NASA Earth Observatory image modified by SkyTruth
Bringing Russia’s Shadow Fleet Into the Light Using Satellite Data
Nonprofit newsroom SourceMaterial and Politico worked with SkyTruth analysts to expose the growing problem of Russia’s shadow fleet and the hidden threat it poses to marine ecosystems and vessel safety around the world.
Image credit: Faith Turan via Pexels
In March 2024, British coast guards spotted a 23 kilometer long oil slick off the Scottish coastline. The subsequent report detailed the vessel responsible—an aging tanker carrying around 1 million gallons of crude oil from Russia to a refinery in India in a clear act of defiance against Western sanctions. The tanker is part of a global fleet of hundreds of aging, unregulated ships known as Russia’s “shadow fleet” emerging as a way to avoid Western sanctions from Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine and posing serious risks to marine ecosystems.
Oil spilled by the shadow fleet can harm surrounding marine life, causing toxicity in products like shellfish and impacting fish reproduction. The chemicals released during the oil spill may cause additional harm to the environment and surrounding communities. The largely uninsured fleet makes it difficult for governments to hold vessel owners accountable for these spills, and oftentimes leaves communities on the hook for the cost of remediating the spill. In an effort to escape oversight, these vessels often turn off their transponders, or go “dark,” and intentionally transmit false locations, making it difficult to track vessel activity but also increasing the risk of vessel collisions.
SourceMaterial, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to independent investigative journalism focused on climate, corruption, and democracy, collaborated with SkyTruth on a story about pollution from dark fleets that transformed into a damning exposé of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
“For this story, SkyTruth was absolutely essential. We could not have done it without you—SkyTruth were the only providers who had the necessary data and were willing to give it freely…it would have been completely out of our budgets to do our work without organizations like yours.”
– Costanza Gambarini, SourceMaterial
Reporters at SourceMaterial collaborated closely with our analysts to determine which vessels off a dark fleet list provided by Lloyd’s List were associated with oil slicks detected by Cerulean, our oil slick detection platform. SourceMaterial investigated the polluting vessels’ known cargo records, allowing them to hone in on Innova—the vessel identified in the British coast guard report—as a tanker likely carrying sanctioned crude oil from Russia. With this new information, they were able to refine their storyline to focus more explicitly on the emerging dangers of the Russian shadow fleet.
Beyond providing satellite imagery, our analysts were able to advise on potential causes of the oil slicks, rule out vessels not associated with the shadow fleet, and identify additional slicks associated with the fleet. In total, we were able to clearly link nine slicks to the shadow fleet, while also raising attention to the fact that these were likely only a small subset of the real problem due to potential Automatic Identification System (AIS) falsification — AIS is the international system of vessel radio broadcasts used to identify vessel locations and help prevent collisions at sea.
Image: Modified Sentinel-1 (S1) imagery pulled from Cerulean of the Innova (the light-colored dot in the bottom left of the screen) and the related oil slick incident (the thick, dark line that tapers towards the center of the image).
The investigation was the cover story of Politico Europe’s printed magazine and the top story on its website in October of 2024. The story made international waves, reaching high-ranking government officials including Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president, whose amplification of the investigation led to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling out the dangers of the Russian shadow fleet in a national address.
“The shadow tanker fleet helps Putin finance war and terror and in addition, it poses a global security threat to all countries whose coasts and seas could be polluted,” said Zelenskyy.
Immediately following publication, the UK announced sanctions against 18 Russian oil tankers and four LNG tankers—the largest sanctions to date against the shadow fleet. Additionally, the Renew Europe faction of the European Parliament cited the investigation during the confirmation hearing of EU Commissioner-designate Costas Kadis as part of a larger call for increased sanctions and governmental accountability.
