Russian shadow fleet poses serious environmental threat to Baltic Sea - MEPs

TALLINN - Members of the European Parliament, including Estonian MEP and vice chair of the foreign affairs committee Urmas Paet, sent an interpellation to the European Commission asking how the Commission intends to prevent the Russian shadow fleet from navigating in the Danish straits, as it poses a huge environmental threat to the Baltic Sea and many member states.

"A thousand days after Russia began its brutal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian shadow fleet is still feeding the Russian war machine with a constant flow of money," Paet said.

"These ships pose a significant environmental threat to the Baltic Sea because they are outdated and unsecured tankers that can leak," he added.

According to Paet, a third of the exports in question pass through the Danish straits, which provide access to the Baltic Sea and also to the waters of Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland.

"The average depth of the Baltic Sea is 52 meters, while in the Gulf of Mexico, where a serious oil spill occurred in 2010, the average depth is 1,615 meters. So an oil spill in the Baltic Sea would be a huge disaster," Paet added.

In the interpellation sent to the Commission, MEPs ask what measures the Commission will take, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to prevent Russian de facto ships from navigating in the Danish straits, which pose a huge environmental threat to the Baltic Sea and many member states.