Espionage from civilian vessels: What does the Russian maritime doctrine say?

“There has been a significant increase in greyzone tactics by civilian ships. This is now official policy in Russia.”, professor at the University of Copenhagen, Christian Bueger, said in an interview with the investigative news outlet Follow The Money in 2024. He continued: “It is described in black and white in the new maritime doctrine drawn up in 2022. Civilian ships, such as fishing boats, container ships and oil tankers, must cooperate in military missions.”

“You just need to read the Russian maritime doctrine from July last year. It says that the Russian government can use all existing ships, no matter ownership or civilian or military status”, researcher at the Norwegian Naval academy, Ståle Ulriksen, said in a debate on the Norwegian public broadcaster in 2023.

In May this year, the EU used the maritime doctrine as part of the basis for imposing sanctions on Russian fishing vessels. According to the EU, the doctrine allow civilian ships to be used by the armed forces in peace time.

However, does the Russian maritime doctrine really warrant this?

I have followed the directions given by researcher Ulriksen and tried to find what professor Bueger claim is stated in black and white, to no avail. Analyzing the issue uncovers that it is not possible to derive these claims by reading the doctrine.

A month before the interview with professor Bueger was published, the Belgian news outlet “VRT NWS” published an article providing a link to a translation of the doctrine. Similar information was also published by “EU Today”. The article stated that “points 84 and 85 in part 7 of the doctrine summarize it well”, and then claimed that “Civilian ships are adapted in advance, and the crew is trained to serve in wartime. And in peacetime, all fishing vessels, transport ships, and specialized ships may be used by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.” “In summary, even Russian fishing boats can be at the Kremlin’s disposal at any time.”

Point 84 in the doctrine states the importance and the goal of being able to incorporate and train civilian crew in advance of wartime operation. Point 85 give details for the prioritization of the maritime mobilization training, sub point 10) is dealing with reimbursement of vessel owners following use as described in sub point 9), which is the basis for the espionage accusations:

“85. The priority areas for improving mobilization training and mobilization readiness in the field of maritime activity are: … 9) improving the procedure for the conscription and use of transport, fishing and specialized vessels of all forms of ownership, as well as the use of port facilities by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, and military units conducting special operations in peacetime;”

According to the dictionary, the word “conscription” used in point 85 9) in the translation means “compulsory enrollment of persons especially for military service”. As a vessel is not a person, a more suitable translation of the Russian word “призыва” in this context could perhaps be “call”, meaning “to summon to a particular activity” or “summons”; “a call by authority to appear at a place named or to attend to a duty”. A word with a very similar meaning is “requisition”; “a demand or application made usually with authority; such as a demand made by military authorities upon civilians for supplies or other needs”. Requisition is the term used in legislation giving other governments similar rights.

The conscription, summons or requisition procedures are to be improved for the Armed Forces and other troops in preparation for wartime, and correspondingly, for military units conducting special operations in peacetime. We need to determine what “military units” and “special operations” entail, to determine how this is intended to affect peacetime operations. Particularly, we should assess if it is correct that the doctrine is meant to facilitate gray-zone operations and espionage from civilian vessels in peacetime.

A likely reason for including the “other troops” clause is support for private military companies, mercenaries, like the infamous Wagner group.

The term “специальных операций” - “special operations”, is explained in Encyclopedia Britannica: “Special operations warfare is conducted by uniformed military forces. This distinction helps to differentiate special operations warfare from activities such as sabotage and subversion conducted by intelligence agencies or internal security and policing conducted by law-enforcement units”. The article exemplifies this with the German Grenzschutzgruppe-9 (GSG-9), Britains Special Air Service (SAS), Russian Spetsialnoye naznacheniye (Spetsnaz), the U.S. Army’s “Green Berets”, and the U.S.Navy’s SEALs.

