Gabon: How a Tiny African Nation Runs Russia’s Shadow Fleet

Under foreign flags, Moscow sails ghosts on the water. Over the last several years, the nation of Russia has worked quietly to build a shadow fleet, a secretive pack of ships whose ties to Russia are murky at best and whose allegiances are nearly impossible to prove.

They carry oil, the lifeblood of the Russian economy, and a long mission to prop their home nation up despite sanctions that should have been crippling.

And ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine some two and a half years ago, Moscow's shadow fleet has grown to well over a thousand in number. But Russia's grand shadow fleet cannot operate all on its own. Russia needs sellers, it needs buyers, and most of all, it needs accomplices.