Shadow Fleet Tracker: Russia's Sanctioned Tankers and Seizures

Updated 13:28 UTC · 29 Oct 2026

The UK lists 645 ships under its Russia sanctions, 20 of them added in the past 30 days, and the US SDN list names 862 tankers, 233 of them under Russia programmes. The EU list reached 673 vessels in July 2026. Since January 2025 we have collected 10 dated reports of boardings, detentions or seizures of such tankers and 8 of attacks on them, each with its source below.

Latest ships added to the UK sanctions list

From the UK Sanctions List (generated 29 Oct 2026). Flag and type as the UK lists them.

ALEXANDER NEVSKIY · IMO 9356610flag: Russia · Chemical/Products Tanker · built 2008 · UK since 8 Oct 2026UK
ANAYA · IMO 9326885flag: Panama · Chemical/Products Tanker · built 2008 · UK since 8 Oct 2026 · US SDN (Iran)US + UK
ANDREY PERVOZVANNIY · IMO 9255268flag: Russia · Chemical/Products Tanker · built 2003 · UK since 8 Oct 2026UK
BELLARIS · IMO 9332614flag: Panama · Chemical/Products Tanker · built 2008 · UK since 8 Oct 2026 · US SDN (Iran)US + UK
DAKAR · IMO 9251743flag not given · Chemical/Products Tanker · UK since 8 Oct 2026UK
DAPHNE V · IMO 9321677flag: Panama · Oil Tanker · built 2006 · UK since 8 Oct 2026 · US SDN (Iran)US + UK
FLINT WIND · IMO 9314179flag not given · Oil Tanker · UK since 8 Oct 2026UK
MIDVOLGA-3 · IMO 9735141flag: Russia · Chemical/Products Tanker · UK since 8 Oct 2026UK

645

Ships under UK Russia sanctions

latest added 8 Oct 2026

862

Tankers on the US SDN list

Russia 233 · Iran 597 · Venezuela 26

673

Vessels on the EU list

21st package, 23 Jul 2026

Boardings, seizures, attacks

since Jan 2025, sourced

Map of shadow fleet boardings, seizures and attacks

[ fig. 1 ] SHADOW FLEET INCIDENTS SINCE 2025Attack reportedDetained, seized or boardedInspection

19 dated reports · areas approximate · no live ship positionsTap a point for details · pinch or ctrl + scroll to zoomTrack this live in the app ›

Shadow fleet boardings, seizures and attacks: dated list

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Shadow fleet news: latest reports

Shadow fleet sanctions: Can the EU act if the US pulls back?DW News · 12:01 UTC · 3h agoMED

Key context

What the official lists show

The UK Sanctions List names 682 ships, 645 of them under the Russia regime. The US SDN list names 1,551 vessels with an IMO number, 862 of them tankers: 233 under Russia programmes, 597 under Iran-related programmes and 26 under Venezuela programmes. 301 ships appear on both lists. Of the listed tankers with a known build year, 68% are 20 years old or more.

The flags below are the flags the UK believes the ships fly now. Many listed ships change flag and name often, and some use flags of states that do not register them, so the IMO number is the only stable identifier.

Ships under UK Russia sanctions, by current believed flag (top 10).
Flag	Ships
Panama	169
Russia	121
Gabon	52
not given	49
Barbados	47
Comoros	38
Sierra Leone	27
Liberia	25
Palau	21
Cook Islands	19

UK listings by month

Each UK round adds ships on one day. The months with the most new Russia listings since 2025:

Month	Ships added
Jul 2025	135
May 2025	117
Sep 2025	71
Feb 2026	50
Oct 2025	49
Feb 2025	40
Jun 2026	27
Oct 2026	20

EU vessel listings, package by package

The EU bans listed vessels from its ports and from EU services such as insurance and finance. The list grew from 79 ships before February 2025 to 673 after the 21st package of 23 July 2026, which also lets member states confiscate the cargo of detained shadow-fleet ships (Council of the EU). We do not republish the EU's ship-by-ship annex here; the totals come from the Council's press releases.

