Don's Weekly, 13 January 2025: Part 3 (Russia's Shadow Fleet & Allied Training of ZSU-Troops)

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 2…)

***

The Shadow Fleet

Eliminating the sale of Russian oil would have worldwide economic impacts so Russian exports were limited to sales that did not exceed $60 per barrel. Since the EU/G7+ companies dominated the maritime insurance industry they would prevent ships they insured from carrying sanctioned cargo. Russia turned to ships that were owned and insured outside the EU and G7 jurisdictions. Characteristics of these ships were underinsured, unsafe operations, avoiding inspections, and non-transparent ownership. The term ‘shadow fleet’ refers to the behavior of turning off tracking systems. The flags most commonly used include Cook Islands, Eswatini, Gabon, Liberia, Malta, Marshall Islands, Panama, and Russia itself.

The Eventin is a Panamanian-flagged, UAE-owned tanker carrying 99,000 tons of oil. The paper trail shows a single-ship company that is managed on paper by a Marshall Islands company. The 19-year-old ship lost the ability to maneuver in 44 knot winds and the dark fleet ship was taken under tow by German ships.

More precise terms are:

● Cleared fleet- Tankers that have clear ownership and do not exhibit suspicious behavior.

● Gray fleet- Ownership is unclear, the tanker often switches flags. There are over 1,000 of these vessels. From March 2022-April 2024, gray fleet oil shipments increased by 111% oil.

● Dark fleet- Disabling automatic identification systems, and ID and location tampering. There are 1,300 of these vessels. In the same time period, dark fleet oil shipments increased by 19%.

These numbers include ships carrying sanctioned oil from Iran and Venezuela. Iran is sanctioned because of the actions it took against ships in the Persian Gulf from 1981-1987, US claims of terrorism, and for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment program. They were lifted in 2016 when Iran agreed to halt enrichment, but Trump withdrew from the agreement and the US reimposed sanctions in 2018. Venezuelan oil was sanctioned in 2019 after fraudulent elections, lifted after the government honored some commitments towards change, and reimposed in 2024 when the opposition was not allowed to run a candidate against Maduro.

In order to confuse trackers, some dark fleet ships will transfer their oil to another ship that is not sanctioned while still at sea.

In December, China’s Shandong Port Group offloaded oil from eight sanctioned cruisers at their facilities. They announced they will block sanctioned tankers in 2025. There was no mention if they would accept oil transferred to non-sanctioned ships. Other Chinese companies have not made such declarations.

In December, China’s Shandong Port Group offloaded oil from eight sanctioned tankers at their facilities (pictured). They announced they will block sanctioned tankers in 2025. There was no mention if the would accept oil transferred to non-sanctioned ships. Other Chinese companies have not made this declaration.

Before 2022 there were about 600 shadow fleet vessels. Most of the ships bought to increase the sanctioned shipments would have been otherwise retired. Over 70% of these vessels are 15+ years old. Since they evade inspections they are more likely to break down or break in half.

The top three destinations for sanctioned Russian oil are India, China and Turkey. India is the largest recipient of oil from gray fleet ships. China edges out India as the largest recipient from dark fleet ships.

While ownership is purposefully obscured, companies located in Greece represent the largest group of actual owners of dark ships, followed by Russia, UAE, China and Turkey.

After sanctioning 150 ships last year, the US sanctioned 180 more ships that are estimated to carry a third of Russian oil exports. The UK did the same, and both nations also sanctioned Gazprom and PJSC Surgutneftegas, two giant oil companies for the first time. Three years into the war, the British foreign secretary said, “We will not stand by and let oil profits endanger the lives of Ukrainians – nor will we let Russia keep filling its coffers as it continues to threaten our collective security.”

…where one cannot but wonder: but, you did stand by the last three years?

***

Ukraine

A missile almost hits a Ukrainian MiG-29.

Last summer, Ukraine had about 42,000 inmates in its prisons: meanwhile, over 5,000 were released to join the military. Ukraine is now constructing new prisons because the older prisons cannot be upgraded to acceptable conditions. In other news, the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers that are AWOL had until 1 January 2025 to report back to their units before facing possible prison time.

