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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">AGILE-GISS</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>AGILE: GIScience Series</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">AGILE-GISS</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">AGILE GIScience Ser.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2700-8150</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/agile-giss-7-21-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>“Flags of Deceit:” Re-Flagging Trends among Sanctioned Ships in the Russian Shadow Fleet</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Brunila</surname>
<given-names>Mikael</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>1Médialab, Sciences Po, Paris, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>10</day>
<month>06</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>7</volume>
<elocation-id>21</elocation-id>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Mikael Brunila</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/21/2026/agile-giss-7-21-2026.html">This article is available from https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/21/2026/agile-giss-7-21-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/21/2026/agile-giss-7-21-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/21/2026/agile-giss-7-21-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, Western nations have imposed sanctions on Russian trade, in particular its fleet of oil tankers. To evade these sanctions, Russia has introduced a fleet of ships that bypass, through different means, the sanctions imposed against the country. Using open, collated data on sanctions against this &amp;ldquo;shadow fleet,&amp;rdquo; this paper provides the first quantitative evaluation of re-flagging among sanctioned Russian vessels. While initially often sailing under classical &amp;ldquo;flags of convenience&amp;rdquo; (FOC), the maritime journal Lloyd&amp;rsquo;s List has recently noted that increasingly ships in this fleet are re-flagged to countries with even less rigorous controls than classical FOC countries. These &amp;ldquo;flags of deceit&amp;rdquo; (FOD) are claimed to welcome older ships, often under fake identifiers. In this paper, we confirm that Russia is, indeed, re-flagging to countries like Cameroon and Sierra Leone, while also providing more detail on patterns in the tonnage and age among different FODs.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="11"/></counts>
</article-meta>
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