With his shaved head, thick neck, and heavy jaw, Andrei has the look of a man built to intimidate.
His professional background matches that impression. Andrei’s resume describes him as a former commander in an elite Russian airborne unit who served in “combat operations” in Chechnya, worked as a personal bodyguard, and later held senior corporate security roles.
More recently, however, he had an altogether different mission: ensuring that tankers carrying sanctioned Russian oil reached their foreign destinations.
His job, he says, was to “to watch, to report in a timely manner — and, let’s say, to not allow the vessel to deviate from its course.”
Strained by its grinding war on Ukraine, Moscow desperately needs this so-called “shadow fleet” of aging and opaquely-owned vessels to keep delivering its oil to clients around the world. In March, an investigation by OCCRP, Delfi Estonia, Helsingin Sanomat, and iStories laid out in detail how Russian crew members with security backgrounds, like Andrei, were covertly being placed on board alongside largely foreign crews.
Now, OCCRP has joined a consortium of European media outlets led by Follow the Money and Dossier Center to identify dozens more of the men, map the routes they took, and speak to several of them first-hand.
Though often listed as “technicians” or “supernumeraries” on crew lists, their backgrounds are already an indication that they were not normal sailors. A combination of leaked data and open-source research shows that many are veterans of the Russian military, private military companies, or former state security personnel.
By posing as recruiters seeking security guards for upcoming shadow fleet voyages, reporters managed to speak with Andrei (a pseudonym) and three other men to learn more about their experiences on board. The men said that chief among their tasks was keeping an eye on the foreign captains and crews manning the ships, particularly in situations where there was a danger of being boarded.
Reporters used an undercover approach because the watchmen's work was shrouded in secrecy and because they distrust Western media. Though most of the names in this story are real, reporters used pseudonyms for those quoted from undercover conversations.
Over the past year, European authorities have intercepted tankers belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet on a handful of occasions, often for flying a false flag or for being suspected of damaging undersea cables .
In these situations, Andrei explained in a video call with a “recruiter,” some captains have “behaved correctly” while others “gave in.” His mission, he said, was to “ensure that such incorrect actions did not take place.”
Andrei said his duties also included keeping his superiors, whom he did not identify, apprised of his vessel’s location, speed, and direction in twice-daily reports. And “naturally,” he said, he was to make an “immediate report” in the event of any emergency.
The interception of the oil tanker Kiwala by the Estonian Navy in the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea) on April 11, 2025 as it sailed toward the Russian port of Ust-Luga.
Another watchman, Mikhail, said that he had graduated from a leading officer training center for Russia’s Airborne Forces and spent eight years in Syria heading a personal security detail for a private military contractor. Though registered on board a sanctioned vessel as a “technician,” his job, he said, involved “monitoring the crew, the captain, and the first mate.”
“I was finding out who was snitching, who they were working for, what information was coming from the ship to shore,” Mikhail said. “To the Indian authorities, or maybe even to NATO countries.”
The men also revealed more quotidian details about their time at sea, complaining about spicy food cooked by an Indian crew and bedbug infestations.
“When I board the ship, I'm happy with everything. The cabin is clean,” Mikhail said. “And then a week later, I find that I've started waking up covered in bites, and there are blood stains on the sheets.”
“This job, it turns into hell,” he said. “A real hell.”
A European intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the findings tally with his assessment of the watchmen’s primary task: “to keep the captain in check.”
Their role, he said, is “to ensure captains don't lose their nerve and enter the territorial waters of Western nations. If they don't enter, Western countries can't do anything.”
Michelle Bockman, a London-based maritime intelligence analyst specializing in sanctioned oil flows, noted that ships sometimes carry armed guards in areas where piracy is a threat. But the “constant” deployment of men who have worked for state-linked security companies, such as the former mercenary outfit Wagner Group, is “a really concerning blurring of military and commercial,” she said.
The Russian navy and President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, did not respond to requests for comment. Given the opportunity to provide o…
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