Zaporizhzhia is building 12 underground schools that will educate 12,000 students. The younger children have never been in a classroom because of the risk of bombs and missiles. All education has been online. In addition to protecting against bombs, they will also protect against radiation since the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is only 50 km away. The plant is in cold shutdown but there are still risks and back in October, two bombs hit the plant's electrical system for the seventh time that year. Once the schools are built, they will construct underground hospitals. Kharkiv moved their schools into the subways before building underground schools.

This is why they are burying their schools and hospitals: 13 killed, 63 injured and widespread damage.

War destroys things and people and it damages minds. We read words and see numbers but none of that actually explains the war. This video about Ukrainian military medics won’t fully explain it, either, but it brings us a little bit closer.

***

Diplomacy

The crew of the Eagle S ship that destroyed power cables is made up of citizens from Georgia and India. Two Georgians, the captain and a crew member, were arrested. Four other vessels were sailing up and down in the waters between Finland and Estonia. Two ships, the Line and the Life, were sailing erratically and are part of the shadow fleet that hauls sanctioned oil. Finnish naval ships are preventing 20 ships from leaving while they are investigating them for sanction violations and other issues. The nations of the Baltic Sea allowed ships to leave after previous incidents because international law didn’t specifically list their actions as illegal. Finland’s actions are based not just on common sense, but with the intent of enforcing international sanctions compliance and countering Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign.

$57.9 billion was spent on the American defense industry. Over $22 billion more has yet to be obligated but was already approved. Part of the money went to salaries. Part of the money went to profits. Ukraine received weapons and ammo in return.

***

Allied Training of ZSU-Troops

The EU established a Ukrainian training program for various functions but Ukraine sets the length of the program. Training for staff officers in the West usually takes months, but in Poland, the course is just 21 days long. In the US, they have a crawl-walk-run training cycle that lasts a year, starting with basic individual skills and ending with battalion operations. Collective training for Ukrainian squads, platoons and companies last just one week each. In that time, they’re supposed to learn how to work with each other and with mortar teams. Platoon leaders and non-commissioned officers are also trained separately, as well as different occupations, such as medics, sappers, artillerymen and tank crews.

The abbreviated training for weapon systems has been successful, but one attempt to spread knowledge was a program called, “Train the Trainers”, in which Ukrainians would be trained to proficiency and then they’d return to Ukraine and train other soldiers. Inevitably, they’d train a soldier and he’d return and train others for a couple of months before being sent into combat, where his knowledge is lost if he’s killed. Even if he’s not killed, he’s not sharing knowledge with the rest of the army. So a new soldier would be sent to train as a trainer and the cycle began again.

The Ukrainians sent for training have a wide range of skills, and training that might have been valid ten or twenty years ago is now out of date. Instructors don’t learn about the skillsets of the incoming soldiers until a couple days before they arrive and they constantly have to change their programs to best suit the needs of the soldiers.

Ukrainian doctrine based on the Soviet heritage emphasizes specific orders with every detail planned out and the soldier has little initiative in the execution of those orders. US doctrine gives soldiers an objective and the authority to achieve that objective in a manner of their choosing, but this requires highly trained subordinates, from officers, to NCOs and privates. While some Ukrainian brigades developed the culture allowing their experienced and knowledgeable personnel to use their initiative, other brigades don’t have the same level of training and leadership, so they are taught a combination of the two doctrines.

The training is beneficial but it is not adequate to maximizing a unit’s combat potential prior to entering or re-entering combat. A major component of training is time, and while a complete training cycle of a unit might be a year, there are additional benefits of junior and senior leadership training over years to gain experience and knowledge. Ukraine does not have the luxury of manpower to remove a unit from combat for a year, let alone multiple years, so they spare them for about a month at a time to grab as much vital information as they can in that time.

The programs that come closest to realizing their potential are the basic combat skills and weapons and weapons systems training, which can include both firing and maintenance of the weapon. The programs that are the furthest from reaching their potential is the collective training of units. A week is not enough for a squad, less so for a platoon and a company. None of this training is sufficient for battalion and brigade level combined arms operations. If the individual brigades do not develop these capabilities on their own, they will never have them.

At least 22 nations are providing training in the form of basic combat skills, platoon/company/battalion skills, weapons training, and leadership training for NCOs, officers and battalion/brigade staff.

***

(…to be continued…)