According to Bloomberg, Russia has loaded a fourth sanctioned tanker, the Viktor Bakaev, owned by state-run Sovcomflot PJSC.
The tanker departed from Primorsk on Sunday with around 730,000 barrels of Urals crude, destined for Zhoushan, China. This is the ship’s first cargo since it was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in December for violating a G7 price cap on Russian oil exports, Bloomberg reports.
The Viktor Bakaev is the fourth tanker to be activated by Russia after months of inactivity, bringing the total number of vessels under sanctions by the U.S., EU, or UK to 62, following recent actions by British authorities against 11 ships. Previous Sovcomflot tankers have reportedly engaged in sea transfers to evade detection by digital vessel-tracking systems, as indicated by satellite imagery.
As Russia continues to deploy these sanctioned vessels, the effectiveness of international sanctions may diminish, making it harder to disrupt the flow of Russian oil. Sovcomflot has not yet commented on the recent developments.
