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Russian shadow ships faking positions to avoid attacks
The 'Pirop' of the She Ray Ships Company was one of the Russian vessels in the Black Sea, using an unusual and potentially co-ordinated method of spoofing their tracking systems to hide voyages, as Moscow was bringing the shadow fleet under its own control to protect it from attack. At least 12 sanctioned tankers appeared to have used identical devices to transmit false, frozen positions even as the vessels sailed hundreds of miles away, which appeared to be a co-ordinated method of deception. Six of the tankers tracked simultaneously broadcast two AIS positions in recent months, unusually making it appear that the ships were in two places at once. The Russian shadow fleet vessels have long manipulated their AIS data to avoid western sanctions aimed at cutting Moscow’s oil revenues after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ships were now adapting their methods to avoid Ukrainian drone attacks, with Russia trying to protect these assets as the EU was becoming more proactive in its approach to interfering and disrupting sanctioned ships, and the Ukrainians became more aggressive in their approach to trying to disrupt Russia’s oil exports. In late September the Ukraine had hit more than 300 Russian vessels within 11 weeks. The double positioning was used as the tankers passed out of the Black Sea through the Bosphorus, where Turkish authorities require ships to transmit a position as they pass through the waterway guided by tugs. The ships would briefly turn on their real satellite-tracked AIS during the transit, all the while transmitting a second frozen position close to the mouth of the Bosphorus to avoid attacks, while they continued the voyage. The 'Pirop' had broadcast a position near the Bosphorus Strait on Aug 27, 2026, while simultaneously broadcasting that it was located about 800 kilometres away on the Turkish coast. Other signs that the ships had been fitted with identical devices running the same programme included the repetition of exactly the same position coordinates — unlike ordinary ships, whose coordinates vary slightly as they shift on the water — and the fact that all position reports were frozen at the same time: 08:13 a.m.UTC. All but one of the tankers observed in the Black Sea had reflagged to Russia in the past year, meaning that they now fell under Moscow’s maritime regulations. Many have been equipped with nets and cages to try to protect them against relentless drone attacks, while more than 30 shadow fleet tankers have changed their names to Russian words for gemstones such as Gagat (jet), Labrador (labradorite) and Sapfir (sapphire) within days of reflagging to Russia over the summer. The only one of the 12 tankers spoofing their positions that did not come under the Russian flag had instead reflagged to Equatorial Guinea, which has become a proxy flag for Russia, with the ships registered to its flag being certified as seaworthy by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. On the whole, more than 80 ships had reflagged to Russia between July and September, after European and UK regulators have sanctioned nearly 700 tankers carrying the federation’s oil and gas in the past 2,5 years. It was estimaged 1,229 vessels over 20,000 dwt were in the shadow fleet, of which more than 75 % were sanctioned by the US, UK or EU.
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