Paul Goble
Staunton, June 25 – Seventy percent of Russia’s merchant ships are older then 25, and Russia’s shipyards aren’t capable of building replacements for them fast enough, Novyye Izvestiya reports, noting that is the major reason why “Russian shipping countries have been forced to switch to using a shadow fleet.”
Vessels built in the last ten years amount to less than 15 percent of the fleet, a sign, the newspaper says, that there has been “almost a complete lack” of renewal in recent decades (newizv.ru/news/2025-06-25/den-moryaka-na-fone-morskogo-krizisa-chto-ugrozhaet-rossiyskomu-flotu-437279).
The aging of the Russian fleet has an impact not only on its reliability but on the cost of using its ships -- older ones use more fuel and require repairs that put many ships out of action for a long period – and on the ability of Moscow to meet its trade and security goals, including on the Northern Sea Route where it has “fewer than half” of the 57 specialized ships it needs.
Russia’s wharfs aren’t keeping up. They have long been troubled by corruption and poor management, and since 2022, they have suffered from Western sanctions which have prevented them from getting parts Russian companied don’t yet make. Last year, Russian shipbuilders delivered only 16 new ships for Russia’s merchant fleet.
The aging of its existing fleet and the inability to replace older ships with newer ones has forced Russian companied to use a shadow fleet consisting of “ships officially not connected with Russian companies, often registered under flags of convenience and owned by ostensibly offshore structures.” Experts say Russia is now using up to 1400 such ships.
All these factors are contributing to an increase in harm to the environment, to the collapse of port infrastructure in the Russian Federation, and to declines in Russian foreign trade, declines that many blame sanctions on but that in fact are the result of Moscow’s failure to build new ships.
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