On March 10, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a reputable international anti-corruption organization registered in the Netherlands, published a systematic investigation into Russian citizens permanently stationed on vessels of the aggressor’s shadow fleet, in addition to regular crew members.
The investigation confirmed the presence of at least two “crew members” on each Russian fleet tanker who had no assigned seagoing duties and had experience serving in the Russian military or in Russian-controlled terrorist organizations like “Wagner”; they were often the only Russian citizens on board in a multinational crew.
As a reminder, in January, our Association published a report on this matter, citing numerous examples, including the “Crimean connection,” that the systematic inclusion of individuals who do not perform actual seafarer duties but rather carry out tasks for Russian special services into the crews of the Russian tanker fleet is occurring with the systematic assistance of Russian-controlled crewing agencies and maritime trade unions.
We wrote that such actions grossly violate the requirements of the Maritime Labor Convention (MLC) and the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping Convention
(STCW) and, at the same time, contradict the very definition of a merchant ship under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, turning tankers in the shadow fleet into auxiliary naval vessels for Russia.
Subsequently, the European Commission and a number of jurisdictions in civilized countries responded to our appeals on this matter.
In the current OCCRP investigation, not only are the fake sailors being verified, but they are also being interviewed for comment.
Notably, researchers from this organization identified “former” Russian Aerospace Forces pilots Dmitry Frolov and Juri Tsvetkov among the crew of the tanker “Kira K,” IMO number 9346720, in August 2025.
And in our investigation, we established the presence of Alexandr Malakhov and Viktor Alexandrov, members of the “Wagner” terrorist group and the war in Ukraine, on the same tanker in October 2025.
