Russian tanker armed with heavy machine guns, media report

The Russian gas carrier Marshal Vasilevsky has been armed with two heavy machine guns, media reported today. Estonian border guards were the first to notice the guns aboard the civilian vessel and handed journalists images of the Kord machine guns on the ship’s bridge. The vessel belongs to Russian energy giant Gazprom and sails under the Russian flag.

This is the first time heavy weapons have been mounted on a Russian civilian tanker, the website of German broadcaster Deutsche Welle wrote. Experts believe the machine guns are primarily intended to prevent the vessel from being detained while sailing near European shores, BBC News reported; two heavy machine guns would hardly be able to protect the ship from a drone attack.

Western countries have already detained several tankers belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet, which circumvents sanctions imposed on Russian oil exports. There is no information that the Marshal Vasilevsky is part of the shadow fleet, but even one machine gun could make it much more difficult for special forces to board the ship. Moreover, a gunner aboard the vessel would also serve as a human shield, since operations in which Russian soldiers could be killed or injured can hardly be considered an acceptable risk at a time when Russia and the West have their weapons pointed at each other, the BBC noted.

The Marshal Vasilevsky is used not only to transport liquefied natural gas, but is also the only Russian vessel capable of converting LNG back into gas that can be delivered to customers. The ship has been in service since 2019, when a terminal was also opened in Kaliningrad Oblast. According to a statement by the Russian president at the time, the terminal was capable of meeting the region’s needs without using pipelines running through neighbouring countries. The region is Russia’s westernmost outpost on the Baltic Sea, squeezed between Poland and Lithuania. Kaliningrad Oblast is currently supplied mainly by a pipeline running via Vilnius and Kaunas. Lithuania signed a new contract late last year to transit Russian gas until the end of 2030, the BBC added.

In March 2024, the Marshal Vasilevsky transported its first shipment of LNG from Russia to Spain. According to the Estonian press, the ship now sails mainly between the terminal near Vyborg in the Gulf of Finland and Kaliningrad Oblast.