US destroys 5 Iranian oil tankers, 3 linked to Russia's shadow fleet, Ukrainian official says

The U.S. military destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers on Sept. 8, three of which have ties to Russia's shadow fleet, Ukraine's sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said in a comment shared with the Kyiv Independent.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) on Sept. 9 said its forces struck the five vessels in response to attempts by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to target a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles.

The five vessels were the Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1 and Riesco in the Gulf of Oman, as well as the Derya near Iran's Kharg Island. U.S. forces instructed the crews to abandon the vessels before striking them, CENTCOM said.

Three of the tankers, the Kaviz, Charminar, and Riesco, have direct links to Russia's shadow fleet and have been involved in transporting Russian oil, Vlasiuk said.

The Kaviz had called at the Russian ports of Ust-Luga and Novorossiysk and transported Russian oil, according to Vlasiuk. He added that the vessel had repeatedly switched off its Automatic Identification System (AIS), which ships use to broadcast information including their location and identity.

According to Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), the Kaviz was previously affiliated with Fractal Marine DMCC, a company sanctioned by the U.K. for servicing Russia's energy sector and identified by HUR as a key operator of Russia's shadow fleet. HUR also lists the tanker as sanctioned by the U.S., Ukraine, the EU, Switzerland, the U.K. and Canada.

The Charminar had previously called at the Russian ports of Ust-Luga, Primorsk, Vysotsk and St. Petersburg, Vlasiuk said.

HUR lists the Charminar as having been involved in exports of Russian crude and petroleum products and links the vessel to Fractal Marine DMCC. The vessel has also been linked to a shipping network associated with Iranian oil trader Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, who trades in both Russian and Iranian oil, Vlasiuk said.

The third vessel, the Riesco, has likewise transported Russian and Iranian crude and petroleum products, including through ship-to-ship transfers with sanctioned vessels, according to HUR. The tanker has been under U.S. sanctions since November 2025 and Ukrainian sanctions since February 2026.

CENTCOM published footage showing the Riesco sinking in the Gulf of Oman following the strike.

Russia's shadow fleet is a network of vessels used to move sanctioned Russian oil around the world, at the same time obscuring ownership to avoid Western restrictions. HUR's register had identified more than 1,400 such vessels as of May 2026, many of them aging ships sailing under third-country flags.

The fleet has become a crucial source of revenue for Moscow, with estimates suggesting it carries about 75% of Russia's sanctioned oil and helps generate income used to fund the Kremlin's war against Ukraine.