Russian personnel with links to the country’s military and security services have engaged in spying in European waters while working covertly on ships carrying Russian oil, Western and Ukrainian intelligence.
In recent months, some of these ships – often registered to unrelated countries – have acquired extra crew members shortly before leaving port, according to Ukrainian intelligence. CNN has seen two crew lists for these vessels in which the staff is predominantly non-Russian – but the documents also feature a pair of Russian names, and their Russian passport details, at the bottom of the roster.
The addition of Russians with security backgrounds to the crews of the shadow fleet is causing alarm in European capitals as it illustrates how brazen the Kremlin’s tactics have become.
Speaking to multiple intelligence sources, CNN has established that several of these men are employed by a secretive Russian company called Moran Security. Some of them are mercenaries, they said, who have previously worked for Russia’s private military contractors, such as the notorious Wagner group.
Moran is a private security firm with ties to Russian military and intelligence, Western intelligence sources said. The firm was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2024 for providing “armed security services” for Russian state-owned enterprises to “intensify the pressure on Russia for its continued cruel and unprovoked war against Ukraine.”
Moran personnel have been placed on multiple tankers in Russia’s shadow fleet and are frequently the only Russians on board, according to both Ukrainian and Western intelligence sources.
Ukrainian intelligence said it observed the introduction of these guards on board the shadow fleet about six months ago.
One Western intelligence source added that, on one occasion, Moran personnel took photographs of European military installations from one of the shadow fleet vessels. The source would not provide further details.
The Russians on board are also tasked with keeping an eye on the ships’ captains because most of them are not Russian citizens, according to Oleksandr Stakhnevych of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
One Western intelligence source echoed that assessment, saying that “in Moran’s case, they are not engaged in direct conflict. They ensure that their contractors act in line with the Kremlin’s interests.”
The presence and activities of the Russians on board these ships are of growing concern to Europe’s security services given the number of vessels in the shadow fleet sailing close to the continent’s coastlines and the potential for espionage.
Security officials say that putting armed men with military backgrounds on these vessels is yet another tool in the Kremlin’s arsenal of hybrid warfare techniques designed to cause disruption in Europe. Intelligence sources also told CNN that these men have engaged in sabotage but did not provide further details.
“Having private armed groups onboard shadow fleet vessels is this classic plausible deniability,” Jacob Kaarsbo, a former Danish intelligence official, told CNN.
“Everyone with even half a clue knows that these guys take their orders from the Russian state but it’s hard to prove,” he added.
