The accident of the Koala oil tanker in the Baltic Sea rekindles the alarm on the Russian ghost fleet

An explosion aboard one oil tanker in the port of Ust-Luca The alarm is rekindled in the Baltic Sea: the Moscow ghost fleet, composed of obsolete and insecure ships, continues to threaten an already fragile ecosystem.

On the morning of February 9, the Setroliera Koalafighting flag of antigua and barbuda, He was shaken by three explosions in the machine room while he was moored in the Russian port in the Leningrado region. The ship, which transported 130,000 tons of heavy fuelhe suffered serious damage and started to embark water, struggling to the stern. Luckily, The 24 crew members managed to save themselves.

The Russian authorities, by the governor of Leningrado Alexander Drozdenko to the federal agency for maritime and river transportthey minimized the accident, attributing it to a “human error” or a “technical accident during the start of the engine”. They also ensured that the load tanks were intact and that no oil leaks occurred. A version also confirmed by the Finnish frontier guard who immediately sent a surveillance plane to monitor the situation.

However, the accident rekindled the spotlight on the Russian ghost fleet, a set of obsolete oil tankers, often in poor condition and with crews not always experts of the difficult navigation conditions of the Baltic. Ships that Russia uses to transport oil, circumventing the penalties imposed by the West following the invasion of Ukraine. The independent press agency Agentstvo he pointed out that the Koala appears right on the list of ships belonging to the Russian shadow fleet, drawn up by Greenpeace in October 2024.

Every week 70-80 oil tankers loaded with crude oil leave the Russian ports of Primorsk, Ust-Luca, Vyssotsk and St. Petersburg, directed towards international markets. Of these, About 30-40 belong to the ghost fleeta number that has exploded since 2022, after the imposition of the sanctions. A relationship of the Kiev School of Economics He identified about 430 of these ships all over the world.

These oil tankers often sail to the limit of legality, if not beyond. More and more often, in fact, deactivate the AIS location system (Automatic Identification System) to hide their movements And their visits to Russian ports, making monitoring difficult and increasing the risk of collisions.

The situation is further aggravated by the fact that these ships do not have adequate western insurance, which means that, in the event of an accident, The reclamation costs would fall on the taxpayers of the coastal countries. As he points out Yevgeniy Golovchenkoprofessor at the University of Copenhagen, if one of these oil tankers were to suffer an accident off the Danish coast, “the most probable scenario is that Danish taxpayers will have to pay to clean up the sea.

The Koala, built in 2003, transported a highly polluting load. A more serious explosion, or an open sea accident, they could have caused a black tide of catastrophic proportions. Just think, to get an idea, that Prestige disaster in 2002off the Spanish coast, It caused the release to the sea of ​​over 63,000 tons of oilwith incalculable environmental and economic damage.

The Baltic Sea is also particularly vulnerable: A shallow sea, with limited currents and a replacement of slow water. A possible oil leak here would have disastrous consequences for decades.

Faced with this threat, Denmark has announced an intensification of the controls on the oil tankers in transit in its tight. However, since it is international waters, the options are limited. Any restrictive measure would require a delicate balance between international law and the political will of the coastal states.

In the meantime, the oil tankers of the ghost fleet continue to sail the waters of the Baltic without adequate safety standards, putting the environment, economy and geopolitical stability of the region at risk.