There’s been a drastic and immediate fall in the number of Greece-owned tankers lifting Russian crude to the lowest level since the invasion of Ukraine, amid widespread disruption ahead of a U.S. sanctions deadline on Rosneft and Lukoil.

Only three of the 65 Russian crude cargoes loaded between November 1 and 16 were on Greek-owned ships, according to preliminary data from Windward and Vortexa.

The sharp shift in fleet composition reflects growing caution in the global market as a U.S. waiver deadline expires on November 21.

The U.S. announced sanctions on October 22 on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest producers, which export more than half of the federation’s seaborne crude, estimated at around 3.6 million bpd.

The U.S. set November 21 as the enforcement start date. The UK announced sanctions on the two producers a week earlier.

A Shift in U.S. Strategy

Sanctions on Russia’s key producers signal a major shift for the Trump administration, which had largely focused on Iranian oil and shipping since inauguration in January. The move to block exports — rather than limit the sale price while keeping flows moving — directly undercuts the core principle of the Oil Price Cap.

Greek-owned tankers have…

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• The paradox: Generative AI (Gen AI) was meant to improve trade transparency but is instead empowering fraudsters with sophisticated, scalable tools for tariff evasion.
• The impact: U.S. authorities estimate billions in lost revenue, with tariff fraud now treated as a national security threat on par with sanctions evasion.
• The response: DOJ, CBP, and DHS are intensifying enforcement through prosecutions, audits, and data-sharing. Penalties for violators are rising sharply.
• The solution: AI-Automated Document Validation, integrated with behavioral vessel analytics, gives regulators and firms the ability to detect falsified documents before clearance, restoring resilience to U.S. trade policy.

The New Face of Tariff Evasion

Tariffs have long been both a weapon and a weakness of American economic policy. They dictate trade flows, shield domestic industries, and generate revenue. Yet they are also magnets for fraud. The more complex the tariff regime, the greater the incentive to cheat. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) has added a new twist: technology that promises efficiency and transparency is also arming fraudsters with unprecedented tools of deception. 

This is the digitalization paradox at the heart of today’s trade…

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Western sanctions have already bifurcated global trade. Now, enforcement is similarly diverging: while the EU introduces a dynamic price cap mechanism, alongside the UK; the United States continues to uphold its $60 per barrel cap.

For the first time, flag registries and a refinery were directly sanctioned, amid sweeping adoption of secondary sanctions to tackle Russia sanctions evasion outside the EU27.

Expansion of Dark Fleet Sanctions

105 new vessels were added to the EU sanctions list which bans access to EU ports.

These tankers are part of the broader “dark fleet” used to evade the oil price cap through deceptive shipping practices such as:

• Flag hopping and the use of fraudulent registries
• AIS manipulation
• Deliberately complex ownership and management structures

More than 440 tankers are now sanctioned by the EU.

100% of the newly sanctioned vessels were flagged as risky by Windward prior to their designation, mostly due to port calls in sanctioned regimes, dark activity, Location (GNSS) Manipulation, illicit ship-to-ship transfers, and suspicious cargo…

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The European Union has introduced its most comprehensive set of sanctions yet in response to Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine. The 17th package specifically targets Russia’s clandestine network of oil tankers, known as the “shadow fleet,” aiming to severely restrict Russia’s oil revenues, a critical source of funding for its military operations.

Central to these new measures is the unprecedented expansion of sanctions on vessels associated with Russia’s shadow fleet. Today’s decision doubles the number of vessels facing EU port bans and prohibitions on critical maritime services, now totaling 342 ships. These vessels, often flagged in third countries, have been identified for their involvement in irregular and high-risk shipping practices designed to bypass earlier sanctions, thus sustaining Russia’s wartime economy.

Targeting the Shadow Fleet Ecosystem

Additionally, the EU is imposing stringent sanctions on entities integral to the shadow fleet ecosystem, including shipping companies and insurers based in the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, and Hong Kong. This targeted approach aims not only to disrupt immediate logistical operations but also to dismantle the broader networks enabling Russia’s…

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