GERMAN Federal Police forced a fraudulently flagged shadow fleet* tanker to exit the Baltic earlier this week, signalling a significant shift towards direct intervention against the increasing flow of stateless tankers loading Russian oil.

The decision to block access to German territorial waters for the tanker Tavian (IMO: 1095337) — a vessel with known multiple fake digital identities and currently using a fake Cameroon registration — is one of the first known instances of a vessel linked to Russia’s shadow fleet being directly barred from the area.

Germany’s robust move against Tavian comes as the UK has told its European allies that it is ready to intercept shadow fleet vessels which “pose a systemic threat to maritime security globally”.

A week after British armed forces supported the US seizure of a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic, UK Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said on Wednesday that Britain was prepared to work with EU partners on enforcement, promising “stronger action” to break the shadow fleet’s “chokehold”.

Cooper made the comments during a demonstration on board a Finnish Border Guard ship that was showcasing a mock operation to seize a ship in the Baltic.   

The ramped-up rhetoric from the UK comes as EU officials are discussing their next package of sanctions, which Lloyd’s List understands will include tightened restrictions targeting shadow fleet vessels passing through EU waters, in addition to a lowered oil price cap.

It also comes amid growing concern from Baltic states that the volume of fraudulently flagged tankers passing their coastlines has significantly increased over recent months.

“The number of vessels with fraudulent flags has increased significantly compared to three to four months ago,” a spokesperson for the Estonian Defence Forces told Lloyd’s List in a statement.

Tavian, which appears on Lloyd’s List Intelligence’s shadow fleet watchlist, is also believed to be using multiple identities by switching its IMO and MMSI numbers.

The tanker sailed through the Kattegat towards German waters on January 11, before making an abrupt U-turn at around 1835 hrs that day and heading back towards the North Sea.

Tavian is now travelling north through the Norwegian Sea, likely towards one of Russia’s Arctic ports.

German media outlet Tagesschau said German police dispatched a helicopter to Tavian and asked to see the vessel’s registration document.

It was after the federal police ascertained that the tanker was sailing under a false flag and had forged its identity that it was ordered not to enter German waters, and subsequently made the U-turn, Tagesschau reported.

The German Federal Police told Lloyd’s List it could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

While several EU states have been pushing for a more aggressive stance towards interdicting stateless tankers moving through EU waters, to date states have avoided vessel boardings outside of a handful of specific cases where tight legal justification was sought in advance.

Technically the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea allows boarding of stateless vessels. However, political concerns regarding Russian reprisals in the Baltic have allowed a steady of flow of tankers with no official certification to sail unchecked beyond requests to provide known fake certificates.

Head of the Center for Maritime Strategy and Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, Johannes Peters, said Germany and its peers still wanted to remain within UNCLOS, but were now waking up to the fact it can be used to their advantage.

Preventing Tavian from entering German waters in this case was sticking to the letter of UNCLOS. Rather than being hindered by the law, Peters said Germany was now being empowered by it.

“We have to actually see, are there any legal frameworks in place that can give us leverage on this ship? It may be protection of the marine ecosystem, it may be flag state regulations, but I think that there seems to be the political will to actually try to exploit every legal means we have to get tough on the ship,” he told Lloyd’s List.

The shift of political will, not just in Germany but across Europe, to take a more direct approach in interdicting Russia’s shadow fleet in the Baltic has been marked.

President Macron of France last year said he and his fellow European leaders would pursue a “policy of obstruction” against shadow fleet vessels in European waters, however action has been slow to follow.

A “code of practice” was spearheaded by Estonia, and Lloyd’s List understands that the UK has been liaising directly with France, Finland and Norway regarding Baltic enforcement, but as yet, no details have emerged.

But Germany could have a particularly interesting role, Peters said, given that the Kadet Trench, a channel of deep water in the otherwise fairly shallow Baltic Sea that most tankers have to use on their way in or out of the Kattegat, runs partly through its waters.

It’s probably taken nine months for new personnel to bed in since Germany’s government changed 2025, Peters suggested, but nonetheless there has been a shift of political will to “get as tough on the shadow fleet as possible”. 

Were Tavian flagged legitimately, or even Russia-flagged, Peters is confident it would not have had its voyage disrupted. It’s there that EU doctrine differs to Washington’s, which showed little restraint when boarding and seizing Marinera last week.