The Mystery of the Bella 1: Why Did Moscow Mount a "Spetsoperatsiia" to Save a Stateless Shadow Tanker?
Moscow’s flagging of the Bella 1 wasn’t about arms or saving Russia’s fleet. It was part of a wider bid to break the Venezuelan oil embargo and gain leverage on the US—likely for use against Ukraine.
Summary: Engineering a Crisis in a Bid for Leverage
This report examines Moscow’s motives for trying to prevent U.S. authorities from seizing the oil tanker Bella 1 at the start of the Venezuelan oil blockade. To date, explanations have centered on two theories: that the Bella 1 was covertly transporting Russian arms, or that Moscow was simply safeguarding its shadow fleet.
As this report shows, neither theory stands up to scrutiny. Instead, the evidence indicates that the Bella 1 was part of a broader, more ambitious Russian reflagging operation involving nearly a dozen tankers then off the Venezuelan coast. Its aim: to muster a “spoiler” fleet of Russian-flagged tankers immune to U.S. seizure and capable of thwarting Washington’s effort to blockade Venezuelan oil. How Moscow hoped to use that capability remains unclear: to support an embattled ally? Or, perhaps, as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Washington over Ukraine.
In the end, Moscow’s gambit failed—in part because of poor judgement and flawed execution, but also bad luck. Instead of providing Moscow more leverage, it further eroded the credibility of Russian red lines.
This episode fits into a broader pattern of ill‑considered Kremlin operations designed to manufacture leverage over Western adversaries by engineering artificial crises. We should expect more stage‑managed crises, as Moscow increasingly views bargaining with Kyiv’s allies as its best hope for securing an advantageous way out of its Ukrainian quagmire.
Foiling Russian gambits—lessons from the Bella 1 affair
The failure of the Kremlin’s operation offers policymakers useful insights into how to blunt the impact of Russian provocations:
recognize these operations for what they are—improvised, speculative gambles by an overstretched regime seeking to gain leverage at minimal cost;
avoid buying into a manufactured “crisis” narrative. Moscow is counting on public alarm to push policymakers toward concessions they don’t need to make;
be skeptical about the credibility of Moscow’s red lines. With resources strained, Moscow is increasingly resorting to hollow threats; and
seek solutions that avoid rewarding Moscow for engineering crises merely to resolve them.
About the author
The author is an historian, energy analyst, and retired international investment banker. He spent more than 20 years with Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was a Vice Chairman. During his career in finance, he gained extensive experience negotiating with Russian corporate executives and government officials. He is affiliated with Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and currently writes on Russian energy, finance and political history. Since 2022, has also been conducting a longitudinal study of Russia’s shadow fleet.
Table of contents
Introduction: Why did Moscow Reflag the Bella 1?
Part 1: Clouds on the Horizon — The Skipper’s Arrest Bodes Ill for the Bella 1
Part 2: A Spoiler-State Move—Moscow’s Special Operation to Reflag the Bella 1
Part 3. Moscow’s Motives for Saving the Bella 1—Prevailing Theories Debunked
Part 4: Mystery Unraveled—The Bella 1’s Reflagging was Part of a Broader Scheme
Part 5: Moscow’s Ultimate Aim—Solidarity with Caracas or Bargaining Power over Ukraine?
Part 6: Could a Russian-flagged Fleet Have Defied the U.S. Blockade? Kremlin Blunders Weakened its Chances.
Conclusion: Russian Gambits and How to Foil Them—Lessons from the Bella 1 Affair.
Appendix: Moscow’s Venezuelan “Spoiler” Fleet
Introduction: Why did Moscow Reflag the Bella 1?
For Russia it’s a very important thing, because if there will be [an] attack [on the Bella 1] from [the] US it will be considered as [an] attack on Russia and it could lead to [a] very critical or maybe even [a] crisis situation between Russia and [the] US. The problem today is much more than this, because already 5 tankers near, which are standing near [sic] Venezuela raised the Russian flag and declared that they are Russian. So, it might make the whole picture more complicated…
Andrei Fedorov, member of Vladimir Putin’s advisory team and a former Deputy Foreign Minister, in a January 2026 BBC radio interview.
The Bella 1 raises the Russian flag.
In the closing days of December, as the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Munro shadowed the fugitive Bella 1 deep into the Atlantic, the crew of the 23‑year‑old tanker broke out paint from the ship’s stores and sloppily emblazoned the Russian tricolor across its hull. For the officers aboard the U.S. vessel, the intended meaning would have been unmistakable: Russia has asserted it exclusive sovereign jurisdiction over the Bella 1. Any party with a grievance must now seek redress through Moscow.
Put more simply: the Bella 1 was now under Russian flag protection; stand down.
Moscow’s attempt to rescue the Bella 1 by hastily reflagging it to Russia bore the hallmarks of a Kremlin-run special operation
On learning of this dramatic turn of events, two questions immediately came to mind. Had Moscow, indeed, extended its flag protection to the fugitive Bella 1? If yes, why?
The events that followed soon left no doubt about the first question: not only had Moscow extended its flag protection to the Bella 1, but it was also taking a range of additional measures to deter the U.S. from seizing the vessel. These included:
hastily generating “Russian” bona fides for the vessel—the purchase of the vessel by a Russian company, acceptance into Russia’s flag registry, issuance of a Russian vessel survey certification, etc.—all aimed at bolstering Moscow’s claim of a legitimate interest in the Bella 1;
lodging formal diplomatic protests with Washington asserting Russia’s exclusive jurisdiction over the vessel;
putting senior officials in front of Western media to draw red lines and warn of an impending “crisis situation;” and
deploying a Russian naval escort to back up its red-line threats.
To anyone familiar with the workings of the Russian state, the rapid deployment of such a substantial range of state resources bore the hallmarks of a Kremlin‑run spetsoperatsiia (special operation)—one requiring authorization at the highest levels.
Current theories about Moscow’s motives center on arms smuggling or protecting Russia’s shadow fleet. Neither, however, stands up to scrutiny.
These extraordinary efforts make the second question all the more compelling: why was Moscow doing this? Why all this effort to protect a vintage, OFAC‑sanctioned tanker, with little intrinsic value, no oil in its tanks, and no apparent prior ties to Russia?
Explanations of Moscow’s motives have centered on two theories: that the Bella 1 was covertly transporting Russian arms, or that Moscow was simply safeguarding its shadow fleet. On closer inspection, however, neither explanation holds up to scrutiny.
Instead, the reflagging appears to be part of a broader, more ambitious scheme designed to thwart the Venezuelan oil blockade and, potentially, gain leverage in ongoing negotiations with Washington over Ukraine.
Instead, the evidence points to an altogether different motive. As this report shows, Moscow’s efforts around the Bella 1 were part of a much broader, more ambitious reflagging operation—encompassing at least ten other tankers off the Venezuelan coast. This operation looks designed to muster a fleet capable of challenging Washington’s blockade of Venezuelan oil. If successful, it had the potential to be quickly scaled up.
Initially, Moscow’s operation had a slim chance of success—made slimmer by Kremlin blunders. It unraveled when Caracas agreed to coordinate oil exports with Washington.
The operation had a conceivable pathway to success—at least initially. Analysis suggests that U.S. tanker seizures were following restrictive targeting criteria, and a laden tanker under undisputed, exclusive Russian jurisdiction might not necessarily be seized. The arrest of the Bella 1 should not be read as evidence to the contrary, since the U.S. likely viewed Russia’s claims of exclusive jurisdiction to be impaired by prior U.S. enforcement claims.
But Kremlin blunders hurt the broader operation’s chances of success. While Caracas’s decision to coordinate oil exports with Washington led to the ultimate failure of Moscow’s scheme.
How Moscow might have used a blockade-breaking capacity remains unclear. Perhaps to support an embattled ally. Or perhaps as a valuable bargaining chip in ongoing negotiations over Ukraine.
Report overview
This report maps out the broader contours of Moscow’s special operation to develop a blockade-disruption capability.
Part 1 provides some background on the Bella 1 and how it came to be in harm’s way.
