Maritime security has always been a contest of perception as much as presence. This week, that contest came to the fore in one of the world’s most scrutinised and symbolically loaded waterways: the English Channel. In an event that risks being dismissed as routine but is anything but, the Russian Navy corvette Boikiy was confirmed to have actively escorted two tankers – Selva and Sierra – through the Channel to Russian Baltic ports. These are not just any tankers: both form part of the so-called “shadow fleet,” vessels operating in circumvention of Western oil sanctions on Russia.
On the surface, this may appear as little more than an assertive naval manoeuvre. In reality, it represents a strategic shift. For the first time in this conflict, a Russian warship has been observed directly protecting assets involved in sanctions evasion. This is not simply maritime logistics – it is messaging. And the intended recipients of that message are clear: Nato, the West, the UK, the G7 and any actor considering turning up the dial on practical enforcement of sanctions at sea.
The corvette in question, Boikiy, is a Steregushchiy-class vessel, already well known to the Royal Navy. Russian warships pass through the Channel frequently; such transits are usually escorted, often without fanfare. What marked this one out as different was not just that she was escorting the two tankers but that she was falsifying her Automated Identification System (AIS) transmissions whilst doing so. Warships are in fact exempt from the requirement to make AIS transmissions but they normally do so as a matter of professionalism in peacetime. Falsifying AIS is unusual, not to mention tactically naïve when in sight of land and being tracked by every radar in the area. The Russian messaging had already been achieved by the armed escort, the disinformation over their position was just odd.
Maritime security has always been a contest of perception as much as presence. This week, that contest came to the fore in one of the world’s most scrutinised and symbolically loaded waterways: the English Channel. In an event that risks being dismissed as routine but is anything but, the Russian Navy corvette Boikiy was confirmed to have actively escorted two tankers – Selva and Sierra – through the Channel to Russian Baltic ports. These are not just any tankers: both form part of the so-called “shadow fleet,” vessels operating in circumvention of Western oil sanctions on Russia.
On the surface, this may appear as little more than an assertive naval manoeuvre. In reality, it represents a strategic shift. For the first time in this conflict, a Russian warship has been observed directly protecting assets involved in sanctions evasion. This is not simply maritime logistics – it is messaging. And the intended recipients of that message are clear: Nato, the West, the UK, the G7 and any actor considering turning up the dial on practical enforcement of sanctions at sea.
The corvette in question, Boikiy, is a Steregushchiy-class vessel, already well known to the Royal Navy. Russian warships pass through the Channel frequently; such transits are usually escorted, often without fanfare. What marked this one out as different was not just that she was escorting the two tankers but that she was falsifying her Automated Identification System (AIS) transmissions whilst doing so. Warships are in fact exempt from the requirement to make AIS transmissions but they normally do so as a matter of professionalism in peacetime. Falsifying AIS is unusual, not to mention tactically naïve when in sight of land and being tracked by every radar in the area. The Russian messaging had already been achieved by the armed escort, the disinformation over their position was just odd.