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 sources exclusively told CNN.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has built up a so-called shadow fleet of hundreds of tankers. These vessels carry Russia’s oil from its Baltic and Black Sea ports despite Western sanctions, earning the Kremlin hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
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…