Part 2 details the three phases of the special operation: establishing the Bella 1’s “Russian credentials,” issuing red-line threats and backing those up with military force.
Part 3 debunks the two prevailing theories explaining Moscow’s motive for trying to rescue the Bella 1.
Part 4 shows that Moscow’s special operation to extend flag protection went well beyond the Bella 1, encompassing at least ten other tankers off the Venezuelan coast, and that its aim was to assemble a fleet capable of circumventing the U.S. blockade with impunity.
In Part 5, the report speculates that, had the operation succeeded, Moscow could have employed this blockade‑breaking capability either to support an embattled ally or as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Washington over Ukraine.
Part 6 shows Moscow’s operation had a conceivable pathway to success, although it narrowed by blunders in execution.
The Conclusion warns of further Russian efforts to gain leverage through manufactured “crises” and draws lessons from the Bella 1 affair on countering Russian gambits.
Part 1: Clouds on the Horizon — The Skipper’s Arrest Bodes Ill for the Bella 1
The first sign that trouble might be brewing for the Bella 1 came on December 11th, as it was steaming in ballast westward across the Atlantic. That’s when news broke that U.S. forces had seized the Skipper, a 20-year-old crude carrier that had just lifted a cargo out of Venezuela (see figure 1).
The Bella 1 and the Skipper bore much in common: both were falsely flagged tankers far past their prime and subject to U.S. sanctions for transporting Iranian oil.
The Bella 1 and the Skipper had much in common. Both vessels had spent nearly all their service lives with established operators in the mainstream fleet. And both had now reached an age when many tankers have already been sold for scrap.
But as sometimes happens in a tanker’s twilight years, the Bella 1 and the Skipper found themselves under new managers intent on squeezing out a few more years of profit by employing them in the Iranian shadow trade. That trade mostly involves covertly transporting oil from the Persian Gulf to a cohort of risk-friendly, independent refiners in China.
OFAC sanctions had limited the commercial prospects of both tankers.
Before long, both tankers found themselves sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for helping finance Hizballah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. While an OFAC listing didn’t put them out of business entirely, it severely limited their commercial prospects. Shipping databases show flag registries increasingly shunned them. In time, they each resorted to flying a false Guyanese flag. This meant they claimed to be on Guyana’s national shipping registry, when, in fact, they weren’t. No valid flag means a tanker is “stateless” under maritime law, which makes it vulnerable on the high seas. Third countries can board the vessel and claim jurisdiction over it.
In addition to losing their flags, both the Skipper and the Bella 1 had also lost their “class renewal” certifications. A class renewal survey is a critical document issued every few years by specially accredited “classification societies.” It confirms that the vessel complies with an extensive set of technical safety standards set by the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) in conjunction with the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Even shadow tankers try to maintain a valid “class renewal” survey, since without one, they lose the ability to berth at oil terminals around the world—including many in China.
Both vessels also had the bad luck to be approaching Venezuela just as the U.S. was imposing its oil blockade.
With their commercial prospects diminished, the Skipper and the Bella 1 did something many tankers in the Iran trade do from time to time: they headed across the Atlantic to lift a cargo out of Venezuela. After all, most Iranian and Venezuelan export barrels go to the same risk-friendly, Chinese buyers, through similarly opaque channels, so experience in Iran’s shadow trade is directly relevant to Venezuela’s.
Unfortunately for these two tankers, however, their decisions to take on Venezuelan charters put them precisely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
News of the Skipper’s seizure alerted the Bella 1 that it could be sailing into harm’s way
On December 12th, as news of the Skipper’s seizure continued to reverberate, Reuters reported that the US was planning to seize more ships transporting Venezuelan oil. Over the next two days, the Bella 1, still deep in the Atlantic, appeared unfazed by developments, and continued to make headway at a normal speed.
On December 15th, however, at around 05:00 Eastern Time, some 50 nautical miles east of Antigua, the Bella 1 abruptly came about and began slowly retracing its route back into the Atlantic. That looks to be the moment when the vessel realized it was potentially sailing into harm’s way—and that it could soon share the fate of the Skipper.
As Washington formally announced its blockade on Venezuelan oil exports, the Bella 1 realized its peril, cut its AIS transponder, and made a run for it…
The next day, Washington confirmed it was imposing a formal blockade on all tanker traffic in and out of Venezuela. At that point, it appears, the Bella 1 fully recognized its peril. On the 17th, the 23-year-old Aframax switched off its AIS transponder and made a run for it.
…but U.S. forces were soon in hot pursuit.
But by that point it was too late. The U.S. Coast Guard appears to have spotted the stateless, OFAC-sanctioned tanker and was giving chase. By the 20th, a U.S. federal magistrate judge had issued a warrant for the Bella 1, and the U.S. Coast Guard attempted to exercise its right of visit with an uncoerced boarding. Unlike the Skipper, however, the Bella 1 refused to the request and began issuing distress calls with U.S. forces “in active pursuit.”1
Part 2: A Spoiler-State Move—Moscow’s Special Operation to Reflag the Bella 1
When the Bella 1 decided to resist U.S. boarding and take flight, Russian officials quickly spotted an opportunity for political advantage by meddling in the standoff.
Soon the eyes of the world were on the drama unfolding in the mid-Atlantic. Among those watching, no doubt, were senior security officials in Moscow. As backers of Nicolás Maduro, they would have been concerned that the oil blockade was putting another Kremlin ally at risk so soon after the embarrassing collapse of the al-Assad regime.
But the Kremlin’s concerns would not have been limited to the fate of the Chavista regime. As skilled spoilers, they would have been looking for ways to gain political advantage for Moscow by meddling in the standoff—whether it helped the Maduro regime or not.
As a consummate spoiler state, Putin’s Russia is constantly on the lookout for unconventional, low-cost opportunities to generate advantage for itself by inserting itself into third-party conflicts. This is, after all, the regime that brought us the Wagner Group, which transformed state-backed mercenary “spoilerism” into a lucrative, scalable business model.
The Bella 1’s flight from U.S. forces offered just such an opportunity for Russian meddling. As news of the standoff emerged, officials in Moscow would have recognized that the Bella 1’s lack of flag protection left it highly vulnerable to U.S. seizure. But if Moscow were to extend Russian flag protection to the distressed tanker, it could claim exclusive sovereign jurisdiction, and demand that the U.S. drop its pursuit.
Reflagging a tanker in the middle of a standoff would be a consummate spoiler-state move. But its effectiveness would rely on the U.S. recognizing Moscow’s claims.
Moscow has been increasingly preoccupied with flagging. Formerly permissive flag states have been deregistering Russian shadow tankers, leaving a growing number stateless and exposed.
It’s unlikely that this flagging stratagem—protecting a beleaguered tanker by granting it Russian flag protection—was devised on the spur of the moment. Tanker flagging has been a topic of growing concern in Moscow over the past two years. When Moscow first began assembling its proprietary shadow fleet in 2022, it studiously avoided flagging or owning these vessels in Russia—presumably to reduce the risk of sanctions as well as outright seizure, should a state of war be declared. This meant, however, that Moscow would need to find other flag states willing to register its shadow tankers. With time, however, this has become increasingly challenging, posing a dilemma for Moscow.
Under maritime law, flag states are responsible for ensuring that all vessels on their registers comply with international safety standards. For tankers, this includes having a valid class renewal survey and carrying adequate spill liability insurance. Many tankers in Russia’s expanding shadow fleet, however, appear to have cut corners on compliance norms. Increasingly, they found themselves getting deregistered by stricter flag states, which has forced them to rely on a small number of flag states, with a reputation for lax oversight, to maintain a valid registration.
The rapid expansion of shadow shipping since late 2022 has, in turn, caused alarm among many coastal states. They have responded by urging overly permissive flag states to observe global standards. These efforts have met with notable success. Consequently, Russia’s shadow tankers have increasingly struggled to maintain a valid registration. After multiple deflaggings, many have been forced to resort to the perilous practice of flying a false flag.
The recent seizure of the Grinch illustrates the vulnerability of falsely flagged Russian shadow tankers in international waters near Europe.
