It has long been an open secret that the same ‘ghost fleet’ — that Russia uses to evade the oil price cap sanctions imposed by the Biden Administration — is also used to bring Russian arms and mercenaries from Syria to Eastern Libya. A flurry of publications over recent days has highlighted this practice following on from a 13 March 2025 publication in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) online newspaper. Although the information in the ICIJ report is roughly a year old and relates to a successful use of Operation IRINI, many outlets over the past week have called attention to this practice and European attempts to deter it. Possibly the news stories will be used by Western Libyan officials and their allies in an attempt to goad EU Operation IRINI and the USA into increased action.
