Värk made his remarks after over 30 tankers have over the past fortnight been observed at anchor near the uninhabited Estonian island of Vaindloo, in the Gulf of Finland, following Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian Baltic Sea oil ports.

Estonia has become more restrained following a failed attempt last year to board a Russian vessel. "The risk of military escalation is just too high," Estonia's Navy Commander Ivo Värk told Reuters.

This also seems to have emboldened Moscow, which now has two or three armed naval vessels and other ships patrolling the Gulf of Finland and along the lanes used by tankers carrying Russian oil, Värk said.

"The Russian military presence here in the Gulf of Finland has become much, much more evident," Värk said, adding Estonia would consider intervention only in cases of imminent danger, for instance in an oil spill, or if vital infrastructure is damaged.

Värk also pointed to the Gulf of Finland and the wider Baltic's compact size compared with the open ocean, even as the U.K. has been tracking three Russian submarines off its far northern coast.

"Obviously in the Atlantic Ocean and also the North Sea there's very little Russian presence so it gives you a lot more time and more liberty to act upon those vessels as the risk for military engagement and escalation is much lower," Värk added.

Journalists aboard an Estonian navy vessel in the Gulf of Finland Friday also observed a Russian naval corvette near a large group of tankers awaiting a slot to put into port.

The U.K., France, Belgium, and Sweden and other European states have stepped up efforts to detain shadow fleet tankers, many of them decrepit, that Moscow uses to sell sanctioned oil. Revenues from these sales are being used to continue funding the war against Ukraine.

Vyacheslav Tkachenko, a second officer on a tanker, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" he had personally seen traffic between the mainland and shadow fleet vessels emerge at the anchorage in Singapore, after the tankers had been awaiting around 10 days. A large tanker can be self-sufficient from its own supplies for a month or more, Tkachenko added.

Boats moving between the shore and a tanker at anchor can also do so stealthily, he said; for instance, if a vessel is wooden-built and lacks an Automatic Identification System (AIS) device, it will not show up on radar.

In May last year, as Estonia attempted to halt an unflagged Russia-bound shadow fleet oil tanker, Russia deployed a fighter jet into NATO airspace and over the Baltic Sea, later escorting the tanker into Russian waters.

The Kremlin views the sanctions as a "malicious" attempt to cripple its economy and states its ships have the right to pass freely through the Baltic Sea, with attempts to halt them to be "responded to."

The number of tankers at the Vaindloo anchorage, inside Estonia's exclusive economic zone, has risen this week to between 30 and 40, following Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian ports, including Ust-Luga and Primorsk, which disrupted their loading schedules, Värk said.

About half of these freighters are sanctioned, Värk added.

"Shadow fleet" ships often have Russian nationals on board who instruct the crew. While ship-to-shore communication would be possible, this generally does not happen so far as Estonian authorities can tell.

"There must be some reason for that. But communication exists, because these ships are in fact supplied even outside Estonia's territorial waters," Värk said.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and X and never miss an update!