How do the sanctions of the USA, EU, UK, and Canada affect hundreds of tankers transporting russian oil? The answer is in the diagram. They don’t, the co-founder and chief editor of the web portal blackseanews.net Andrii Klymenko writes.
The figures in the diagram are the result of our own monitoring. The sanctions, that is, their content, absolutely do NOT affect the operation of tankers. The sanctions provide for a ban on using the ports and gateways of the EU, USA, UK, and Canada, as well as the maritime services of these countries. Cool? Sure, why not?
The problem is – tankers transporting russian oil from russian ports of the Baltic and Black Seas (as well as from the Arctic and Far East) to India, China, African and Asian countries do not need and will never need the maritime services of these countries.Why not? Because they:
a) Do not go to the ports of these countries;
b) Do not take insurance with the companies of these countries;
c) Do not pay for passage through the straits of these countries, because it is free;
d) Do not hire maritime pilots from these countries, because it is not necessary;
I have already said about the reasons for the decrease in volumes in late 2024 – early 2025: the actions of long-range UAVs of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which managed to hit something important in the ports of Ust-Luga and Tuapse, and some of the pipeline infrastructure there. So, you can apply sanctions to 200-300-500 vessels and loudly declare to the whole world about an irreconcilable struggle… The result will be the same.
These countries know how to change the sanctions model. This has been proposed repeatedly. But they are afraid. They are not yet ready. We remind you how to do it – on the maps below. If the words “…and also the territorial sea of these countries” are added to the list of prohibitions in the sanctions model, then sanctioned tankers will not pass through the straits shown on the maps.
Map 1 – these are the straits connecting the Baltic Sea with the Atlantic; under the supplemented sanctions model, tankers under EU sanctions will not be able to pass through the straits that are part of the sovereign territory of Denmark and Sweden, i.e. they will remain outside the Baltic Sea.
Map 2 – under the supplemented sanctions model, if Britain joins it, sanctioned tankers will not be able to pass through the English Channel, since in the Dover area there is a section of the Strait of Dover, where the maritime border of Great Britain directly borders the maritime border of France.
As the practice of recent days in the Baltic Sea in the exclusive maritime economic zone of Estonia has shown, with such decisions, one must be prepared that the russian Federation will demonstratively violate them. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare the Coast Guard and the Navy, so that they can physically counteract violations of the sanctions regime.
It would be right the right decision, in order to strengthen the legal foundation for ensuring such decisions, for the EU and the UK to declare that due to the presence of a major war in Europe, which is really threatening their security, to declare a special period during which the rules on freedom of transit do not apply to sanctioned vessels.
Please share. Because I am tired of reading heroic reports about hundreds of sanctioned tankers.