Round	Date	Vessels added	Total listed
16th package	24 Feb 2025	+74	153
17th package	20 May 2025	+189	342
18th package	18 Jul 2025	+105	444
19th package	23 Oct 2025	+117	557
Separate listing	18 Dec 2025	+41	almost 600
20th package	23 Apr 2026	+46, 11 removed	632
21st package	23 Jul 2026	+41	673

How the shadow fleet works

Western sanctions cap the price of Russian oil or ban it, and Western firms insure and finance most of the world's tankers. To move oil outside that system, traders buy older tankers through shell companies, register them in states with light oversight, insure them with little-known firms and pass cargoes between ships at sea. The Kyiv School of Economics estimates that shadow-fleet tankers carried 75% of Russia's seaborne crude in April 2026.

The same methods serve Iran and Venezuela. The US Treasury describes ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian crude off Malaysia (Treasury, April 2026) and said on 8 October 2026 that its newest listing of 17 vessels covers most of Iran's remaining fleet (Treasury).

Check a ship yourself

Search any ship by name or IMO number on the oil tanker tracker. It checks the US and UK lists in your browser. The official search pages are OFAC's Sanctions List Search and the UK Sanctions List.

Questions and answers

What is the shadow fleet?

The tankers that carry oil from sanctioned countries, mostly Russia but also Iran and Venezuela, outside Western shipping services. The UK government describes them as often over 20 years old, using deceptive shipping practices and sometimes sailing under false flags (gov.uk, 8 October 2026). Typical signs are opaque owners, unknown insurance, ship-to-ship transfers at sea and AIS transponders switched off or spoofed.

How many ships are in Russia's shadow fleet?

Counts differ by method. The Kyiv School of Economics counted 325 tankers carrying Russian oil in June 2026, 176 of them shadow-fleet ships, and 94% of those were more than 15 years old. Lloyd's List counted 1,423 tankers in the sanctioned-oil trade of Russia, Iran and Venezuela in December 2025, 921 of them sanctioned. On the official lists today: 645 ships under UK Russia sanctions and 233 tankers under US Russia programmes.

Which countries have sanctioned shadow fleet tankers?

The EU, the UK and the US list them by IMO number, and Ukraine and several other countries keep their own lists. A listed ship faces port bans and a ban on Western services such as insurance, finance and crew. The EU's list reached 673 vessels with its 21st package on 23 July 2026; the UK said on 8 October 2026 that it had sanctioned over 600 shadow-fleet tankers.

Can I see where the shadow fleet tankers are now?

Not on this page. We do not publish live positions of named ships. The map shows the approximate places of dated public reports: boardings, detentions, seizures and attacks. To look up a ship, use the check on the oil tanker tracker, which also links to a public AIS site.

Why do navies board shadow fleet tankers?

Most boardings check a ship's flag and papers. Under the law of the sea, a warship may board a ship that has no nationality, and a false flag can leave a ship without one; other checks cover safety, insurance or pollution risk. Sweden, France, Estonia, the UK and the US have all boarded or detained such ships since 2025, as listed above.

What happened with the Eagle S?

Finnish investigators suspect the tanker Eagle S of damaging the Estlink 2 power cable and several telecom cables in the Gulf of Finland on 25 December 2024. A Helsinki court dismissed the case against three officers in October 2025 for lack of jurisdiction; the Court of Appeal reversed that on 27 August 2026 (Yle). See the undersea cable map.

Related live pages

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Sources

UK Sanctions List (FCDO): ships specified under UK sanctions, with the date, current believed flag and type. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
US Treasury OFAC, Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list: vessel entries with IMO number, flag at the time of listing, type and sanctions programme. US government work, public domain.
Council of the European Union, press releases: number of vessels under the EU port-access and services ban, as announced with each sanctions package. Restated in our own words.
Dated incident reports (news and official statements): each incident on the map and in the list links to the report it comes from. Areas are approximate and come from public reports, not from ship tracking.
The GDELT Project (DOC 2.0 API): media reports, matched by keyword. Headlines link to the publisher; MonitorWorld does not verify them.
MonitorWorld news digest: headlines from public news feeds (Reuters, AP, BBC, Al Jazeera and others), severity rated by our model. Each headline links to the publisher.

Page built 13:28 UTC, 2026-10-29. Full list: data sources and method.