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LONDON: The UK on Tuesday tightened its sanctions on Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, slapping bans on 20 more ships and blacklisting 10 other people or bodies involved in energy and shipping.

Security analysts say the fleet of aging vessels is used by Russia to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil.

Hundreds of vessels have now been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The UK’s new additions to its assets freeze list include the Orion Star group and Rosneft Marine (UK), both said to be significant to Russia’s energy sector, as well as the deep-sea research unit at the Russian defense ministry.

Although Russia’s economy has not collapsed under the sanctions, officials insist they are having an impact.

“Russia’s economy is slowing and the Kremlin has been forced to make increasingly painful trade-offs to support its war effort,” Downing Street said in a statement.

It claimed the sanctions imposed in the last three years “have deprived Russia of at least $450 billion.”

“By one estimate, that’s equivalent to around two more years of funding for the invasion,” it added.

The UK alone has sanctioned over 2,300 individuals, entities and ships since the start of the
invasion.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wanted to hone the new sanctions with Britain’s other G7 partners meeting this week in Canada.

“We should take this moment to increase economic pressure and show President Putin it is in his — and Russia’s interests — to demonstrate he is serious about peace.”

With peace talks stalling, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to press US counterpart Donald Trump to step up sanctions on Russia at the G7 summit.

But as the conflict between Iran and Israel escalated, Trump left the summit early without meeting Zelensky, saying he had “big stuff” to do in Washington. And he has proved reluctant about new sanctions.

The EU has imposed 18 rounds of sanctions on Russia.

Downing Street said “new information” showed Western were creating “significant challenges” for Russian state enterprises, including funding shortfalls, delays in major projects, and growing debt due to high interest rates.

Nine countries currently either say they have nuclear weapons or are believed to possess them.

The first to have nuclear arms were the five original nuclear weapons states — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.

All five are signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits countries that don’t have nuclear arms not to build or obtain them, and those that do to “pursue negotiations in good faith” aimed at nuclear disarmament.

Rivals India and Pakistan, which haven’t signed the NPT, have built up their nuclear arsenals over the years. India was the first to conduct a nuclear test in 1974, followed by another in 1998. Pakistan followed with its own nuclear tests just a few weeks later.

Israel, which also hasn’t signed the NPT, has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons but is widely believed to.

North Korea joined the NPT in 1985 but announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003, citing what it called US aggression. Since 2006, it has conducted a string of nuclear tests.

Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing the bomb now. But it has in recent years been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

In an annual assessment released this week, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that the nine countries had the following stockpiles of military nuclear warheads as of January:

Russia: 4,309
United States: 3,700
China: 600
France: 290
United Kingdom: 225
India: 180
Pakistan: 170
Israel: 90
North Korea: 50