Russia's shadow fleet poses direct threat to European countries – Tusk

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk emphasized this at a press conference following the Eastern Flank Summit in Helsinki, a Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"It is not only about dirty business and the method of financing Russian aggression. It is also a direct threat to us, because we had some signals that some drones which are prepared for provocations, for example against Polish oil platforms in the Baltic Sea, were launched from shadow fleet ships," he said.

Tusk called on European countries to be ready to take tough measures against shadow fleet vessels and to act against them.

For his part, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal called the vessels used by Russia to transport oil "a ticking environmental bomb waiting to happen."

As reported, tankers of Russia's shadow fleet dump oil into European waters despite sanctions and bans on servicing such vessels. In this way, they expose Europe to the risk of large-scale environmental disasters.

Over the past five years, Ukraine has seized 68 vessels of Russia's shadow fleet, including three vessels seized from December 2024 to the present.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has created a shadow fleet of more than 1,240 tankers to circumvent Western sanctions and continue selling oil.

Photo: screenshot from the Kancelaria Premiera broadcast