UK Sanctions Five LNG Carriers and Three Tankers from Russia's Shadow Fleet

On October 1, the United Kingdom announced a new sanctions package against Russia covering eight vessels and 23 individuals and entities, as part of measures to curb the shadow fleet sustaining Russian energy exports. The vessels named include five LNG carriers -Chaivo, Portovyy, Aleksey Kosygin, Konstantin Posiet and Pyotr Stolypin-, three tankers and two vessels used for bunkering services. The sanctions ban the operation and chartering of these ships, bar them from UK ports and restrict the provision of maritime services linked to them.

Three of the LNG carriers, Aleksey Kosygin, Konstantin Posiet and Pyotr Stolypin, are high ice-class Arc7 vessels built at the Zvezda shipyard to support Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project. According to Maritime Executive, each unit has a capacity of more than 172,000 cubic meters of LNG, displaces 81,000 tonnes, measures 300 meters in length overall and can navigate through ice more than two meters thick; they are linked to Sovcomflot, the vessels' owner, and to Novatek. Aleksey Kosygin was delivered in December 2025 and Konstantin Posiet in June 2026, while Pyotr Stolypin was still being prepared for sea trials at Zvezda when it was sanctioned, before entering commercial service. Konstantin Posiet had already sailed along the Northern Sea Route to Arctic LNG 2 and loaded cargo at the Utrenniey terminal.

The other two sanctioned LNG carriers, Chaivo and Portovyy, are older conventional vessels. Chaivo is operated by Tudor Maritime and CryoLine Management and has been used to transport Russian LNG to third countries, while Portovyy is operated for Gazprom. The latter carried out an unusual voyage this year from the Baltic terminal of Portovaya to China via the Northern Sea Route, after having served as floating storage at that facility since 2022 without having previously left the site, marking a shift in Russian LNG logistics by linking a sanctioned export plant to the Asian market via the Arctic route instead of the traditional path through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.

Minister for Europe Lord Wood justified the package by citing the increase in Russian attacks on Ukraine, with more than 3,100 drones launched in September, and the elections deemed illegitimate in occupied territories. The United Kingdom maintains that international sanctions have already cost Russia around $500 billion and that it has listed approximately 600 tankers and other vessels belonging to or used by Russia's shadow fleet, while the European Union has reached 673 sanctioned vessels. At the same time, London extended specific and limited licenses allowing Japan and South Korea to continue receiving Russian LNG from the Sakhalin-2 project under contracts signed before June 17, 2025, valid from January 1, 2027 to March 31, 2028, in support of both countries' energy security as they advance their energy transition. The United Kingdom had previously announced that its ban on maritime and insurance services for Russian LNG exports will take effect on January 1, 2027.