From Pyongyang to Primorsk: When Sanctions Evasion Becomes System Design

Rarely a week passes without a new story about Russia’s shadow fleet. Tankers catch fire in the Mediterranean, are added to sanctions lists, or are boarded while passing through European waters. But the bigger story is not the vessels that are caught, but those that aren’t — ships moving between registries, ports, shell companies, and service providers that obscure their ties to Russia while keeping a sanctioned state afloat. The vessels that do get sanctioned are the visible tip of a larger scheme that North Korea spent years running, and Russia has refined at scale.Shadow fleets are typically studied in The post From Pyongyang to Primorsk: When Sanctions Evasion Becomes System Design appeared first on War on the Rocks.