mediterranean of one or two frigates and a submarine drawn from the Baltic and Northern Fleet, along with a lingering presence of a couple of oilers and intelligence collection vessels operating solo.

While the situation in the Black Sea and Mediterranean has been evident for some time, the Russian Navy’s predicament has worsened considerably in recent months. The new pressure has been a concerted and coordinated international campaign to clamp down on Russian oil exports using dark fleet tankers. 

In March 2023, Lloyd’s List defined dark fleet tankers as being vessels “aged 15 years or over, anonymously owned and/or having a corporate structure designed to obfuscate beneficial ownership discovery, solely deployed in sanctioned oil trades, and engaged in one or more of the deceptive shipping practices outlined by US State Department guidance issued in May 2020.” Shipment of Russian oil by accurately registered tankers operated by established owners and agencies does not necessarily qualify a tanker for this dark fleet status, as such vessels can legitimately ship Russian oil purchased below the $60 per barrel price above which Russian oil is sanctioned. Nonetheless, over 700 tankers have been formally sanctioned by the US, UK and EU authorities, a dark fleet that Lloyd’s List estimates to be about 10% of global tanker tonnage.

Action to curb dark fleet tanker operations has been stepped up in recent months.

Denmark, without referencing dark fleet membership, has begun to challenge the insurance status of dark fleet tankers in the Skagen anchorage and the Øresund. Under the 1857 Treaty of Copenhagen, vessels have the right of innocent passage through the Danish Straits. But the Danish Maritime Authority is now asserting that it will board ships if it has information “that the safety or working conditions of the seafarers are not in compliance with international regulations including obligatory insurance requirements.” It justifies such action by the need to protect seafarers and the environment, especially in confined waterways where the consequences of an accident or oil spill incident could be horrendous. The United Kingdom is pursuing a similar approach in the English Channel, and sanctions vessels that fail to respond adequately to an average of 40 radio challenges for proof of insurance status made per month. In April, Estonia detained the Djibouti-registered tanker Kiwala (IMO 9332810, now the Malawi-registered Pushpa) off Tallinn while safety deficiencies were rectified, before allowing the tanker to continue on to the Russian port of Ust-Luga.

These actions are probing the right of innocent passage provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and their success or otherwise have still to be legally - and practically - proven. But Russia is heavily dependent on the sale of its oil to fund its war economy. This fiscal need is becoming ever more acute as signs of economic weakness emerge; for the first time since 2022, Russia’s quarterly GDP declined (by 0.6%) in 1Q25. So Russia has had to take steps to defend its economic interests and dark fleet earnings at sea.

In April, the Baltic Fleet carried out an exercise with 11 warships, a submarine and fighter aircraft, practicing drills to prevent the boarding of civilian vessels under escort. The Finnish Ministry of Defense reported in May that Russian naval vessels had begun to escort dark fleet tankers transiting the Gulf of Finland. The Russian Steregushchy Class corvette Boiky (F532) escorted the tankers Sierra (IMO 9522324) and Naxos (IMO 9336426) through the English Channel in late June. These and other such escort duties are in themselves a further drain on the availability of Russian naval vessels, and an additional overhead cost on the shipment of oil. But a further difficulty is that the presence of dark fleet tankers is worldwide, and Russian Navy cannot be everywhere at the same time. There are choke points across the globe through which the dark fleet needs to transit and where the Russian Navy would find it difficult to maintain an escort presence.

While the legality of interceptions is probed, the dark fleet also faces a more immediate threat. In late June, the tanker Vilamoura (IMO 9529293, registered in the Marshall Islands) was damaged by an explosion off Benghazi. The Vilamoura has within the last year been seen loading at two Russian oil terminals, Ust-Luga in the Baltic and Novorossiysk in the Black Sea. She is the fifth foreign-flagged oil tanker to be hit by explosions after visiting such Russian ports. These attacks, because they would weaken Russia economically and would mirror Russian attacks on Ukraine’s economic interests, might be considered legitimate by many in the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine.

 As yet, there has been no major kinetic incident stemming from attempts to close down the activities of the dark fleet trading Russian - and also Iranian - oil. On the balance of probability, such an incident is likely to occur in the not too distant future, and the pressure is being felt most immediately by the stretched and struggling Russian Navy.