Albania Turns Away Shadow Fleet Tanker Hanuman at Durres
Ukraine's intelligence directorate links the Sierra Leone-flagged ship to Novorossiysk fuel runs
Albanian authorities refused the product tanker Hanuman entry to the port of Durres on 29 August after Ukraine's military intelligence directorate identified the ship as part of Russia's shadow fleet.
The tanker was built in 2004 and is registered in Sierra Leone. Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence added it to its War&Sanctions database on 26 January 2026 as an active shadow fleet vessel, and says it has carried about 452,000 tonnes of Russian fuel since the start of 2025. Most of those voyages began at Novorossiysk, running on to Turkey, Senegal and the United Arab Emirates, and the ship has also been recorded at a transshipment area near Augusta in Sicily.
The directorate names Altoprae Marine, a company based in Novorossiysk, as the operator handling the tanker's voyage logistics, and says it was founded and is managed by a senior figure from the circle of the sanctioned Russian businessman Gennadiy Timchenko. It links two other tankers to the same company. Eventin is under sanctions in the European Union, Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Ukraine. The former Cordelia Moon, now trading as Walrus, is listed by the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia and Ukraine. Both have been involved in incidents that threatened environmental safety.
The wider pattern the directorate describes is familiar from the Baltic and the Black Sea: tracking systems switched off, close-quarters manoeuvring, and vessels that do not meet current environmental standards continuing to load and discharge because no port has refused them.
Durres had. The Hanuman called there in November 2025, and an investigation published in May 2026 identified the tanker among vessels suspected of carrying Russian oil or stolen Ukrainian grain that had used Albanian ports since the full-scale invasion.
Albania is a NATO member and an EU candidate country, and has aligned itself with EU sanctions against Russia since February 2022. The decision at Durres is a port-state one rather than a designation, which is the point of it: a refused berth removes an Adriatic discharge option without waiting for a listing, and it is the kind of step that only works if enough coastal states take it.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 14 September 2026.
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