In parallel, European maritime authorities have been stepping up pressure on Russian shadow tankers operating in regional waters. Consider, for example, the recent fate of the Grinch (IMO 9288851), a 22-year-old Aframax sanctioned for its role in funding Russia’s war on Ukraine. Since 2022, it has lifted over 20 cargoes out of Russia under 4 separate flags. In early January, it departed from Murmansk apparently flying a false Comorian flag and carrying a cargo of EU/UK-sanctioned crude worth an estimated $38 million. On January 22, 2026, in Mediterranean international waters, it was boarded and detained by the French Navy (with UK assistance).
Continency planning around the growing seizure risk to its own fleet likely helped Moscow quickly launch an operation to extend flag protection to the Bella 1.
With third-country flagging increasingly hard to secure and European navies targeting falsely flagged vessels, it’s likely Russia’s security services have been revisiting their “no-Russian-flags” policy. This likely explains the steady uptick of late in Russian shadow tankers flying Russian flags. And this review likely includes continency plans for rapidly extending Russian flag protection to stateless shadow tankers under pursuit by adversaries.
Moscow’s on-going preoccupation with tanker flagging likely explains the speed with which it both spotted the opportunity presented by the Bella 1 and rolled out a complex operation to exploit it. Indeed, the operational blueprint is likely based on pre-existing contingency plan. It just required some tweaking to accommodate the peculiarities of the Bella 1.
Moscow’s reflagging operation unfolded in of 3 phases: (1) “Russify” the tanker, (2) draw a bright red line around it, and (3) back its warnings with a naval escort.
At some point in mid-December—likely between when the Bella 1 took flight on the 15th and then resisted boarding on the 20th—authorities in Moscow took the decision to come to the tanker’s assistance. This operation unfolded in three phases (see figure 2).
Phase 1: Devise some “Russian” bona fides for the Bella 1
The first phase entailed creating the most compelling case practical for a Russian claim over the Bella 1. For its gambit to work, Moscow needed the U.S. to recognize Russia’s its claim of exclusive sovereign jurisdiction over the tanker. Russia could have based its jurisdictional claim over the Bella 1 simply on the strength of a decision to accept the vessel into its flag registry. For decades, certain countries have built substantial commercial businesses by extending “flags of convenience” to vessels with no intrinsic ties to the flag state. Maritime law mentions the need for a “genuine tie,” but fails to specify what that entails.
Moscow wasn’t satisfied, however, with a tenuous flag‑of‑convenience claim. It wanted to signal—unmistakably and convincingly—that Russia had a serious interest in the Bella 1 and would go to considerable lengths to defend its jurisdictional claims. To bolster the credibility of that claim, Moscow quickly set about creating “Russian” credentials for the Bella 1.
Within a week, Moscow arranged a sale of the tanker to a Russian buyer, a Russian flagging, a Russian home port, a name change…
This began with ownership. For the past two years, the Bella 1 had been owned by a Turkish domiciled company and transporting Iranian oil, according to OFAC. One of the first items in Moscow’s operational plan was to establish Russian ownership of the tanker. A sale to a small, little-known Russian company based in Ryazan was hastily arranged. Moscow, one imagines, used its contacts in Tehran to seek out the owners and arrange the sale. And no doubt, the prior owners were delighted to unexpectedly receive an offer for their distressed tanker whose cashflow-generating potential and market value could soon plummet to zero.
By December 23rd, the sale had been registered with the International Maritime Organization (IMO), along with a new vessel name: the Marinera (apparently from the Spanish word for “sailor”).
The following day, December 24th, the Bella 1 was officially entered into the Russian flag registry, with Sochi as its home port. The irony, of course, is that the tanker would never be able to actually call on its home port, since VLCC-class tankers, such as the Bella 1, are too large to transit the Turkish Straits.
…a Russian-issued class renewal survey, and, in all likelihood, a Russian spill-liability insurance policy.
With the Bella 1 now set up with a Russian owner, flag and home port, Moscow next set about arranging a Russian class renewal survey for the vessel. Under the IMO’s enhanced survey program for oil tankers, a class renewal survey normally requires—among other things—that a vessel is brought into dry dock for a thorough examination of its hull and machinery. With the Bella 1 deep in the Atlantic, however, this was not a possibility. But that didn’t put off the team running the Bella 1 operation. And on December 30, the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping improbably delivered a class renewal survey for the vessel.
To round off the credentialization of the Bella 1’s as a “Russian” vessel, one also imagines Moscow arranged for a Russian domestic insurer to issue a spill liability (P&I) policy for the tanker underwritten by the Russian Central Bank. That appears to be standard practice for vessels acquired for the Russian shadow trade. In defiance of international convention, however, Russian insurers haven’t been making the list of covered tankers readily accessible to the public. So here we can only speculate.
Phase 2: Lay down red lines
With all these freshly minted Russian bona fides in hand—ownership, flagging, home port, class survey and, likely, P&I coverage—Moscow launched phase 2 of its operation: drawing a red line around the “Russian” tanker Bella 1 and issuing threats. This began on December 31, when Russian diplomats delivered a démarche to the U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security requesting that the U.S. stop its pursuit of the Bella 1.
Moscow issued formal diplomatic complaints to Washington demanding it recognize Russia’s claims…
According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow provided “authoritative information on the Russian national affiliation of the vessel” (“достоверную информацию о российской принадлежности судна”). In subsequent commentary, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that Russia’s claims on the vessel were beyond questioning, and that any suggestions that the Bella 1 was operating under a false flag were “baseless.” The Ministry asserted that the U.S. had no rights to stop and inspect the vessel on the high seas without the explicit consent of its flag state, Russia.
…and put senior figures in front the media to amplify Russia’s claims and issue threats of an impending “crisis.
To amplify its claims, Moscow pushed out commentary in the domestic and foreign media. This included a BBC radio interview with Andrei Fedorov, a former Deputy Foreign Minister and now an advisor to Putin. His remarks were clearly calibrated to draw a bright red line around the Bella 1 and leave little doubt that Moscow would respond robustly to any U.S. effort to cross it:
For Russia it’s a very important thing, because if there will be [an] attack from [the] U.S. it will be considered as [an] attack on Russia and it could lead to [a] very critical or maybe even [a] crisis situation between Russia and [the] U.S.
The threat was explicit: if the U.S. seizes the Bella 1, Russia will see it as an attack on Russian sovereign territory that could trigger a full-blow international crisis.
Phase 3: Send in the navy
At the start of January, with “Russian” bona fides now established, red lines drawn, and U.S. forces still in pursuit, the Bella 1 switched its AIS transponder back on. By this point, it had reached the North Atlantic and was reportedly heading for the protection of Russian territorial waters near Murmansk. As a VLCC-class tanker, the Bella 1 could not find safe harbor in the Russian waters of the Baltic or Black Sea; it was too large to navigate geographical chokepoints of the Danish and Turkish Straits. Its best hope for sanctuary would be to reach Russian waters in the Barents Sea.
On January 6th, reports emerged that Moscow had dispatched a naval task force, including a submarine, to escort the Bella 1. It’s unclear from reports exactly where the task force was or when it had been dispatched. But with this, Moscow implemented the third stage of its special operation: backing up its claims and red lines the threat of military force.
Moscow’s operation soon unraveled, however, when as U.S. forces, undeterred by Russian claims and threats, seized the Bella 1.
On the following day, however, south of Iceland, the flight of the Bella 1 came to a sudden end when fast-roping Navy Seals boarded the tanker and took control. Moscow’s elaborate, two-week operation to avert a U.S. seizure had failed.
After the seizure, no escalation followed. Moscow’s red lines and threats of a crisis turned out to be a bluff.
The Russian response to the Bella 1’s seizure—or lack thereof—is noteworthy. Russia deliberately inserted itself into the middle of a U.S. stand-off with a stateless vessel and then methodically tried to ratchet up tensions—issuing formal protests, declaring red lines, deploying naval force and warning of an impending “crisis.”
But when the U.S., with apparent indifference, crossed Russia’s red line, the promised crisis failed to materialize. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a plaintive statement expressing its “serious concern… over the unlawful use of force” against the Bella 1, and declaring that the Russian Federation had not given its consent for the boarding. Apart from that, the response was decidedly muted. Russia had, in effect, blinked.
