Eighteen ships flying the Russian flag until recently changed their registration to another flag state last month. That is three times as much as the average in a month, says maritime consultancy Windward. The Israeli company suspects that ship owners are changing registrations to avoid sanctions against Russian companies.
For example, ports in the US, Canada and the UK no longer allow ships owned by Russian owners or ships chartered by Russian owners. This concerns not only cargo ships but also, for example, superyachts of oligarchs. They also refuse to import oil and gas from Russia.
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The eighteen ships formerly flying the Russian flag now have a registration of the Marshall Islands or the Caribbean island state of St. Kitts and Nevis. According to Windward, this includes a number of oil tankers.
Changing a flag is not uncommon, Windward emphasizes to Bloomberg news agency† If a shipping company is taken over or moves its field of activity to another part of the world, a ship can change registration. It is striking that more than an average number of ships registered in Russia are now being ‘returned’ to another country.
In the aviation sector, a reverse movement has taken place in recent weeks. Russian airlines are massively converting the aircraft they have leased from foreign lessors to Russian license plates. They try to prevent leasing companies from getting their devices back. The landlords speak of kidnapping devices and claim billions of euros in damage from insurers.
Reflagging isn’t the only way ship owners are trying to avoid sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Last week, Windward reported that Russian tankers carrying oil products and chemicals are stopping broadcasting their location data more often than before. For example, Russian ships could transfer cargo unseen to ships that are not subject to the trade restrictions.
Commercial shipping is required by international maritime regulations to have an automatic identification system (AIS) switched on when a ship is at sea. Disabling or manipulating the identification system is cited by the US as the primary way to circumvent sanctions.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of April 5, 2022
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