The British government has led the West in taking the fight to Russia after the UK slapped more sanctions on Russia‘s secretive mega-profitable “shadow fleet”. Russia uses its so-called “shadow fleet” of ships to avoid severe Western sanctions on Russian oil and to fund Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine.

Today, the British Foreign Office sanctioned five vessels and two other shipping entities believed to be at the heart of transporting Russian liquified natural gas (LNG). The government said it was using new legal powers for the first time to target LNG vessels directly.

Vladimir Putin has used profits from Russia‘s LNG industry to help fund his war machine in Ukraine. LNG accounted for around a quarter of the Russian budget in 2023. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the Russian leader aims to bolster military spending by £106bn over the next year – with a significant portion of that coming from LNG exports.

Russia has plans to expand its LNG revenues, aiming to grow its global LNG market share from 8 percent to 20 percent.

Moscow’s shadow fleet has ballooned since the G7 imposed a price cap on Russian oil. Russia‘s shadow fleet is thought to number around 600 vessels, all with mysterious ownership obscuring links to Moscow.

However, there is thought to be a small group of tankers at the heart of the operation.

Thursday’s sanctioned entities were White Fox Ship Management and Ocean Speedstar Solutions OPC. The ships were Asya Energy, Pioneer, North Sky, SCF La Perouse, and Nova Energy.

The latest sanctions follow a similar move earlier this month when Britain slapped sanctions on 10 ships in Russia’ shadow fleet of vessels.

Britain said that previous UK sanctions on Russia‘s flagship Arctic LNG 2 project, alongside joint EU and US sanctions, were taking a toll and slashing Russian LNG production.

At the time, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said: “Putin’s war machine is funded by a dark and illicit economic system that this government is committed to destabilising.”

The UK has now sanctioned 15 vessels and entities in total that are involved in the Russian LNG sector.

A government spokesperson said: “We will continue to bear down on this important source of funding for Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.”

While Britain has led the way, the European Commission confirmed that one of its next priorities is to also target Russia‘s use of a shadow fleet of oil tankers as the West tries to curb revenues used to finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

In a statement on Tuesday, the European Commission added that sanctions imposed against Russia and its corporations following its invasion of Ukraine are now “bearing results”.