Moscow’s claim to exclusive jurisdiction is open to challenge under maritime law, which may help explain its muted response.
As we shall see in Part 6, Russia’s claim to exclusive jurisdiction over the Bella 1 is open to challenge under maritime law. Prior to Russia’s purchase and flagging of the Bella 1, the U.S. had already engaged the tanker and determined its stateless status. Under U.S. law, once statelessness is determined at initial encounter, the U.S. may claim jurisdiction over the vessel—a practice not prohibited under international maritime law. So, by the time the Russian buyer purchased the Bella 1 several days later, the U.S. had likely already asserted legitimate jurisdictional over it.
In effect, the buyer had knowingly bought damaged goods. In deciding to buy a stateless tanker operating in violation of international law and undergoing arrest by U.S. authorities, he should have realized his ability to unilaterally determine the tanker’s future jurisdiction might be compromised. He was being naïve—or disingenuous—in expecting that a subsequent Russian registration would guarantee exclusive and uncontested Russian sovereign jurisdiction. Caveat emptor.
This defect in Russia’s claim may explain the Kremlin’s muted response. That, along with the fact that the U.S. and UK had called Moscow’s red-line bluff.
But pundits and parliamentarians responded with fury at the Kremlin’s perceived impotence.
But the Kremlin’s perceived impotence provoked fury among pundits, bloggers, and parliamentarians: “[Washington] steamrolled us;” “The decision to re‑flag the vessel under Russia placed the Russian Federation in a highly disadvantageous position;” “Why were [the Russian] ships sent? Just to show the flag? If they were given a mission, then the tanker should have been taken backl” “The Kremlin’s red-lines are drawn in disappearing ink.”
The operation turned out to be little more than a pantomime of Cold War brinkmanship—a clumsily stage-managed crisis.
In retrospect, the Bella 1 affair looks like Moscow trying to reenact a moment of Cold War brinkmanship—think Check Point Charlie, the Berlin Airlift, or the Cuban missile crisis. Only this time, instead of an organically emerging standoff, it looks like a fabricated crisis, artlessly engineered to look like the real thing. Moscow’s initial efforts to present the Bella 1 as an object of vital national interest were a transparent sham. While its deterrent threats were full of sound and fury, they turned out to lack real commitment.
In the end, what we had was not high-stakes brinkmanship, but a Cold War pantomime. And once its bluff was called, Moscow hurried to change the subject. First time tragedy, second time farce.
Part 3. Moscow’s Motives for Saving the Bella 1—Prevailing Theories Debunked
What were Moscow’s motives for mounting a full-scale operation to save the Bella 1? The prevailing explanations are unsatisfactory.
Having exposed Moscow’s special operation for what it was—a hastily improvised, Cold War pantomime—we now turn to the question of ultimate objectives. What did Moscow hope to achieve with these theatrics? Why mobilize substantial resources and put significant credibility on the line for the sake of the Bella 1?
Explanation 1: There might have been smuggled Russian arms aboard. Rebuttal: the U.S. hasn’t reported finding any weapons.
Explanations of Moscow’s motives have centered around two theories—neither satisfactory. The first speculates that the Bella 1 may have been carrying Russian weapons. To date, however, U.S. authorities have not confirmed any arms shipments were on board the tanker.
Had there been, it would likely be in Washington’s interest to disclose them. The covert conveyance of Russian weapons could have compromised the vessel’s rights of innocent passage and provided additional justification for the U.S. seizure—if not necessarily in the maritime courts, then at least in the court of public opinion. So, it’s reasonable to conclude from Washington’s silence that the Bella 1 was probably not transporting arms.
Explanation 2: Moscow was protecting its shadow fleet. Rebuttal: the Bella 1 is decidedly not part of Russia’s shadow fleet.
The second explanation is that Moscow was trying to “protect” Russia’s shadow fleet. But on closer examination, this explanation also doesn’t stand up. To understand why, we first need to set aside a common misconception about the undifferentiated nature of the shadow fleet.
What we commonly call the “shadow fleet” is really two distinct fleets: one primarily serving Iran and Venezuela, the other assembled by Moscow since 2022 expressly the Russia trade.
It’s common to speak of “the shadow fleet,” as if it were one large, undifferentiated pool of marginal tankers serving the world’s sanctioned exporters. But that framing overlooks a fundamental reality: these vessels don’t form a single shadow fleet at all, but rather two distinct and separate fleets:
an original shadow fleet that has long been serving Iran and, more recently, Venezuela;
a Russian “proprietary” shadow fleet, which Moscow began systematically assembling in mid-2022 expressly to serve Russia’s own peculiar needs.
This is no mere academic distinction. To understand the constraints on Russian oil exports and the impact of sanctions, it’s essential to understand the separate nature of Moscow’s proprietary fleet. It is the outgrowth of a deliberate Kremlin policy decision taken in May 2022, in the opening months of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That’s when Moscow resolved to assemble its own stand-alone shipping capability that could end Russia’s reliance on Western maritime services. The question was: where would the tonnage come from?
Chartering shadow tankers from Iranian and Venezuelan trade wasn’t a viable solution. There were issues around capacity, suitability and reliability.
Instead, Moscow set about assembling its own Russia-dedicated fleet. At its core are some 90 legacy vessels from Russia’s state-owned fleet and over 400 vintage tankers purchased second hand expressly for the Russian trade (see figure 3).
Roughly half the capacity of Russia’s dedicated shadow fleet has been impaired by attrition or sanctions (see figure 4).
Nonetheless, Moscow’s shadow fleet has substantially reduced Russia’s reliance on Western shipping services, which now account for around half Russia’s crude and product exports (see figure 5). For more on the emergence of Moscow’s Russia-dedicated shadow, see Navigating Russia’s “Russian Shadow Fleet FAQ.”
With few exceptions, tankers tend to be firmly in either the Russia trade or the Iran and Venezuelan trades.
With very few exceptions, shadow tankers don’t regularly shuttle between Russian and Iranian or Venezuelan charters—lifting a cargo from Primorsk in February, another from Kharg Island in May, and a third from Kozmino in July. Instead, they tend to remain firmly rooted in either the Russia trade or the Iranian/Venezuelan trade.
Russia’s fleet is separate and distinctive not just in the tankers that constitute it, but also in other important respects, including…
And there’s good reason for this bifurcation of the global shadow fleet. The two fleets differ fundamentally in their operating scope, vessel profile, methods of operation, and, in all likelihood, their sources of acquisition financing.
…vessel profiles…
Those differences are driven by a range of understandable factors. For example, Iran and Venezuela rely heavily on VLCCs (“very large crude carrriers”), the largest class of supertanker in widespread use today. They are cost efficient for long-haul operations. But VLCCs are almost entirely absent from Russia’s fleet, for the simple reason they are too large to transit the Turkish and Danish Straits, through which most of Russia’s oil flows.
…the nature of Western sanctions imposed on them and the resulting need for subterfuge—or lack thereof…
And then there is a difference in the nature of sanctions on Russia versus Iran and Venezuela. The latter two exporters have long been subject to full secondary OFAC sanctions. This imposes high risks on all parties in the trade, leading to the widespread use of subterfuge to hide origins and destinations. It’s fear of OFAC secondary sanctions that cause tankers to go dark, spoof their locations, and blend cargoes mid-voyage through ship-to-ship transfers.
…the breadth of their addressable markets…
And the risk of secondary sanctions also greatly reduces the addressable market for Iranian and Venezuelan oil. The vast majority goes to a group of quota-constrained, risk-friendly, domestic-oriented, independent refiners in Shandong Province, China.
By contrast, until late 2025, most Russian oil exports were not subject to U.S. secondary sanctions. Russian exporters and their buyers in non-EU/G7 markets had little need to hide their transactions. As a result, subterfuge by Russia’s proprietary tankers was—contrary to common misconception—uncommon. And Russia’s addressable market has been far broader, routinely including dozens of countries.
