Dodging the cap has increased the price Russia gets for its oil on global markets, sanctions experts say. The discount for Russian oil compared to international benchmark Brent crude has shrunk from as much as $35 per barrel to less than $10 per barrel. Russia has seen oil income hold up steadily and even rise.

The “vintage tonnage” is the “shadow fleet” of second-hand oil tankers that were spared from the ship-breaking yards in 2022 because Russia lost its export market in Europe when it invaded Ukraine. There were plenty of potential customers for cut-price Russian oil in India and China, but no pipelines to get it there. It had to go by sea.

It evokes 17th-century pirate vessels flying the skull-and-crossbones, 18th century ships-of-the-line bristling with cannons, or even 19th-century clipper ships in full sail bringing tea to England and America.

President Joe Biden's administration says it's expanding sanctions against Russia's critically important energy sector over its war in Ukraine.

There was already a smallish shadow fleet of antiquated tankers carrying embargoed oil from Venezuela and Iran, but the sanctions on Russian oil exports expanded that fleet at least fourfold. Anybody with a tanker that could still float, however decrepit and unsafe, could make a pile of money by putting it at Moscow’s disposal.

The name is brilliant: "vintage tonnage". It evokes 17th-century pirate vessels flying the skull-and-crossbones, 18th-century ships-of-the-line bristling with cannons, or even 19th-century clipper ships in full sail bringing tea to England and America.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, arrived to chants of “USA! USA! USA!” inside a Senate hearing room Tuesday morning.

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The Cook Islands-registered oil tanker Eagle S is anchored near the Kilpilahti port in Porvoo on the Gulf of Finland, Dec. 30, 2024.

The leader of breakaway Moldovan region Transnistria visited Moscow recently for talks on resolving its energy crisis, local media reported Tuesday.

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Another Indian national from Kerala, who was similarly recruited, has been injured and is receiving treatment in a hospital in Moscow," said the ministry of external affairs in a statement ...