This last Christmas day, the Finnish police and Coast Guard seized the Eagle S, a Russian oil tanker, for deliberately damaging an underwater electric cable. The ship, which is allegedly part of Russia’s “dark fleet” that circumvents oil export sanctions, disrupted the supply of electricity from Finland to Estonia.
This was not all, however. According to reporting by Michelle Wiese Bockman of Lloyd’s List, the Eagle S was also carrying a significant amount of spying equipment that was used by non-maritime personnel on the ship to monitor communications among NATO member states.
This episode is interesting in an of itself, revealing a great deal about how Russia evades sanctions intended to slow its war in Ukraine, as well as how Russia is hiding espionage capabilities in commercial maritime assets. It’s also a potential glimpse into how nation state actors could use private industry to conduct espionage and sabotage in space.
The Dark Fleet
What is Russia’s “dark fleet”? As of 2023, international sanctions have prohibited Russia from selling crude oil for more than $60 per barrel. Yet, as Andrew Roth reported in The Guardian, Russia’s “ghost”, “shadow”, or “dark” fleet, “Nearly 500 ships, many of them old tankers with murky ownership and obscure insurers, could be playing an integral role in moving Russian crude to China and other ports in Asia, because of a G7 price cap meant to keep foreign-currency oil revenues out of the Kremlin’s hands.”[1] As Roth explained, the ships in this dark fleet move undetected by disabling their satellite tracking devices and other tricks.
So, despite sanctions and any number of international bodies whose job is to enforce the sanctions, Russia is selling billions of dollars’ worth of oil right under the noses of everyone who objects, most strenuously, to this kind of thing.
Michelle Wiese Bockmann offered insights into how the dark fleet operates by first describing the three layers of maritime regulations and conventions. At the top, there is the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), which has a whole series of conventions and regulations that apply to the organization’s 180-plus members. Then, there are the rules for the flag countries where a ship is registered, e.g., Panama. Port state control is also a factor, with rules and regulations affecting ships based on where they dock and disgorge their cargoes. And, finally, there are classification societies, which set rules for structural integrity of ships and certify if they are seaworthy. The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands.
With the dark fleet, according to Wiese Bockmann, what’s going on could be called “regulatory arbitrage.” She says, “Ship owners look and think, ‘I want to be outside Western jurisdictions. I’m going to choose a flag that has no technical or maritime expertise. Perhaps Gabon is a good flag state for that.’ Then I’m going to pick a recognized organization that doesn’t really care if I do a special survey of the ship every five years, or they won’t look too closely. And then, I’m going to get my blue card, which is my insurance card. I’m going to get one that is recognized by flag (that I’m registered with), but doesn’t look to see whether or not I have the right kind of liability coverage.”
Before you know it, as Wiese Bockmann explains, you have a ship that is the equivalent of an old banger… “You know, really a rust bucket that’s hurtling down the highway with no insurance, in a terrible dilapidated state. And everyone’s going, ‘What’s going on with this?’ But, it’s perfectly legal. That’s how we have the dark fleet.” They’re an insurance and environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.
Dark Fleets in Space?
If that’s how brazen sanctions evasion can be on Earth, imagine how bad things could get in space. When it comes to assessing commercial risks due to space crime and piracy, the fundamental questions to ask are, “What happens when there are no rules?” and “What will corporations and criminals, perhaps acting in concert, do when there is no law enforcement present?” We have many examples of bad behavior on Earth. In space, the outlook is not good, at least in the short term.
According to Wiese Bockmann, space represents a comparable arena for dark fleet types of activity. “It’s speculation,” she cautioned, “but you potentially have a lot of the same forces at work: commodities that may be under sanction, at least on earth, but buyers and sellers who want to conduct business anyway. And, as with oil, you will likely have rogue traders who know how to work around the official system. The regulatory landscape is almost nonexistent at this point, so breaking rules may not even be a relevant issue. The major difference between maritime and space dark fleets is that space cargo transport is new, or even hypothetical at this point. It will be quite a while before we have old spacecraft that no one wants to track any longer. But, it will probably happen.”
Hiding Espionage in Commercial Space Assets
Nation states are also gaining new opportunities to cloak espionage activities as commercial space launches, satellites, and space craft proliferate. For all we know, the sky is already full of Eagle S type satellites. Such actions would comprise irregular threats to national security. A number of challenges arise from this potentiality, including detection and interdiction. What entity would be tasked with discovering the equivalent of the Eagle S in space? It’s not clear. Nor is it clear who, if anyone, would be able to intervene and stop such espionage and sabotage activities, as did the Finnish police and Coast Guard. As of now, there is nothing of this kind in space.
Space Piracy Blog © 2025 by Hugh Taylor and Marc Feldman is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 v
Photo by G.isle px. : https://www.pexels.com/photo/view-of-a-large-tanker-on-the-sea-near-a-shore-at-sunset-15647002/
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/19/the-dark-fleet-of-tankers-shipping-russian-oil-in-the-shadows