Machine guns spotted on Russian LNG carrier in the Baltic
Estonian surveillance shows the Gazprom-owned Marshal Vasilevskiy fitted with Kord heavy machine guns on a regular Baltic route.
Russia has armed a civilian gas tanker with heavy machine guns in the Baltic Sea, in what appears to be an unprecedented militarisation of a merchant vessel on a regular commercial route, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and several European media partners.
Surveillance photographs taken by the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board in May show two 12.7 mm Kord heavy machine guns mounted in sandbagged firing positions on either side of the bridge of the Gazprom-owned LNG carrier Marshal Vasilevskiy as it transited the Baltic.
The vessel is a strategic asset for Russia, supplying liquefied natural gas between the mainland port of Bolshoy Bor and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which sits between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
Investigators also identified at least 22 people aboard the ship with backgrounds in the Russian military, Federal Security Service (FSB), National Guard or defence ministry. Passenger manifests reviewed by reporters showed several military-linked personnel travelling repeatedly on the vessel, suggesting the armed positions may be manned by trained operators rather than civilian crew.
The findings come as tensions keep rising across the Baltic, where NATO states have stepped up surveillance of Russian shipping following a series of sanctions enforcement actions and suspected acts of maritime sabotage.