…their likely sources of acquisition financing…
And then there’s acquisition financing. Estimated purchase costs for Russian shadow tankers acquired since 2022 exceed $15 bn. Much of this has likely been financed by Russian banks. It would make little sense to put Russia’s over-stretched credit capacity to work buying tankers that spend half their time serving competing exporters.2
…and spill liability insurance.
The same thing goes for mandatory spill liability insurance underwritten by the Russian Central Bank. Most Russian shadow tankers appear to carry Russian policies today—it’s one of the hallmarks of Russia’s proprietary fleet and is needed for access to ports in Turkey, India and elsewhere. It makes no sense for Russia to extend its limited underwriting capacity to tankers primarily serving Iran or Venezuela.
Moscow knows very well which tankers are in its proprietary shadow fleet—and the Bella 1 was most certainly not one of them—at least not before December 2025.
It was Moscow that assembled Russia’s dedicated shadow fleet. So, it knows very well which tankers are in it and which ones aren’t. And the Bella 1 was most decidedly not part of Russia’s proprietary fleet—at least not before it was suddenly “Russified” in late December 2025.
The Bella 1 was squarely centered in Iran’s shadow trade
Rather, the Bella 1 was squarely centered in the Iranian shadow trade. The evidence firmly supports this:
In 2021, UANI, an NGO that monitors the Iranian shadow trade, added the Bella 1 to its Iranian “ghost armada” list.
In 2024, OFAC sanctioned the Bella 1 specifically for its involvement in supporting the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hizballah—with no mention whatsoever of its involvement with Russia.
In 2025, the tanker again appears to have transported Iranian oil several times; and
the Bella 1 has likely never loaded a single barrel of oil at a Russian port, and certainly not since 2022.
Since the Bella 1 wasn’t part of Russia’s proprietary fleet, speculation that Moscow was just trying to “protect one of its own shadow tankers” falls apart.
This leads us back to the question of Moscow’s motive. Once we recognize both the distinctive nature of Moscow’s dedicated fleet and the fact that the Bella 1 was not part of it, the argument that Russia was “protecting one of its shadow tankers” falls apart.
Similarly, it’s hard to see why Moscow would have gone to such lengths and put so much credibility on the line simply to safeguard a stateless, superannuated tanker in service to a competing exporter.
In short, neither of the two prevailing theories—weapons smuggling and protecting Russia’s shadow fleet—hold up to scrutiny. But the evidence does support a third explanation—which we explore in Part 4.
Part 4: Mystery Unraveled—The Bella 1’s Reflagging was Part of a Broader Scheme
The key to understanding Moscow’s interest in the Bella 1 is to recognize it was part of a broader effort muster a fleet of reflagged shadow tankers near Venezuela in late December.
What, then, were Moscow’s motives for reflagging the Bella 1? The key to unravelling this mystery is to recognize that Moscow’s operation wasn’t just about the fate of one tanker. It was part of a broader, more ambitious plan, involving the reflagging of numerous other vessels off Venezuela. If successful, the operation would have given Moscow a powerful tool for disrupting Washington’s pressure campaign against the Maduro regime.
The Fedorov interview explicitly ties the Bella 1 to these other tankers that had “raised the Russian flag” and warns that Moscow’s red line encompasses to them all.
To recognize the full scope and ambition of the operation, let’s turn again to the BBC interview with Andrei Fedorov, the senior Kremlin advisor. After declaring that an attack on the Bella 1 would be considered “an attack on Russia” that could trigger a “crisis”, he went on to say:
The problem today is much more than this [i.e., the Bella 1], because already 5 tankers near, which are standing near [sic] Venezuela raised the Russian flag and declared that they are Russian. So, it might make the whole picture more complicated…
Shipping records confirm at least 10 other shadow tankers near Venezuela were reflagging to Russia in late December and early January
Analysis of shipping records confirms Fedorov’s claims—and then some. The Bella 1 wasn’t the only tanker near Venezuela that was reflagging to Russia in late December and early January. There were at least 10 other such tankers that had then “raised the Russian flag and declared that they are Russian.” In noting this, Fedorov was signaling that Russia’s red-line claim of sovereign jurisdiction wasn’t limited just to the Bella 1. It extended to a expanding tanker fleet in the waters near Venezuela (see figure 6).
Fedorov warns the presence of this Russian-flagged fleet would “make the whole picture more complicated” for Washington—in other words, it could thwart the U.S. oil blockade.
As for the motive behind this rash of reflaggings, Fedorov all but spells it out when he warns that the presence of so many Russian‑flagged tankers near Venezuela “might make the whole picture more complicated.” In other words, “more complicated” for the United States. If Washington bowed to Moscow’s demands for the unimpeded passage of Russian‑flagged tankers, Moscow would suddenly have the means at hand to break the U.S. blockade of Venezuelan oil.
The real aim of Moscow’s reflagging scheme, it appears, was to develop the capacity to challenge the U.S. oil blockade
And that appears to be the real motive behind Moscow’s reflagging operation: to create the capacity to thwart Washington’s oil blockade. If Moscow could muster a fleet of Russian‑flagged tankers around Venezuela that enjoyed immunity from U.S. seizure, it would then control the means to keep Maduro’s exports flowing.
Most of these vessels had strong Russian ties, but three had Iranian ties.
It’s important to note that, unlike the Bella 1, nearly all these other reflagged vessels had strong ties to Russia. Between them, they had lifted over 100 cargoes out of Russia since 2022, and all had been sanctioned by OFAC for their involvement in the Russia trade. Arranging their reflagging would have likely been a relatively simple matter.
The remaining two, like the Bella 1, had Iranian ties. And curiously, the very same Russian-registered company that acquired the Bella 1 on December 23rd, Burevestmarin LLC, also bought these other two Iranian-linked tankers just two days later, according to shipping records.
The picture emerges of a rushed effort by Moscow to quickly muster a Russian-flagged fleet in the waters nearby Venezuela. Most of that tonnage was being supplied by Russia-linked shadow tankers. Their OFAC sanctions had greatly reduced their prospects in the Russia trade, bringing them, by varying routes, to Venezuela. To augment that capacity, Moscow appeared to be working its contacts in Tehran to opportunistically acquire and reflag nearby Iranian-linked vessels—such as the Bella 1.
(For more details on the make-up of Moscow’s reflagged Venezuelan fleet, see Appendix: Moscow’s Venezuelan “Spoiler” Fleet.)
Moscow had a reasonable chance of deploying enough Russian-flagged tonnage to Venezuela to pose a credible threat to Washington’s blockade.
For its gambit to be credible, Moscow would need to maintain a steady stream of Russian-flagged tonnage heading to Venezuela. The reflagged fleet already on hand was sufficient to keep exports flowing at significantly reduced levels for several weeks—but no more. In the meantime, there were numerous other Russian shadow tankers within two week’s sail from Venezuela—many of them impaired by OFAC sanctions, underutilized and relatively expendable.
The big questions boiled down to: would Washington allow Russian-flagged tankers through its blockade? And if so, how would Moscow use that leverage?
If Moscow kept scrambling to reflag vessels, it could present a sustained, credible challenge to Washington. The big question then became: would the U.S. let these Russian-flagged tankers through? As we shall see in Part 6, the answer is not as straightforward as some might think.
First, however, we briefly consider the question: if Moscow succeeded in developing a blockade-breaking capacity, how would it use it?
Part 5: Moscow’s Ultimate Aim—Solidarity with Caracas or Bargaining Power over Ukraine?
How would Moscow have used its blockade-breaking capability? It might have used it to aid an embattled ally, or…
The only question remaining is this: how did Moscow intend to use the blockade-breaking capacity of its spoiler fleet? The Kremlin was likely considering two options. First, Moscow could have used it to aid an embattled ally by keeping Venezuelan oil flowing.
…or wielded it as a valuable bargaining chip in a quid-pro-quo proposal to Washington around Ukraine—an updated version of Moscow’s 2019 offer.
Alternatively, Moscow might have considered trying to transform this capability into a bargaining chip to trade with Washington in exchange for concessions around Ukraine. If so, it wouldn’t have been the first time Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to Washington involving Venezuela and Ukraine.
