Russia adds machine guns to FSRU in Baltic Sea

Russia has, according to photos taken by the police force for EU member state Estonia, added heavy weaponry to at least one of its LNG vessels.

A representative of the Estonia Police and Border Guard Board told Riviera in an email that the group’s aviation unit had captured photos of machine guns on board the Russia-flagged floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) vessel Marshal Vasilevskiy. 

Head of the Estonian police and border guard board Veiko Kommusaar said that the surveillance data confirmed that Russian Federation vessels present a security risk for Baltic countries.

"Vessels operating in the Baltic Sea on behalf of the Russian Federation pose security and environmental risks, regardless of the flag state under which they sail. This is also confirmed by our surveillance data," he said. "In maritime operations, we must take into account that the operating environment has become more hazardous. Addressing such activities and mitigating their impact is a shared challenge for the Estonian state."

Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary General Ambassador Jonatan Vseviov confirmed on X (formerly Twitter) that "Russia is now equipping civilian ships with machine guns".

An in-depth report on the incident by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigative journalism platform said the vessel has been equipped with two 12.7mm Kord heavy machine guns mounted near the bridge. 

"The images, taken in mid-May and shared with OCCRP’s member center, Delfi Estonia, show firing positions fortified with sandbags on both sides of the [vessel’s] bridge. Behind the defensive ramparts are 12.7-millimeter caliber Kord heavy machine guns, which were introduced in Russia in the late 1990s and can be lethal even at a distance of two kilometers," the report said, citing Hague-based defense analyst from the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies think tank Patrick Bolder as saying that the addition of the weaponry “is part of putting pressure on NATO countries”.

While OCCRP’s report says the photos showing the machine gun on the LNG vessel were taken in May 2026, in June 2026, NATO member UK intercepted and interdicted a Russian oil tanker in the English channel for the first time, after boarding via helicopter, "in close coordination with the French". 

France and Sweden have also recently boarded Russian tankers, and US and UK forces coordinated to seize a Russian-flagged VLCC in the North Atlantic in January 2026 as part of a broad sanctions-enforcement and vessel seizure campaign undertaken by the US in the wake of its invasion of Venezuela. 

And on 7 June, the EU’s Mediterranean naval mission, Operation Irini (the Greek word for "peace") carried out a flag-verification boarding of EU-sanctioned tanker Sandhya.

Kpler senior risk and compliance analyst Dimitris Ampatzidis told Riviera that the expansion of Operation Irini could add a more practical layer of oversight and enforcement against the shadow fleet.

"The ability to conduct boardings, even in selected cases, could have a deterrent effect and demonstrate that the EU is willing to move towards more active enforcement at sea," he said.

Signal Ocean also noted on 1 April that Ukrainian drone attacks damaged two oil terminals on Russia’s Baltic coast, resulting in the temporary halting of about 40% of the country’s seaborne trade.

In March 2026, another Russian LNG vessel, Arctic Metagaz suffered an explosion in the Mediterranean Sea, with Russia’s Ministry of Transport condemning the incident and calling it "international terrorism and maritime piracy".

Maritime risk analysts assessed that the fire aboard the sanctioned vessel in the Mediterranean appeared to have come from a drone attack, and Russia’s Ministry of Transport indicated that the source was a Ukrainian military strike.

EOS Risk Group told Riviera that 2003-built Arctic Metagaz was "subject to a likely drone attack".

An intelligence assessment produced by EOS Marine Russia analyst John Walking drew parallels in the attack methodology with earlier attacks on Russia-linked vessels in the Mediterranean by Ukraine. Mr Walking assessed the probability of similar attacks in the future as ’highly likely’.

Notably, Kpler analysis said that the type of heavy machine guns installed on Marshal Vasilevskiy "are not well-suited for defending against naval or aerial drones".

The FSRU Marshal Vasilevskiy can reportedly operate as an LNG carrier and is said to regularly transport LNG between Bolshoy Bor on mainland Russia and Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. 

Maritime data analysts at Kpler said the vessel is not considered part of Russia’s shadow fleet despite being under sanction and listed under the ownership and management of sanctioned Russian energy company Gazprom in the Equasis database. Open-source sanctions database Open Sanctions lists the vessel as sanctioned by the United Kingdom in October 2024, Canada in February 2025, and Australia in December 2025, with owner/operator Gazprom Flot sanctioned by the European Union in April 2025.