By Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
LONDON, England – Russia’s shadow fleet will be hit with the largest ever sanctions package today, ramping up pressure on Putin and protecting UK and European critical national infrastructure. The government will today sanction up to 100 oil tankers that form a core part of Putin’s shadow fleet operation and are responsible for carrying more than $24 billion worth of cargo since the start of 2024.
It is the latest move by the government to safeguard working people, protect the UK’s national security and deliver on the foundations of the Plan for Change.
The shadow fleet operation, masterminded by Putin’s cronies, is not just bankrolling the Kremlin’s illegal war in Ukraine – the fleet’s languishing vessels are known to be damaging critical national infrastructure through reckless seafaring in Europe.
Protecting subsea infrastructure from malicious and careless incidents is expected to be a key part of leaders’ discussions at the Joint Expeditionary Force summit in Oslo today.
It comes after the JEF activated an advanced UK-led reaction system, known as Nordic Warden in January, to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the Russian shadow fleet, following reported damage to a major undersea cable in the Baltic Sea. 22 areas of interest – including parts of the English Channel, North Sea, Kattegat, and Baltic, are currently being monitored from the JEF’s operational headquarters in Northwood, UK.
Subsea infrastructure is the lifeblood of the UK’s connectivity, carrying 99 percent of international telecommunications data, and vital energy supplies such as electricity, oil and gas. The infrastructure is at risk of being disrupted by unseaworthy vessels lacking safety certification, the right technology to avoid the infrastructure, or purposefully disabling locator technology.
Alongside the large number of shadow fleet tankers targeted today, the UK is also expected to disrupt those behind the shadow fleet.
Today’s action further demonstrates that there is no place to hide for those who help fund Putin’s war machine.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said:
“Every step we take to increase pressure on Russia and achieve a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine is another step towards security and prosperity in the UK. The threat from Russia to our national security cannot be underestimated, that is why we will do everything in our power to destroy his shadow fleet operation, starve his war machine of oil revenues and protect the subsea infrastructure that we rely on for our everyday lives. My government will safeguard working people from paying the price from the costly threat Putin’s fleet poses to UK critical national infrastructure and the environment.”
Putin uses the shadow fleet to cling onto his oil revenues and prop up the Russian oil industry. Thanks to Western sanctions, Russia’s oil and gas revenues have fallen every year since 2022 – losing over a third of its value in three years. Sanctions and the cost of his barbaric war are causing the Russian economy to stall – with the wealth fund hollowed out, inflation rising and government spend on defence and security spiralling.
Meanwhile, JEF leaders are today expected to announce an enhanced JEF partnership with Ukraine, bringing the JEF grouping – some of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters – and Ukraine even closer together.
This will further support Ukrainian Armed Forces through intensive training exercises, increasing interoperability across military platforms and enhancing countering disinformation support as well as allowing JEF Nations to learn from the battlefield experience of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Today’s meeting in Oslo is the second visit by the Prime Minister to Norway, after he travelled to Bergen in December to launch a new Green Industrial Partnership with Norway, which was signed by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband earlier this week.
The UK and Norway are also expected to agree a new memorandum of understanding on space domain awareness today, to harness opportunities and protect critical national infrastructure in the skies, through tracking and sharing intelligence on satellites, space debris and other objects flying above Earth.
The agreement will allow the UK and Norway to advance and develop greater coverage of the increasingly congested and contested domain. The UK has ambitious plans in space, with the first space launches from SaxaVord in the Shetland Islands scheduled later this year.
The Joint Expeditionary Force is comprised of ten like-minded nations, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK as the Framework Nation.
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