Britain on Thursday announced its largest sanctions to date against Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers used to sidestep a Western embargo on oil exports after its invasion of Ukraine.
The government's latest crackdown bars 18 ships from UK ports and British maritime services, bringing the total number sanctioned to 43.
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Experts say the so-called ghost fleet, with opaque ownership or without proper insurance, has allowed the Kremlin to keep exporting despite sanctions on exports and oil price cap on its global sales.
The shadow fleet was also accused by the UK of posing a threat to the environment and coastlines "as a result of its flagrant violation of basic safety standards".
The UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said its sanctions were "starving Putin's war machine of crucial revenues.
"A significant number of the ships targeted by the UK to date have been forced to sit idling uselessly outside ports," it said in a statement.
"I have made it my personal mission to constrain the Kremlin, closing the net around Putin and his mafia state using every tool at my disposal," said Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
However, a report this week by the Kyiv School of Economics found that the volume of Russian oil being exported via shadow tankers had almost doubled to 4.1 million barrels a day in the year to June 2024.
Despite Western sanctions, 70 percent of Russian oil exports by sea were conducted by ghost tankers, said the report.
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Ships targeted in the new UK sanctions package include some owned by Sovcomflot, Russia's largest shipping company.
Britain's foreign ministry also announced sanctions against four LNG tankers and Russian gas company Rusgazdobycha JSC.
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