Not all tankers in the “shadow fleet” trade are ageing rust-buckets. Here is the story of one that was just five years old when she moved out of Europe and joined the Russia trade.
She was built in 2018 as Crudesun and flew the Liberian flag. Port state control inspected her eleven times, from South Korea to Canada. She was never detained.
In October 2023 she changed name, flag and owner in a single month. She was never inspected in a Western port again.
This film follows her through four names and six flags, through sanctions from the US, EU, Switzerland, the UK and Canada, and through a sea-drone strike in the Black Sea, to her return to service under the Russian flag in 2026.
It is built from Mariel, Maritime Watch’s shadow-fleet database, and from publicly available records.
Music: Dmitrii Kolesnikov and Nikita Kondrashev. Sound effects: Joanne Stone and Soumages, via Pixabay.