Schaduwen op de Noordzee (Shdows on the North Sea)

In this article (in Dutch) Frederik Rogiers (PhD researcher GRILI & Maritime Institute) takes operation Blue Intruder - the boarding of the tanker Ethera off the coast of Zeebrugge on 1 March 2026 - as a starting point to explain what the so-called Russian shadow fleet is: a loose network of roughly 1,500 ageing tankers operating outside the regular maritime circuit in order to circumvent Western sanctions. He sets out the ecological and security risks that these poorly maintained and barely insured vessels pose to a densely used North Sea, and examines why intervention long proved difficult under international law of the sea, where the principle of flag-state jurisdiction shields such ships from outside control. The piece discusses how Articles 92(2) and 110 UNCLOS - recently reinforced by a joint declaration of fourteen North Sea and Baltic states treating ships sailing under multiple flags as stateless - open the door to boarding without the consent of a clear flag state, and highlights the gaps that remain in Belgian law, which still has no specific offence for sailing without a valid flag. Frederik concludes that the Ethera was a valuable test case, but that a clearer national framework is needed before the next shadow-fleet tanker enters Belgium's exclusive economic zone.