Putin’s Shadow Fleet and the Coming Sanctions War: Europe’s Moment of Truth

As Russia prepares to defy the next wave of sanctions with fighter jets, will the West finally show it’s willing to enforce its red lines?

It isn’t unusual.

The Kremlin routinely instructs state media on exactly how narratives should land. Russian state media hasn’t yet reached Foxian levels of propaganda, but the standing order remains: Do not attack Donald Trump. Do not touch the MAGA world.

But this isn’t routine either. When the Kremlin senses that an event threatens its carefully engineered control over a mind-slaved society, the directives don’t just trickle down—they fly left, right, and center. That’s when I know the Kremlin is worried.

This time, they are. And it shows.

Meduza, an independent news organization with deep roots inside Russia, got hold of the latest Kremlin directive to state media. It’s a revealing glimpse into just how rattled Moscow is right now. The directive Meduza uncovered leaves no doubt: the Kremlin isn’t preparing for peace—it’s conditioning the Russian public to brace for acute economic pain.

The manual doesn’t just dictate what to say. It tells state media exactly how to think ahead. Talk early and often about a “new package of sanctions,” it says—but insist that these sanctions won’t hurt Russia, because the country is “successfully coping with the challenges of any sanctions.”

At the same time they were instructed to push the line that Ukraine is negotiating from a “weaker position” than three years ago—never mind the obvious fact that Russia controls less Ukrainian territory today and its military is bleeding out. This isn’t just spin. It’s a preemptive psychological shield—designed to inoculate the Russian public against bad news before it arrives.

That’s pretty revealing, isn’t it? The entire Istanbul charade—this pretense of “let’s talk to Ukraine directly”—was manufactured by Putin to stall or delay the next sanctions package. It’s a desperate attempt to prevent the Trump administration from aligning with the EU on new sanctions.

But why all this fear over sanctions? What could a 17th or even 18th EU sanctions package achieve that the first 16 couldn’t?

Well, quite a lot. A whole lot of damage.

Torbjörn Becker from the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics laid it out bluntly to EU finance ministers this week: “Russia claims inflation is at 9–10%. So why is the central bank’s policy rate sitting at 21%? Which serious central bank runs a rate 11.5 percentage points above inflation? If any of ours did that, they’d be out of a job the next day.”

His point is simple—the Kremlin is cooking the books. Understate inflation, and you magically inflate GDP. But the real economy tells a different story: collapsing revenues from oil, gas, and coal, ballooning military spending, and fiscal deficits likely twice as high as the Kremlin admits.

And Becker is spot on. Things are already bad. Crude oil prices aren’t bouncing back anytime soon.

You may have noticed that some of the recession fears in the United States have faded—but oil prices haven’t budged. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude is holding at $61.49 per barrel as of this writing, down sharply from over $70 in January.

That’s no accident. OPEC has cranked up production sharply, deliberately keeping prices low. And for Russia—a so-called “energy superpower”—that’s a slow bleed. A wound that sanctions can turn into a financial hemorrhage.

Russia lives and dies by its daily oil revenue. With financial reserves already running low, the oil price decline since January has already delivered a major shock to the system. And the longer prices hover where they are now, the harder it becomes to even manage basic cash flow.

But it gets worse. If Europe and the U.S. join forces and start targeting Russian oil tankers—the so-called shadow fleet hauling crude without valid insurance—Russia could be staring at another 5 to 10 percent hit on daily revenue.

And that threat isn’t hypothetical. French President Emmanuel Macron made it perfectly clear in his interview this week: Europe is now preparing a new package of measures targeting “financial services, and oil, on secondary sellers”—in direct coordination with Washington.

Notice that phrase: secondary sellers.

That’s the weak link in Russia’s shadow oil game. Hit them hard enough, and it sends a chilling effect through the entire network. Done right, it could deliver a short, sharp financial jolt straight into the Kremlin’s cash flow.

And make no mistake—Putin knows it. That’s why he’s already preparing the media to control the fallout. But he’s not just preparing to spin it. He’s preparing to fight it. His plan is to bully European nations into backing down from enforcing sanctions when the moment comes.

And that moment arrived in Estonian waters on May 13, 2025.

The Estonian Navy intercepted the Gabon-flagged oil tanker Jaguar, a classic shadow fleet operator—sailing without a flag and lacking proper insurance. Estonian authorities moved to inspect, but the tanker refused to comply and pushed toward Russian waters.

In response, Moscow sent a Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet, which briefly violated Estonian airspace near the Juminda Peninsula—flying without a filed flight plan, with its transponder off, and maintaining zero radio contact.

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The confrontation in Estonian waters on May 13, 2025: The Gabon-flagged tanker Jaguar (top-left), a key vessel in Russia’s shadow fleet, refuses inspection as Estonian naval forces intercept (top-right). Russian air power escalates the standoff—a Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jet is spotted approaching at low altitude (bottom-left), before briefly violating Estonian airspace (bottom-right). This is how Putin plans to shield his shadow fleet—with his warplanes.

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The incident forced NATO to scramble Portuguese F-16s from Ämari Air Base under the Baltic Air Policing mission. Faced with the real risk of military escalation, Estonia chose not to board the tanker. Instead, they escorted the Jaguar out of their waters. The vessel later dropped anchor near Gogland Island, safely back under Russian protection.

Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Russian chargé d’affaires and lodged a formal protest. But let’s be clear—that was an opportunity wasted. And Putin knows it. He’s sitting back right now, convinced he can run this play again and again—send his jets, shield his shadow fleet, and dare Europe to act.

And what does Europe do? Deliver protests in well-heated diplomatic offices while Putin tests their airspace with armed aircraft flying dark and silent.

As the late John McCain famously put it,

There is only one playbook Putin respects—the one written by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On November 24, 2015, when a Russian Su-24M bomber violated Turkish airspace, Turkey shot it down without hesitation. Russia screamed denials, claimed the jet never crossed the border—but the point was made.

Loud and clear.

Wikipedia

Now do you see why Putin’s jets fly with their transponders off and radios silent? He’s already rehearsed the propaganda script for his mind-slaved society: “They provoked us. We did nothing wrong.”

So yes, to some extent, I understand why Europe held its fire. But if you choose not to pull the trigger, you must explain why.

Macron. Starmer. NATO leadership. Someone must stand before Europe and say this openly: This is what Putin is doing. This is how he plans to spin it. And this is why the next time it happens, the outcome will be different.

Hold that press conference. Brief the world. Make it clear that the next Russian jet violating European airspace will not return home. And when Putin sends his next test flight—because he absolutely will—make sure it disappears from the sky.

That’s the only language Moscow understands.

Make no mistake—Putin isn’t just waiting for the next round of sanctions; he’s already preparing to defy them. His plan is clear: flood the seas with his shadow fleet, hide behind legal loopholes and uninsured tankers, and when enforcement comes knocking, send in the fighter jets. And every time his jets are allowed to shield those tankers and return unchallenged, he grows bolder.

If Europe and the U.S. are serious about ending Russia’s shadow economy and cutting off its war financing, they must be equally serious about enforcing their own sanctions—with power, not paperwork. The next time Putin sends his jets to protect his ghost ships, the West must be ready with a simple, final message: It will cost you $35 million.

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