United Kingdom has sanctioned 100 tankers in what it has been called its biggest ever package of sanctions against Russia’s dark fleet.
With these new sanctions, the UK says it has sanctioned more dark fleet vessels than any other country. Alongside those vessels targeted are several businesses, including Ro Marine and Soglasie. Ro Marine has been accused of providing insurance without the appropriate licence or registration by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority and was ordered to ‘stop illegal activities’.
Four people have been charged by Norwegian authorities as a result.
Russian insurer Soglasie, also added to the UK list today, was only recently listed as an approved insurer by the Indian Directorate General of Shipping, in another example of shipping’s ongoing bifurcation.
It joins fellow sanctioned entities Ingosstrakh and Alfastrakhovanie on the approved list, proving that what is deemed valid insurance depends on where you sit along widening geopolitical fault lines.
Now that several nations, including the EU, have said they will start demanding insurance information from vessels in their waters, the concept of the validity of blue cards is becoming just as important as it is subjective.
Both Ro Marine and Soglasie have been sanctioned because they either benefit from or support the Russian government through business in a strategic sector, the UK Treasury said, namely the financial services sector.
Joining them on the list are businesses Nord Axis and BX (Bellatrix Energy), which is also sanctioned by the US.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make the announcement at a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force in Oslo, which includes Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
Starmer’s office accused Russia’s dark fleet not just of “bankrolling the Kremlin’s illegal war in Ukraine”, but also of damaging undersea infrastructure through “reckless seafaring”.
There have been several notable cable cutting incidents in the Baltic Sea over the past few months, including that of Eagle S (IMO: 9329760), which appears on Lloyd’s List Intelligence’s dark fleet watch list.
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