The boarding opening the flag closes
The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air wrote that between January 2025 and June the Russian ship registry grew 36 per cent, from 280 vessels to 382. Of the 107 ships that joined, 87 per cent were already under sanctions. 72 of those 107 ships had carried 7.5 billion euros of Russian fossil fuels by the end of the period. The cargo's destination did not change. The flag over the cargo did.[1]
False-flag shadow vessels stood at 101 in October 2025 and at 45 by the end of June. CREA reads that drop together with detentions of ships that had no lawful flag. A false flag leaves the tanker legally stateless. That was the opening European navies boarded through. UNCLOS Article 94 requires a flag state to exercise jurisdiction. CREA writes that the Russian flag confers legal standing without maritime governance.[1]
3 ships in June
Monthly additions were 25 ships in December 2025 and 3 ships in June. 56 per cent of those that joined after January 2025 had flown at least one false flag before the Russian registry. The LNG carrier Arctic Metagaz drifted with 60,000 tonnes after a March explosion while Russia mounted no salvage. The flag gave the ship a registry. Coastal states were left with the wreck.[1]
The Russian flag raises the cost of a boarding practice written for a stateless ship, because a registry is a flag-state claim that a false flag does not supply. The other reading also stands: 3 ships in June show that hulls willing to switch are running out. If the next published month stays around 3, the exhaustion reading strengthens. If that month returns to the December 2025 pace of 25, the reading that the shield still has hulls to take strengthens.[1]