Kremlin Calls Shadow Fleet Seizures ‘Piracy’ and Threatens Naval Response

The war in Ukraine has long since escaped the trenches of Donbas and the missile-scarred cities of the Black Sea coast. Sanctions, sabotage, cyber operations and energy coercion have transformed it into something broader: a systemic contest between Russia and the Western world. Now, The Kremlin is signalling that the next arena could be the open ocean.

On Tuesday, Nikolai Patrushev — one of Vladimir Putin’s closest confidants and chairman of Russia’s Maritime Board — warned that Moscow may deploy naval forces to prevent European countries from seizing Russian ships and could retaliate against Western commercial vessels if they do.

This was not an off-the-cuff remark from a peripheral official. Patrushev is a veteran security officer and intelligence figure who spent decades at the core of Russia’s power structure. He served as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008 and subsequently as secretary of Russia’s Security Council from 2008 until 2024 — a position widely regarded as one of the most influential in the Kremlin hierarchy.

He is also closely associated with the strategic decisions that defined Russia’s modern confrontation with the West, playing a significant role in the seizure and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in the preparations leading to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

When such a man speaks about naval retaliation, Western defence planners tend to listen.

The statement reflects a growing anxiety inside the Kremlin that the West is shifting from financial warfare to physical enforcement — and that maritime trade, the bloodstream of the global economy, may soon become militarised.

Western governments have imposed more than 30,000 sanctions on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, an unprecedented economic blockade designed to isolate Moscow from international commerce and choke its revenues. The strategy has evolved beyond banks and oligarchs. Increasingly it targets logistics: tankers, insurers, ports and shipping registries.

The immediate trigger for Patrushev’s remarks was the seizure in January of a Russian-flagged oil tanker by the United States, part of broader efforts to curtail sanctioned energy flows. Russia has responded with fury, with Putin describing such acts as piracy.

The language is telling. Moscow is framing sanctions enforcement not as legal action but as maritime aggression — and therefore something to be answered by naval power.

“If we don’t give them a tough rebuff,” Reuters reports Patrushev as stating, warned that Western countries could attempt to block Russia’s access to the seas, even in the Atlantic. He added that the navy remained “the best guarantee of safe navigation” and that substantial forces should be permanently deployed in key maritime regions.

This is a remarkable escalation in tone. Until recently, Russia’s naval posture has been largely defensive outside the Black Sea, where Ukrainian drones and missiles have already inflicted serious losses on its fleet. But the Kremlin now appears to be contemplating a doctrine of escort and deterrence — a convoy mentality reminiscent not of modern sanctions disputes, but of the 20th century’s great power confrontations.

The danger is obvious. Sanctions enforcement already operates in legally ambiguous waters. European authorities have increasingly inspected or detained vessels suspected of transporting Russian oil above the price cap or circumventing restrictions through so-called “shadow fleets.” Insurance documentation, ship-to-ship transfers and reflagging practices have become geopolitical matters.

In peacetime, such disputes are handled through courts and maritime arbitration. In wartime conditions, they risk becoming incidents.

One need not imagine a deliberate attack to see the peril. A single boarding attempt resisted by armed security, a warning shot misinterpreted, or an aggressive escort manoeuvre in crowded shipping lanes could trigger a confrontation between Russian naval vessels and NATO-aligned maritime authorities. And unlike tank battles on land, naval incidents unfold quickly and often irreversibly.

The location matters as much as the action. The Baltic Sea, North Sea and eastern Mediterranean are among the most densely trafficked waterways on Earth. They are also narrow, shallow and bordered by NATO members. The mere presence of Russian warships shadowing commercial convoys would raise tensions dramatically.

Europe faces a dilemma of its own making. Sanctions are effective precisely because they are enforced. Yet enforcement risks escalation. For two years, Western capitals have attempted to balance economic pressure with military caution — arming Ukraine while avoiding direct confrontation with Russia. Maritime interdiction threatens to blur that distinction.

Moscow, for its part, is exploiting the ambiguity. By warning it might retaliate against Western shipping, the Kremlin is not necessarily seeking naval battle. Rather, it is attempting deterrence: to make enforcement so risky that European governments hesitate.

It is a familiar Russian strategy — the same logic that underpins nuclear signalling and energy blackmail. Raise the stakes high enough and opponents self-restrain.

But there is also a structural reality. Russia’s economy is now deeply dependent on maritime exports, particularly oil redirected to Asia. If tankers are systematically intercepted, Moscow’s war financing could suffer significantly. From the Kremlin’s perspective, protecting shipping is not optional.

The irony is that both sides are acting defensively. Europe sees sanctions enforcement as necessary to prevent aggression. Russia sees interference with shipping as a direct threat to national survival. Each action feeds the other’s fear.

The result is a creeping naval confrontation no one formally declared and few openly acknowledge.

The war in Ukraine began with tanks crossing a border. Four years on, its logic has reached the oceans. Should the first clash occur — a seizure resisted, an escort challenged — historians may mark it as the moment the conflict ceased to be regional. It would become, unmistakably, a global one.