Russian ghost ships in Italian ports
11 March 2025
The Sicilian sea is populated by ghosts. Not the transparent and fairy-like ones: they are huge vessels, carry dangerous quantities of oil, and are piloted by Moscow to avoid EU sanctions. Since the EU imposed measures on Russia's oil export, the latter has been able to keep transporting and selling petrol in the European market by using old ships whose ownership is uncertain, for instance because they frequently change flags or are purchased outside maritime regulations.
They make themselves untrackable by turning off their identification systems, and transfer their carriage to secondary ships to hide the oil's origin. Other than Sicily, their activities have been noticed close to Finnish and Swedish waters. Shipowners from European countries such as Greece, Germany and Italy are reported to have sold their ageing tankers to Russia, acting in a legal grey area that the EU has yet to fill.
 | Ludovica Di Meco To address this practice, in fact, the EU has enlisted around 70 vessels to be sanctioned, on paper at least. Reality is different: as revealed by a Greenpeace investigation, Russian tankers are granted permission to dock in Italian ports without inspection. They are helped by Italian shipowners that meet ghost ships in the open sea, transfer their oil on their regular vessels and transport it to the coast, where it is sold to refineries. One of the involved refineries is suspected of having ties with Russian investors. Italian companies involved in maritime transport also assist in issuing illicit certificates. Authorities, accused of not making the necessary checks, said they are not equipped for this task, as they do not even know which tankers are sanctioned by the EU. |
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