LONDON (AP) — Britain has imposed sanctions on 30 ships from Russia’s so-called shadow fleet that are skirting restrictions on carrying billions of dollars of oil, the Foreign Office said Monday.
It is the largest sanctions package targeting the fleet of illegitimate and often dilapidated ships that operate illegally to avoid sanctions, the State Department said. Britain has now imposed sanctions on 73 tankers, the most of any country, in a bid to cripple a key source of funding for Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
“Russian oil revenues are fueling the fire of war and destruction in Ukraine,” Foreign Minister David Lammy said in Italy at a meeting of G7 foreign ministers. “We are committed to ensuring that both the ships and the makers of the ships thwarting European and British sanctions are hurt at this time.”
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Half of the sanctioned ships delivered more than 3.4 billion pounds ($4.3 billion) worth of oil and oil products in the past 12 months, a Foreign Office statement said. Two insurers were sanctioned for facilitating the fleet.
Leaders had agreed at the European Political Community summit in July to tighten sanctions against the fleet.
