Aging, stealthy, suspected of sabotage: What to know about Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’

The European Union and Britain adopted new sanctions against Russia’s “shadow fleet” on Tuesday, in a bid to cut off a source of funding for Russia’s war in Ukraine. But what is the shadow fleet, and how does it operate? What is Russia’s shadow fleet and how big is it? As well as undermining sanctions, Russia’s shadow fleet is suspected of carrying out sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea in particular — a shallow sea networked with cables linking Northern European states — which about 50 percent of the shadow fleet regularly passes through. and British sanctions build on a range of measures already imposed against dozens of ships, people and businesses associated with Russia’s shadow fleet.