The EU is adding 77 tankers to its Russia-sanctions blacklist, most of which are currently in the Eastern Mediterranean — for anyone who wants to track Russian oil smuggling in real time.
The names of the 77 more "shadow fleet" ships will officially be published shortly after 23 June, when EU foreign ministers agree the 18th round of Russia sanctions.
It will bring to 419 the number of vessels accused of helping Russia break a Western oil embargo, which are banned from calling at EU ports or receiving services, such as insurance or refuelling, from EU firms.
But a draft EU sanctions proposal, circulated in Brussels on Tuesday (10 June) and seen by EUobserver, enabled this website to already identify the 77 new rogue ships and to check their current positions using marine-tracker websites.
This showed that few of them were in the Baltic Sea area on Wednesday (where the risk of cable-cutting incidents is the greatest, due to the high concentration of them on the shallow seabed) - these were the Pearl, Valera, Elephant, Fiesta, Kira K, and Nagarjuna.
(You can follow their movements in real time by clicking on the links embedded in their names.)
They were typical shadow fleet-type vessels: ageing bulk tankers some 200m long by 40m wide, flying flags of convenience.
Another three of the 77 were in the Western Mediterranean, suggesting they had come from or were going to Russia's Baltic Sea ports — the Nautilus, Pierre, and Ricca.
But there were many more shortly-to-be-blacklisted tankers in the Eastern Mediterranean (Destan, Saint, Topaz, Tango, Yanhu, Feliks, Gogland, Boray, Kusto, Proxima, Sofia K, Saetta, Vision, Jaldhara) and in the Middle East (Vernal, Monarch 1, Saraswati, Maisan, Samadha, Olia, Cordelia Moon, Achilles, Sealion I, Ru Yi, Himalaya, Sandhya).
There were also several vessels potentially full of toxic oil in the Black Sea, on the edge of the Ukraine war zone (the Nizami Ganjavi, Konstantinovsk, Akhty, Katran, Akar West, Virat, Sea Marine 1).
A handful of the 77 were in the Azov Sea, Caspian Sea, or in Russia's inland waterways (Volgoneft 160, Volgoneft 251, Sergey Tserkov, Flura, Armada Explorer, Kaluga, Sanar 18).
And there were also several vessels (Arctic Mulan, Nova Energy, Rymo, Prisma, Seasons I, Smyrtos, Lebre, Utaki, Evita, Blue Talu, Monte 1, Kai Fu, Bivola, Golden Eagle, Cross Ocean, Deneb, Themis, Sirius 1, Hu Po, Sea Honor, Hulda, Diva 1) in the Far East — where Russia's main oil buyers, China and India, were situated.
The rest were outliers - two ships near African coasts (the Listiga and Leruo) and one in South America (the Tasta).
Some 13 of the 77 ships flew a Russian flag, meaning Russia was legally responsible for any accidents involving them.
Panama (23), Sierra Leone (11), and Comoros (8) were also shadow fleet-flag hotspots, while Curacao, Palau, and Sao Tome Principe provided three flags each.
Barbados, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, St Kitts Nevis, Vanuatu, and Vietnam also provided flags.
The EU is currently trying to convince the US, Canada, the UK, Norway, Switzerland, and Japan to get on board with lowering the price cap from $65 [€56.6]/barrel to $45/barrel at which Russian oil can be legally bought.
In additional measures, the EU is imposing a visa-ban and asset-freeze on an Indian captain who sailed a shadow fleet vessel, to act as a deterrent to others who considered doing so too.
It is also asset-freezing an Iranian shipping firm boss (Hossein Shamkhani) and a Russian shipping company director (Viktor Fofanov).
Shamkhani's firms "blend and rebrand crude oil along with various petroleum products from Russia for exporting purposes, thereby concealing their origin," the EU draft sanctions note said.
Meanwhile, the UAE looked like a hub of illicit Russian oil trading, with five Emirati-based shipping firms to be put under the EU's asset-freeze and visa-ban regime as well: the Monolink Group, 2Rivers DMCC, Milavous Group, Admiral Group, and Twister Shipmanagement.
Two other EU asset-freeze shipping firms were located in Mauritius: Sapang Shipping and Redbird Corporate Services.
The rest were in Azerbaijan (Aqua Fleet Management), China (Zhu Jiang Shipmanagement), Singapore (2Rivers PTE), and Russia (Invest Fleet and Volgotrans).
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.