Moscow has been a long-time supporter of the Chavista regime, though not necessarily a steadfastly loyal one. In 2019, Russia reportedly proposed a quid pro quo to Washington: Russia would withhold support from Venezuela in exchange for a free hand in Ukraine. At the time, Washington reportedly declined.
By late 2025, Venezuela had climbed to the top of Washington’s agenda. With the U.S. now intent on removing Maduro, Moscow might have judged the moment ripe to revisit the Venezuela-Ukraine quid pro quo. The capacity to frustrate the U.S. blockade—and then to offer that leverage in exchange for concessions on Ukraine—would certainly strengthen the appeal of Moscow’s proposal, or so the Kremlin might have calculated.
Letting the Venezuelan blockade remain in place would have also substantially benefitted Moscow’s own newly sanctioned oil producers, by supporting prices…
Apart from concessions on Ukraine, Moscow would have gotten two other benefits from trading away its capacity to break the blockade. The first is upward pressure on sagging oil prices. A protracted U.S. blockade would squeeze global supply, helping boost Moscow’s own tumbling export revenues.
…and opening up critical demand for sanctioned oil among China’s risk-friendly independent refiners.
Second, it would have made it easier for newly sanctioned Russian producers to find willing buyers for its OFAC-sanctioned barrels. Since late 2025, some 80% of Russian production has come under OFAC secondary sanctions—similar to what Venezuela and Iran have long faced. Global demand for OFAC-sanctioned barrels is very limited—most of it concentrated among China’s risk-friendly independent refiners. They absorb most of Iranian and Venezuelan exports—demanding deep discounts for their risk.
Newly imposed sanctions on Russian producers are forcing them to compete with Iran and Venezuela to supply this import-quota-constrained market. A blockade on Venezuelan supply eliminates a major competitor, easing pressure on sanctioned Russian exporters (see figure 7).
For the moment, however, we can only speculate about how Moscow might have used its leverage, because by mid-January, events had transpired that made its spoiler fleet of little value—either to as a lifeline for a defiant Caracas or as a bargaining chip against Ukraine.
Part 6: Could a Russian-flagged Fleet Have Defied the U.S. Blockade? Kremlin Blunders Weakened its Chances.
Would Russian-flagged tankers been allowed to transport Venezuelan crude through Washington’s “complete blockade?” It’s a question worth asking.
For Moscow’s blockade-thwarting scheme to work, its Russian-flagged “spoiler fleet” would need effective immunity from U.S. seizure. Two things could have made that possible:
the U.S. believed these tankers had an indisputable right of passage under maritime law and agreed to respect it; or
the U.S. considered Russia’s red-line threats to be credible and preferred not to risk an escalation.
Both these scenarios might seem unlikely, especially after mid-December, when Washington declared a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela” and started seizing vessels. But Washington’s blockade might not be as “complete” as the headlines suggest.
Tanker arrests under Washington’s “complete blockade” appear to comply with restrictive targeting criteria, in an effort to remain consistent with maritime law.
Analysis of vessels arrested to date reveals a distinct pattern—one that seems to be designed to keep these seizures consistent with maritime law. All 7 tankers arrested to date under Operation Southern Spear appear to have had attributes that left them vulnerable to seizures that, arguably, are consistent with maritime law.
Most of the seized tankers were stateless. Maritime law does not prohibit such vessels from being boarded and arrested by states asserting jurisdiction over them.
Of the 7 arrested tankers, 4 or 5 appear to have been stateless at the time of their initial encounter with U.S. authorities—either because they were flying a false flag or none at all.
As noted earlier, stateless ships do not enjoy the same protection on the high seas as legitimately flagged ships, which fall under the exclusive sovereign jurisdiction of their flag states. UNCLOS explicitly grants third-country warships a right to board ships suspected of being stateless (article 110).
The crucial question then follows: how far does the boarding state’s jurisdiction over a flagless vessel extend? Maritime law is silent on the matter; as the UN Maritime Crime Manual puts it, “there is no settled answer” to jurisdictional scope. States take a range of views. The Manual goes on to observe that a state “may determine that…it can assert the same jurisdiction over the suspect vessel as it could assert over a vessel of its own nationality” (see section 15.4(g)).
In other words, since no state enjoys exclusive jurisdiction over a flagless ship, any state encountering it can assert its own jurisdiction.
Some legal scholars argue this expansive view of jurisdiction justifies Washington’s arrest of U.S.-sanctioned, stateless tankers.
For decades, U.S. maritime law has taken this more expansive view on jurisdiction. In U.S. jurisprudence, if a U.S. Coast Guard arrests a stateless ship under a federal criminal warrant, it’s as though it were arresting a U.S. flagged ship. And that’s exactly the argument some scholars are making when they say the arrest of stateless, sanctioned tankers like the Skipper doesn’t violate international maritime law.3
Similarly, if a tanker’s flag state gives the U.S. permission to board and arrest a tanker, that too is consistent with maritime law—which could account for 2 more seizures.
Two of the 7 tankers, however, appear to have been indisputably flagged at the time of boarding and arrest. The flag state for both was Panama. Which means Panamanian consent would have been needed for both the boardings and the arrests to be consistent with international maritime law.
And there is some indication the U.S. may have received such consent. The U.S. and Panama have a long-standing boarding agreement, which appears to have been used to secure boarding consent. And there is some suggestion that Panama may have also given consent to the arrest of these vessels, because they had violated maritime rules. Further disclosures
How would Washington have responded to a Russian-flagged tanker laden with Venezuelan oil? The fate of the Bella 1 might not be indicative.
The point of this legal analysis is not to opine on maritime law. It’s to show that the scope of U.S. arrests appears to be restrictive in their targeting criteria. Arrests have been limited either to tankers (i) that were stateless or (ii) whose flag states may have provided consent. Which suggests an effort to keep the arrests consistent with maritime law.
Which begs the question: what would the U.S. do if confronted with a Russian-flagged tanker laden with Venezuelan oil? If the tanker is on the high seas, properly flagged and engaged in normal commercial activity, in most cases it would enjoy a right of innocent passage under maritime law. Would the U.S. acknowledge and respect that right by allowed the tanker to pass?
Russia’s claim to exclusive jurisdiction over the Bella 1 may be compromised under maritime law in a way the other Russian reflaggings aren’t.
At first glance, some might conclude from the seizure of the Russian-flagged Bella 1 that the U.S. will not allow a Russian-flagged tanker to pass.
But on closer examination, that is probably a misreading of the Bella 1 arrest. The Bella 1 was reflagged under highly unusual circumstances. These may have compromised Russia’s claim to exclusive jurisdiction in a way that other Russian reflaggings did not.
Sequencing matters. Prior to the reflagging, the U.S. had already asserted its legitimate enforcement jurisdiction over the Bella 1.
To understand why, we need to focus on sequencing. Recall, that on December 20th, the U.S. had its initial encountered with the Bella 1. The U.S. Coast Guard approached the tanker, determined it was stateless, and requested exercise its legitimate right of visit in order to execute a federal warrant for the arrest of the sanctioned tanker. The captain refused to honor the right of visit and fled. The Coast Guard gave chase, mobilized a team of coercive boarding specialists, and completed the arrest.
There are three important considerations here.
At the time of initial encounter, the Bella 1 was stateless. This gave the U.S. a right to assert its enforcement jurisdiction over the vessel.
The U.S. asserted its jurisdiction when it initially attempted to board the tanker and exercise its federal warrant.
The arrest of the Bella 1 was a continuous enforcement action lasting from first engagement to completion of the seizure. The jurisdiction rights the U.S. asserted at the outset continued throughout the enforcement action, provided the ship remained in international waters.
The Russian buyer had acquired damaged goods: a stateless vessel with a pre-existing jurisdictional claim on it that was now in the middle of an enforcement action.
Now, overlay the Russian actions onto this sequencing. On December 23rd, a Russian company acquired title to the tanker. But by that point, tanker they were buying was seriously impaired, as the buyers should have been aware:
The previous owners had been operating in violation of international law by flying a false flag. This had put the jurisdictional rights of the tanker in jeopardy.
