crimea: the war before the war

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Tanya Kozyreva photo

Tanya Kozyreva

Tanya Kozyreva is a correspondent for Suspilne based in Washington DC.

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part of Russia's "shadow fleet," anchored off the coast of Ahtopol, Bulgaria, on Dec. 8, 2025.

Exclusive: Inside Russia's shadow fleet

by Tanya Kozyreva
The vessels are old, their hulls streaked with rust, and their ownership obscured behind layers of shell companies. Yet the tankers that make up Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, the armada used to move sanctioned oil across the globe, are kept running with modern Western technology including Starlink, an investigation by the Kyiv Independent can reveal. To gain an insight into how the shadow fleet operates, the Kyiv Independent spoke to two Ukrainian sailors who claim they unwittingly became p