In July and August, seven tankers loaded more than 176 000 tons of diesel fuel into several South Korean ports, bound for Russia. Three of these vessels are under UK and EU sanctions, and the tankers made a total of 14 trips to the Russian Far East.
This is reported by The Guardian, citing an analysis of port records and ship tracking data.
According to journalists, one of the tankers received its cargo via ship-to-ship transshipment in South Korean waters — a method that helps conceal the origin of the cargo and allows ships to avoid calling at port terminals.
The largest carrier — “the Layla”, a subsea tanker — made two voyages from the Korean port of Ulsan to Vladivostok, on July 19 and August 10. It carried a total of 57 000 tons of diesel. On the first voyage, the vessel told Suel that its destination was Vladivostok, but on the second voyage, it indicated that it was heading to Niigata, Japan.
The tanker Astoria, which is under Australian sanctions, loaded almost 11 000 tons of fuel in Ulsan on August 1, indicating Japan as its destination, but headed for Vladivostok.
According to marine analytics company “Kpler”, buyers included Russian oil company “Rosneft”, Russian oil group NNK, and one of its companies NNK-Oil.
Although the fuel trade involves sanctioned vessels, it does not violate South Korean law, the media added. South Koreaʼs restrictions against Russia mostly concern export controls on goods such as industrial equipment, electronics and vehicles.
Journalists noticed that loading volumes at South Korean ports began to increase sharply in July — just when the countryʼs President Lee Jae Myung promised to allocate $100 million for the reconstruction of Ukraine during the NATO summit in Turkey.
South Koreaʼs Foreign Ministry told reporters that the country has expanded export controls on Russia under the Foreign Trade Act, including adding 1 402 items with high potential for military use to the list of restrictions. It did not respond to questions about the sanctioned tankers.
- South Korea is trying to balance its support for Ukraine with its desire to improve relations with Russia, The Guardian reports. Since the beginning of 2022, Seoul has not directly supplied weapons to Ukraine, adhering to its practice of not supplying lethal weapons to countries at war.
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