KSE found the west was still not sanctioning the core ships in the Russian shadow fleet. From January 2023 to June 2024, it said, 307 shadow tankers carried Russian crude oil at least once but only a subset, identified in the study as 45 tankers, operated consistently across all six quarters. It said that of this “core” shadow fleet only seven vessels have been sanctioned by the US, EU or UK.
The UK is also looking to see what more can be done to name and shame small, poor countries from developing ship registers that allow such vessels to fly under their flag. The landlocked African state of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, has agreed to dismantle its recent ship registers. It was declared a false operation by the International Maritime Organization earlier this year.
Blinken and Lammy are also likely to discuss Kyiv’s request for Ukraine to be allowed to fire UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles into Russia if necessary. The former UK defence secretary Grant Shapps has called for the west to shed its reluctance over Ukraine using such weaponry directly at Russia.
“We know that many attacks are launched from Russia itself. And yet, with the exception of our giving permission to allow UK missiles to strike Crimea, we have remained cautious about allowing our Ukrainian allies to target the source of these attacks,” he said at the weekend.
Shapps claimed the lack of authorisation for Ukraine to use Storm Shadows “where they would be most effective” undermined London’s credibility as an ally of Kyiv.
His remarks suggested there was a block on the use of the missiles, even though Starmer said in July it was up to Ukraine with regards how it decided to use the weapons.
Lammy and Blinken are also expected to discuss whether any security guarantees could be provided to Benjamin Netanyahu, to allay what the Israeli prime minister has said are his fears over withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor running along the Gaza-Egypt border. Cairo is insisting the Israel Defense Forces withdraw at the first stage of a ceasefire deal with Hamas. Netanyahu says Israeli forces must remain in the corridor to ensure further weapons are not smuggled into Gaza from Egypt for use by Hamas.
