In March 2024, we investigated the situation with the refrigerated cargo ship “Avunda Reefer”, after the death of nineteen-year-old Ivan Litvinov from Sevastopol on board that vessel under the flag of Panama.
We wrote that the crew of the “Avunda Reefer,” number IMO 9072824, of 7313 gross tons, actually included several Crimean residents, that the vessel had such a “Maltese ship owner” as “Yustat Group Ltd.,” and that the owner is a Panama company “Lilium Shipping CO. S.A”, as a gasket for the large Greek company “Laskaridis Maritime S.A.”, which in turn is a shipping company “industry” of the Greek corporation “Alimia Group” of Greek tycoon Panos Laskaridis.
We wrote about connections of “Lilium Shipping CO. S.A” with “Yugreftransflot” JSC from St.Petersburg, whose member of the company’s board of directors, Viktor Kot, stated in 2022, that “the multi-purpose arctic dual-purpose transport refrigerator of the “Ivan Papanin” type,” being developed by “Yugreftransflot”, “can be equipped with the Caliber-K container missile system”.
We pointed out that before the occupation of Crimea, “Yugreftransflot” itself was registered as a Ukrainian enterprise and that the connections between the St. Petersburg-based “Yugreftransflot,” Sevastopol, and “Lilium Shipping CO. S.A.” are quite obvious.
And in 2025 we wrote about the close and long-term cooperation of “Sevastopol crewing agencies” with shipping companies of the same Panos Laskaridis, such as “Lavinia Corp”, and about their connections with the Russian “shadow” tanker fleet. Relevant information was sent by us to structures of the Council of Europe, the European Union, BSEC, OSCE, ILO, FAO, and IMO, to the ITF structures and Memorandums of Understanding of port control; and also to the sanctions units of the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and to the national maritime administrations of civilized states.
And on November 14, “Arctic Today” and “Independent Barents Observer” made publications with reference to our last-year research, as the “Avunda Reefer” for more than two weeks has crisscrossed in the Barents Sea. On the publication date, the ship had a course for Bear Island, the island located halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the Svalbard archipelago.
Current publications point out that this refrigerated cargo ship has Russian owner interests with links to occupant forces in Crimea and that the ship has over the past five years operated mostly in West Africa and East Asia.
“The ‘Avunda Reefer’ sails under the flag of Panama and is officially managed by the ‘Yustat Group,’ an entity registered in Malta. But the actual owners of the reefer, as well as its five sister ships, are located in Russia… the ‘Avunda Reefer’ and its owners are part of an international fish mafia network”, “Arctic Today” stressed.
Publication confirms that “since 2015, the ship has been owned by the Lilium Shipping Company. The same year, the ship management was taken over by Yugreftransflot, a company originally established in Sevastopol in 1994”, and “a key person behind the development of the ‘Yugreftransflot’ is Viktor Kot. Kot is a veteran in the Russian shipping industry. He is also member of a Russian state working group on development of ships designed for sailing in the Arctic”.
Confirming our investigation conclusions about the “refrigerated transport ships developed by ‘Yugreftransflot’ can carry containers with the Kalibr-K missile system and thus complement naval vessels in the Arctic”, “Arctic Today” adds that “Kot recalls how he and his company built cooperation between the ports of Sevastopol and Tartus, Syria” and that “the ‘Yugreftransflot’ and the ‘Yustat Group’ are mentioned in the Paradise Papers, a 2017 leak of 13.4 million documents detailing the offshore financial arrangements of politicians, corporations, and wealthy individuals”.
“Arctic Today” adds that the “Avunda Reefer” and the “Lilium Shipping” are mentioned in a report by “Greenpeace” dated 2020 on illegal transshipment at sea of fish, and that the “Greenpeace” report connects them to the Lavinia Corporation, a Greek company owned by the Laskaridis brothers.
So the usage by Russians of refrigerated cargo ships as possible carriers of the “Kalibr-K” missile system confirms the role of the international fishery mafia, obviously linked with Sevastopol and the Greek tycoon Panos Laskaridis, as a proxy of Russian intelligence services and as a tool of hybrid Russian naval aggression in various regions, including the Arctic.
