In the first nine months of 2025, India imported 5.4 million tonnes of Russian oil worth 2.1 billion Euros aboard 30 vessels sailing under false flags, a European think tank has pointed out in its report that was released on Thursday.
The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), based in Helsinki, said the shipments were a part of the single largest national destination for crude moved by Russia’s expanding “shadow fleet”, of which at least 90 vessels operated in September, 2025, alone – a six-fold increase from December, 2024.
The report further said a total of 113 Russian vessels have flown a false flag from January to September this year, transporting 13 per cent of all Russian crude oil, which translates to 11 million tonnes valued at 4.7 billion euros (USD 5.4 billion).
There were 96 sanctioned vessels that flew a false flag at least once this year as of the end of September, it added.
“Of the EUR 4.7 billion of Russian oil transported on falsely flagged tankers in the first three quarters of 2025, EUR 2.1 billion (5.4 million tonnes) was transported to India,” CREA said, although it did not give a break-up of the other destinations the shadow fleet had sailed to.
Under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, countries can register ships and allow them to fly their flags since all vessels at sea must fly a flag granting them legal jurisdiction. Some nations operate open registries, letting foreign-owned ships register for lower costs and lighter regulations – a practice often used by shippers seeking flexibility.
A total of 85 vessels registered at least two flag changes six months after being sanctioned by the European Union, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) or the United Kingdom, the think tank said.
Also Read: New US sanctions to affect India’s Russian crude imports from Dec
Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, Western countries imposed sanctions on Russian crude oil, prompting Russia to ship energy at steep discounts to allies such as India, China, and Turkey.
Inadvertently, India’s Russian crude imports surged from under 1 per cent to nearly 40 per cent of its total crude oil imports in a short span, with Russia being its top supplier in November, 2025, making up for over a third of all crude oil imported by the country.
However, Moscow is accused of evading sanctions by using shadow fleets – aged tankers operating in legal grey areas with obscure ownership, false registration papers, and disabled tracking system – to ship oil to consumers including China, India and Turkey.
Six flag registries that never flagged a Russian ship since the February 2022 Ukraine invasion each had at least 10 such vessels each in their fleet by September 2025, totalling 162 shadow vessels, according to CREA.
“The number of Russian ‘shadow’ tankers sailing under false flags is now increasing at an alarming rate. False-flagged vessels carried EUR 1.4 billion worth of Russian crude oil and oil products through the Danish Straits in September alone,” said Luke Wickenden, Energy Analyst and co-author of the report.
“The insurance of any vessel flying a false flag is void, which, combined with the fact that a lot of these tankers are old and have been re-commissioned almost from scrap, increases risk for coastal states which fall on their routes, in the event of accidents or an oil spill,” he said.
CREA has urged the EU and UK to initiate global reforms, noting that false-flag operations violate Article 94 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and pose mounting environmental and security threats to European and British coastlines.
“In addition to the risks of false flagging, we also see that ‘shadow’ vessel operators are taking advantage of capacity limitations of economically weak nations to exploit their flags and existing regulations to gain passage rights to deliver blood oil,” added Vaibhav Raghunandan, CREA EU-Russia Analyst & Research Writer and co-author of the report.
Detaining such vessels, the CREA report said, would disrupt Russian export logistics, raise costs and reduce the reliability of oil flows that underpin Moscow's war effort.
“It falls on the international community to push for reform in flag state regulations, provide support to build capacity for flag registries, as well as detain falsely flagged vessels to constrict ‘shadow’ vessel operations that support and finance Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Raghunandan added.
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