It may be argued that the term “in peacetime” also refers to the use of civilian vessels and port facilities for the Armed Forces and other troops not just in wartime, but also in peacetime as the article in “VRT NWS” and the EU do. This is an erroneous interpretation though, as it makes the explicit mention of “military units conducting special operations in peacetime” redundant as these forces are part of either the Armed Forces or the other troops already mentioned.

Both Norway and the U.S. have legislation enabling similar use.

The Norwegian “Requisition Act” (rekvisisjonsloven) states that when the country is at war, or if the government deems it necessary in peacetime in order to be prepared, the armed forces can requisition anything they need, including vessels, with or without personnel(§ 1). The government can also demand that civilian companies prepare by mounting guns on vessels and perform any other suitable preparations in peacetime (§ 6). Losses and expenses due to the requisitions are to be reimbursed by the government (§ 12). There is also a separate law detailing what kind of vessel ownership it is that qualifies for requisition. The US Code, Chapter 563 - “Emergency Acquisition of vessels”, provides similar requisition rights.

The Falklands war provides an example of how civilian vessels may be used by the Armed Forces. The British requisitioned five deep sea trawlers and fit them with rudimentary mine sweeping equipment. These vessels were used by special forces to conduct Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Battle Damage Assessment (BDA), Battle Damage Repair (BDR) and underwater reconnaissance in potential landing areas.

The obvious meaning of the military use of civilian vessels in peacetime stated in the Russian maritime doctrine is consequently to transport or support military special operations units, in uniform, after the government has summoned or requisitioned the vessel. This is similar to what the requisition legislation in particularly Norway, but also in the U.S. permits.

In the interview, professor Bueger said that “Civilian ships, such as fishing boats, container ships and oil tankers, must cooperate in military missions”. That may very well be true. However, the doctrine states that the vessels needs to be summoned, procedures are to be developed. And the purpose of summoning vessels in peacetime is to support special operations forces - and training.

If Buegers statements that the doctrine is the reason for “significant increase in gray-zone tactics by civilian ships”, that “this is now official policy in Russia”, and is “described in black and white in the new maritime doctrine drawn up in 2022” is correct, these vessel would have to have special operations forces onboard, or at least, the vessels would have to run support missions for such forces.

But there are no reports of special operation forces onboard the «Belomorye», the refrigerator ship the Dutch authorities refused access to their harbors in May 2024, allegedly due to fear of espionage. Nor are there reports of special operations forces onboard the «Taurus», the trawler the Norwegian public broadcaster, NRK, claimed could be spying in December 2022. NRK even supported their claim with manipulated information. And both vessels were subject to inspections by Norwegian authorities. Actually, as far as I know, there are no reports or observations of Russian special operations forces onboard civilian Russian vessels after the doctrine was published.

The reason for including use of civilian vessels in peacetime in the maritime doctrine is also apparently easy to identify. On the Russian Ministry of Defense website the main use of the Russian Armed Forces is stated as (machine translated): “in peacetime - peacekeeping actions and special operations of troops (forces) in internal armed conflicts;” Perhaps not so surprising then that support for military units conducting special operations in peacetime appeared in the maritime doctrine. This information was posted on the website in 2015 and was unchanged in 2022. Possible use of special operations forces in internal armed conflicts in Russia does not give reason to neither suspect nor warn about possible espionage from fishing vessels in the North Sea.

This analysis shows that the claim put forward that the doctrine is facilitating using civilian vessels for gray-zone and espionage activities in peacetime does not hold scrutiny. An observed or perceived increase in such activity cannot be ascribed to what is stated in the doctrine. And neither can the unconditional claim from VRT NWS and the EU that civilian ships and crews can be used by the armed forces in peace time.

It would be very interesting to learn what kind of analysis the two academics mentioned, professor Christian Bueger at the University of Copenhagen and researcher Ståle Ulriksen at the Norwegian Naval academy, as well as the EU have to support their claims.

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Image at the top of the article: Russian naval parade 2020 (photo: Russian MoD)