Three days earlier, U.S. had asserted its legitimate right of enforcement jurisdiction over the tanker and had begun an action to take the tanker into custody.
This pre-existing U.S. claim impaired Russia’s subsequent claim to exclusive jurisdiction.
Russia certainly has a right to flag the vessel and claim sovereign jurisdiction. But the exclusivity of that claim is impaired by a pre-existing U.S. claim. The U.S. claim attaches at the moment of engagement—back on December 20th. Flagging the stateless tanker doesn’t retroactively nullify the U.S. claim. And it doesn’t really matter that the arrest of the tanker hasn’t yet been completed. What matters is that it’s a single, ongoing enforcement operations that’s already underway.
This U.S. likely considered the reflagging of the Bella 1 as distinct from the other reflaggings. We shouldn’t draw general conclusions based on it.
The point here is not to opine on the merits of the case. It’s just to show that the U.S. likely considers the reflagging of the Bella 1 distinct from the other reflaggings. In the case of the Bella 1, the U.S. had already asserted jurisdiction prior to the reflagging. And this impaired Russia’s claims of exclusive jurisdiction. But with almost all of the other reflagged vessels, it doesn’t appear that the U.S. had engaged with them prior to their reflaggings. And so there is no prior U.S. claim compromising Russia’s claim of exclusive jurisdiction.
So, we shouldn’t assume from the arrest of the Bella 1 that the U.S. has repudiated all Russian claims of exclusive sovereign jurisdiction and will indiscriminately seize any Russian flagged tanker. For the U.S. the case of the Bella 1 was special.
In its eagerness to acquire more tonnage for its spoiler fleet, Moscow overreached; it should have anticipated that the U.S. would assert its prior rights.
By the same token, Moscow, too, should have recognized the case of the Bella 1 was special. It’s understandable the Bella 1 was a very attractive acquisition target for Moscow’s Venezuelan spoiler fleet: a capacious, vintage VLCC just a few days out from Venezuela.
But the Bella 1 feels like a case of overreach typical of a struggling regime. With a U.S. enforcement action already underway, the Bella 1 was clearly damaged goods. Caveat emptor. The U.S. was very unlikely to surrender its legitimate prior rights. If Moscow underestimated this risk, it was bad judgement. If they weren’t aware of the risk, it was gross negligence.
Overreach wasn’t Moscow’s only mistake. There were others. First, the failure to follow through on threats further compromised Moscow’s red lines.
Misjudging likely U.S. jurisdictional claims wasn’t Moscow’s only blunder in the Bella 1 affair. Three more blunders stand out.
First, when the U.S. rejected Moscow’s legal claims, Russia tried to intimidate the U.S. into standing down with an escalation threat. There were Fedorov’s warnings of a “crisis” in relations, and the deployment of a submarine escort. In the end, however, Russia’s escalation threat failed to deter the U.S., which appeared to act with impunity.
Abroad, the Kremlin looked weak; at home, it looked craven and incompetent.
Second, when Russia described its flagging of the Bella 1 as “temporary,” it provided new grounds for asserting the tanker’s statelessness.
The second error came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In its January 8th complaint about the seizure, it stated that Russia had extended “temporary” flag protection to the Bella 1 (“временное разрешение на плавание под государственным флагом Российской Федерации”). To maritime scholars, this phrasing is a red flag. It suggests the Russian flagging of the Bella 1 was somehow provisional or short-term.
That, in turn, provides additional avenue for arguing the Bella 1 was stateless under maritime law. Article 92 of UNCLOS prohibits vessels from switching between two flags, “using them according to convenience.” Ships that do can be treated as if they were stateless. This blunder further undercut Russia’s claims to exclusive jurisdiction.
Third, by explicitly linking the Bella 1 to the other Russian reflaggings, Fedorov invites claims of statelessness against them all, narrowing Moscow’s chances of success.
The third blunder came in the Fedorov interview. He explicitly associates the flagging of the Bella 1 with other Russian reflaggings near Venezuela. As noted above, however, Moscow has compromised its claims over the Bella 1 by describing its flagging as “temporary.” By linking all these reflaggings together, Fedorov opens up a challenge to Russia’s jurisdictional claims over all of these hastily reflagged vessels.4
In the end, one is left with the impression of a hastily improvised operation by an overstretched team.
Moscow’s reflagging gambit ultimately unraveled when Caracas bowed to U.S. pressure to coordinate oil exports. The spoiler fleet lost its purpose.
For all these blunders, it’s still possible Moscow’s reflagged fleet might have succeeded in challenging Washington’s blockade. The U.S. might have deemed their reflagging legitimate. And it might have been unwilling to interdict a legitimately flagged Russian tanker, laden with Venezuelan oil and listed by OFAC. We can only guess.
In the end, what caused Russia’s reflagging scheme to unravel was not so much its blunders, but its bad luck. Not long after Maduro’s capture on January 3rd, the rump Chavista regime bowed to pressure from the U.S. and began coordinating oil exports. With that, the purpose of Moscow’s reflagging operation—defying the U.S. blockade—fell away, along with its hopes of gaining new bargaining leverage over Washington.
The fate of Moscow’s spoiler fleet.
As for the fate of Moscow’s spoiler fleet, the Bella 1 and the Veronica remain in UK and U.S. custody. The two small, legacy Sovcomflot product tankers that delivered naphtha to Venezuela late last year have now left Venezuela, in ballast, without incident it appears.
Of the remaining seven vessels, several are still laid up in Venezuelan waters, gathering barnacles under their new Russian flags. The others switched off their beacons one after another and silently slipped off the grid, their current locations unknown.
Conclusion: Russian Gambits and How to Foil Them—Lessons from the Bella 1 Affair.
The Bella 1 affair marks the convergence of two destabilizing trends: shadow shipping & stage-managed crises designed to extract leverage.
The Bella 1 affair marks the convergence of two destabilizing trends from Russia: a broad assault on hard‑won international standards in seaborne transport—a milestone of the rules‑based order—and a growing reliance on gambits designed to extract leverage through stage‑managed crises. As such, it offers valuable lessons for policymakers.
The report concludes with insights into countering the second trend: Russia’s growing use of provocations and stage‑managed crises
Russian provocations are symptomatic of a struggling regime trying to create bargaining leverage on the cheap. Unfortunately, we should expect more of them.
It’s important to consider gambits like the Bella 1 affair in the broader context of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Ukraine has become a quagmire for Moscow—a relentless drain on dwindling resources, fueling growing political risks at home.
Moscow is now searching for an advantageous exit from the conflict. It understands it cannot spend its way to a decisive battlefield advantage or break Ukraine’s resolve by striking cities. Instead, its best hope now lies in bargaining with Kyiv’s Western allies.
But Russia has few bargaining chips left. As a result, the Kremlin is increasingly trying to manufacture leverage by staging artificial crises—cutting gas supplies, attacking subsea infrastructure, sending drones into civilian air corridors. And most recently, mustering a Russian-flagged tanker fleet to break the Venezuelan oil blockade.
So long as these gambits offer advantage, they will continue. That is why the signal failure of the Bella 1 affair deserves attention: it offers policymakers useful guidance on how to blunt the impact of Moscow’s stage‑managed provocations.
Four useful takeaways on foiling Russian gambits:
Recognize these operations for what they are—improvised, speculative gambles by an overstretched regime hoping to win some leverage on the cheap.
Avoid buying into a manufactured “crisis” narrative. Moscow is counting on public alarm to push policymakers toward concessions they don’t need to make.
Be skeptical about the credibility of Moscow’s red lines. With resources so strained, the Kremlin is increasingly resorting to hollow threats and bluffs.
Seek solutions that avoid rewarding Moscow for engineering crises merely to resolve them
Appendix: Moscow’s Venezuelan “Spoiler” Fleet
In addition to the Bella 1, there were at least 10 others tankers nearby Venezuela that reflagged to Russia in late December 2025 and early January 2026 (see figure 8)
Of these, the first 8 bear the hallmarks of Moscow’s proprietary shadow fleet. Each has been sanctioned by OFAC for its involvement in Russia’s wartime oil trade. Two are legacy Sovcomflot vessels. The others had changed hands since mid-2022, dropped their International Group spill liability insurance, and focused on the Russian trade. All but one appear to have been flying false flags at the start of December, with the eighth already on its fifth flag in less than two years.
It’s worth noting how these vessels came to be near Venezuela in late 2025. There are no strong indications that their presence in the area was the result of premeditation by Moscow. It appears to be happenstance (though some role for contingency planning can’t be entirely ruled out).
The two legacy Sovcomflot tankers had been laid up for much of 2025, after being sanctioned by OFAC in January. Late in the year, however, they were dispatched to Venezuela to deliver cargoes of Russian naphtha—part of an uptick in such deliveries in recent months, according to the team at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Each is a smaller, clean product tanker—able to transport crude, but not an obvious or desirable choice.
As for the remaining 6 Russian shadow tankers, each was on its way to Venezuela well before the imposition of the U.S. blockade. And each was a refugee of sorts from the sanctions campaign against Russia’s shadow fleet. As noted above, each had been acquired in the second-hand market since 2022 and put to work in the Russia trade. A premium price would likely have been paid for them in the frothy tanker markets of 2022-2024, where valuations were aggressively bid up by high demand out of Russia.
OFAC sanctions, once imposed, would have severely impaired the cash-generating capacity of these vessels. Most importers of Russian oil refuse to accept cargoes transported by an OFAC-sanctioned tankers. Many soon had their class renewal surveys withdrawn and struggled to maintain a flag registration, hopping from one flag to another in rapid succession. The frequency of their loadings out of Russia fell sharply. Work appears to have been increasingly hard to come by. This may have left their equity owners struggling to service hefty acquisition debt loads.
In search of employment, each of these tankers eventually made their way, in ballast, to Venezuela. Once there, they took up humble work as coastal shuttles, transporting oil from one Venezuelan port to another. No doubt the pay was poor, but owners saw it as a better option than selling the tankers for scrap to the shipbreaking yards of Chittagong.
In addition to these 8 reflagged Russian shadow tankers, there are two more tankers off the Venezuelan coast that were reflagged to Russia around late December / early January. One is the Lillian (Sokolo). It’s an ancient VLCC, built in 1998 that was sanctioned by OFAC in March 2025 for involvement in the Iranian trade. Like the Bella 1, it set sail in ballast from the Gulf of Oman for Venezuela towards the end of 2025—one assumes to lift a cargo of Venezuelan oil. It reached Venezuelan waters several days before the Bella 1 changed course and headed back into the Atlantic.
The second is the Veronica (Galileo). It’s a curious outlier of sorts. An Aframax built in 2002, it appears to have come under Russian management around 2020. On February 22, 2022, two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, OFAC sanctioned the Veronica (then the Pegas) as an asset belonging to a Russian bank involved in financing the defense sector. Log data for it is scarce, but it doesn’t appear to have loaded any oil at Russian ports from 2022 onward. It appears, however, to have found employment in the Iranian shadow trade; shipping databases even show it flagged by Iran from mid-2022 until the end of 2025. Oddly, however, it doesn’t appear on UANI’s list of Iranian-linked shadow tankers. From 2021 through late 2025, the owner of record was a company registered to an apartment in a remote mountain town in southern Dagestan—not a common ownership domicile in the tanker world. And since late 2024, the Veronica, appears to have also found work as a coastal shuttle tanker in Venezuela.
It’s probably no coincidence that, on December 25, just two days after the Bella 1 was acquired by a Russian-registered LLC, Burevestmarin, that same company tripled the size of its tanker fleet when it bought the Lillian and the Veronica. Burevestmarin, it appears, was being used as a vehicle for acquiring Iranian-linked vessels then near Venezuela. One wonders how much Burevestmarin paid for these tankers and who the lucky sellers were. Because within three weeks, two of those three vessels would be in U.S. custody. As for the Lillian, it went dark in early January. Last recorded location—just inside Venezuelan waters off the coast of Aruba.
Credits
Credit: frontispiece, public domain, National Art Gallery, Feodosiia, Ukraine.
Source: Wikipedia
Disclaimer: No Advice
The author of this Substack does not provide tax, legal, investment or accounting advice. This report has been prepared for general informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for tax, legal, investment or accounting advice. The author shall not be held liable for any damages arising from information contained in the report.
© Copyright 2026, by Craig Kennedy. All rights reserved.
Endnotes
See The New York Times, December 21, 2025; and Reuters, December 22, 2025.
In addition to Russian sources of acquisition financing, it’s likely that some speculative Middle Eastern and Asian money may have also invested in vessels for the Russia trade, though open-source information on this is extremely limited. OFAC, however, has identified a small group of tankers that entered the Russian shadow trade early that represent an investment by a large Iranian shipping concern run by the son of a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader. It’s not surprising that an experienced and entrepreneurial Iranian shipping group should put some of its capital and knowhow to work early on in the Russian shadow trade. What’s noteworthy, however, is that the vessels it acquired for the purpose have largely remained dedicated to the Russia trade ever since. Having been sanctioned by OFAC in July 2025, however, the usefulness of these tankers in the Russia trade going forward is likely to be significantly impaired.
The four arrested tankers listed in some shipping databases and news reports as falsely flagged or unflagged at the time of encounter are Skipper, M Sophia, Bella 1, and Olina.
There is a fifth tanker, the Veronica > Galileo, which appears to have been reflagged from Iran to Russia in the days immediately before its arrest. It is not clear whether the U.S. government considered the Veronica to have been stateless at the time of initial encounter. Such a determination could, in theory, arise from several things. If, for example, the U.S. encountered the vessel prior to its reflagging and sought, but did not receive, confirmation from the Iranian flag registry of the validity of the vessel’s flagging claim, that could have provided grounds for arguing statelessness. Conversely, if proper Russian documentation was not in place at the time of boarding or misstatements were by the ship’s master about national registration, that could also have provided a basis for deeming the vessel stateless. There’s a third possibility. The vessel, as it turns out, was previously Russian flagged. If the new Russian reflagging was issued on a “temporary” basis—as appears to have been the case with the Bella 1 (see below)—it might have provided grounds for the Veronica to be assimilated to statelessness under Article 92 of UNCLOS, which prohibits vessels from switching between flags, “using them according to convenience.” Absent clarification from the U.S. government, we can only speculate.
For further discussion of the relevant principles of maritime law, see Andrew Norris, “Rudderless and Adrift: States’ Unwarranted Timidity Respecting Stateless Vessels,” International Law Studies, vol. 106, 2025; United States v. Matos‑Luchi, 627 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2010); United States v. Marino‑Garcia, 679 F.2d 1373 (11th Cir. 1982); Doris König, “Flag of Ships,” Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law; USNI News, January 22, 2026; The Maritime Executive, January 7, 2026; The European Parliamentary Research Service, March 2023, CSIS, January 8, 2026; Just Security, January 14, 2026, Lawfire, January 15, 2026; The Interpreter, January 9, 2026; Chalos & Co. commentary; The Conversation, December 11, 2025; and Barry H. Dunner & Mary Carmen Arias, “Under International Law, Must a Ship on the High Seas Fly the Flag of a State in Order to Avoid Being a Stateless Vessel? Is a Flag Painted on Either Side of the Ship Sufficient to Identify it?,” U.S.F. Maritime Law Journal, vol. 29, No. 2, 2017.
Fascinating report and interesting comments. Many thanks. I think a lot of the problems in Europe stem from the governments not being upfront with the fact that we are already at war with Russia.
I have an additional theory for consideration. Whatever their flag, tankers serving Russia, Iran, China, and Venezuela often pump oil back and forth on the high seas. In many ways, they are operating as a single fleet distributing a single product.
The other thing to consider is the extracurricular activities that might be taking place aboard some of these tankers. There is some evidence that the Russians are using at least a few of these tankers for espionage and sabotage, and that Russian intelligence personnel are on board. The Bella 1 could have fled into the Atlantic to give the Russians a chance to offload personnel and equipment before the U.S. caught up with them. Reportedly, several Russian vessels were in the vicinity of the Bella 1/Marinera when it was boarded and seized.