Reports

Top 6 Geopolitical Disruptions in Q4 2025

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2026 begins with the maritime domain at the center of geopolitical disruption following an unprecedented fourth quarter.

The year closed with 76% of Windward’s dark fleet of crude tankers sanctioned, extensive GPS jamming disrupting marine navigation across four major seas, and military attacks on commercial shipping.

Growing political recognition that the dark fleet underpins sanctioned oil revenues drove widespread military and policy intervention across global trade lanes.

While the Houthis paused Red Sea attacks on commercial shipping in Q4 2025, Ukrainian drones struck four falsely flagged, Russia-trading tankers in December.

The quarter ended with an entrenched bifurcation of seaborne energy commodities, relentless attacks on Baltic and Black Sea ports, and a quasi-naval blockade of Venezuela.

The international rules-based order underpinning nearly 12 billion tonnes of global seaborne trade annually eroded as the number of sanctioned, flagless, and stateless tankers doubled over 2025.

A flag-governance crackdown in Q4 2025 accelerated reliance on 18 fraudulent registries.

U.S. seizures of two stateless tankers exposed the vulnerability of falsely flagged vessels to legal naval interception in international waters. These actions provide a template for European coastal states concerned about the environmental, safety, and security risks posed by the dark fleet and now weighing a policy response.

With flag state serving as a critical shield against drone strikes and seizures, a nascent trend emerged in Q4 2025 as a dozen tankers exited fraudulent registries and reflagged in Russia.

This report analyzes the six most significant geopolitical disruptions affecting the maritime domain in Q4 2025 and assesses the outlook for early 2026.

Vessel & Company Sanctions

A ship-sanctioning spree continued over Q4 and defined 2025. Regulators worldwide made 923 vessel designations in the final three months of 2025, with nearly all related to Russia or Iran.
94% of sanctions were imposed on tankers, reflecting the accelerating focus on disrupting the dark fleet delivering billions of dollars of oil and gas funding to sanctioned regimes.
The cumulative number of sanctions-evading vessels targeted since 2023 by regulators in the EU, UK and U.S. increased 14% quarter-on-quarter to end the year at just over 1200.
2025 was record breaking in both volume and reach; 80% of all ships now under UK sanctions were designated over the past 12 months, as were 87% of EU-sanctioned tankers.
Total EU sanctions imposed since the beginning of 2023 stand at 600 ships, the UK 550 and the U.S, nearly 400, the latter mostly focused on Iran.
No Russia-related sanctions were imposed by the Trump administration until October, when the United States blacklisted Russia’s two largest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil. In December, the first U.S. Venezuela-related sanctions were imposed on companies and associated tankers involved in Venezuela’s oil trade.
Regulators widened their focus to enablers of sanctions circumvention. Banks, maritime agents, terminals, oil producers, ship registries,oil traders and even tugs providing marine services to dark fleet tankers all came under regulatory scrutiny in Q4 2025.
Further market dislocation and uncertainty continues. An EU ban on imports of refined products made from Russia-derived crude begins in January. Gasoline imported from refineries in India and Türkiye will likely be redirected to new markets, while EU27 countries seek supplies from net exporters in the Middle East or North America.

Flag Hopping

Flag-hopping reached unprecedented levels over 2025 and continues at a record pace as 2026 begins.

Nearly 700 ships changed flags between two and six times over 2025.

376 changed flags three times.
90 vessels reflagged four times, and a further 28, five times.
Four ships cycled through six different flags.

Most were sanctioned tankers that hopped from flag to flag – some using fraudulent registries – after being deleted from open registries that previously specialized in dark fleet business.

Those that were falsely flagged were rendered stateless and vulnerable to interdiction from military forces in international waters.

The most frequently used flags were Comoros, Barbados, Gambia, Cameroon and Sierra Leone. The current average duration of flag registry was 70 days.

Flag hopping, alongside frequent changes of name and registered ownership remains widespread to obfuscate vessel identity.

Since September, the governments of Gambia and Comoros have collectively deleted 150 tankers from their flags in a governance crackdown, claiming the private contractors operating ship registries on their behalf issued fraudulent certificates.

False Flags

As 2025 drew to a close, some 285 internationally trading tankers were broadcasting via AIS under the flag of a fraudulent or unknown registry. Windward identified 18 fraudulent registries, as defined by the International Maritime Organization.

91% of ships using fraudulent registries were Western-sanctioned, underscoring increased pressure dark fleet tankers encounter finding a regulatory home in order to continue trading.
The most frequently used fraudulent registry was Guinea (51 ships)
- Followed by Netherlands Antilles (45)
- Guyana (44)
- and Aruba (24).
Windward identified newly used fraudulent registries over Q4 25 including Maldives, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Samoa and Tonga.
The IMO’s database contained 470 falsely flagged ships, including 340 tankers. Falsely flagged ships are defined as those confirmed by a country’s maritime administration not to be flying its flag.
The number of false‑flag ships doubled over 2025 until October,, then stabilized amid increased naval and military scrutiny. Insurance and class are invalidated if a vessel is falsely flagged.
Four falsely flagged tankers were attacked by Ukrainian drones in December, and two were seized by the U.S, Coast Guard off Venezuela.

GPS Jamming

Vessels affected by GPS jamming fell quarter-on-quarter in all areas except Russia’s eastern port of Nadhokta.
As the U.S. amassed its largest naval presence in the Caribbean in nearly 40 years, GPS jamming was also seen off Venezuela for the first time over December. Nearly 90 vessels were impacted.
Intentional disruption of vessels’ Global Positioning Systems in areas of geopolitical conflict was a hallmark of 2025, and significantly increased navigation and marine safety threats.
Some 6700 vessels were impacted in Q4, nearly 40% fewer than the 11,600 ships affected in the previous quarter.
GPS jamming is now recognized as a persistent, widespread, and ongoing threat. Levels peaked in the Q2, triggered by the Iran conflict in June.
57% of all incidents in Q4 were recorded in the Arabian Gulf, and nearly 20% in the Black Sea, broadly reflecting the year’s overall trend.
Extraordinary GPS disruption led Qatar’s transport ministry to temporarily halt maritime navigation for two days in early October.
GPS jamming remains at all of Russia’s oil export ports to deter drone attacks, as well as across the Baltic and Black Seas, the Arctic region, Red Sea, and the Mediterranean.
Ships impacted off Russia’s eastern port of Nadhokta and the nearby Kozmino oil terminal rose 25% compared to Q3, reaching just over 750. Regional interference there first emerged during the July-through-September period.

Crude Oil Exports (In Collaboration with Vortexa)

Preliminary data show that crude and condensate exports averaged 44.5 million barrels per day in Q4 2025, up 3.5% from the previous quarter and 8.7% above the year-ago period, even as global oil demand growth stalled.
The OPEC+ cartel paused further supply increases in late 2025, amid growing concerns of a supply glut following the unwinding of nearly 2.2 million bpd in production cuts from April through November.
Russian crude prices collapsed to as low as $36 per barrel in December, below the newly imposed UK and EU Oil Price Cap of $47.60, following sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft and Lukoil by the UK and U.S. in October.
Oil on water peaked at 1.3 billion barrels in early November, rapidly rising from 1.1 billion in September, according to Vortexa. This partially reflected increased Middle East and U.S. shipments traveling longer distances to Asia, as India and China sought alternative crude suppliers after sanctions tightened on Iran and Russia. Buyers in India and China temporarily paused purchases while Russia reorganized oil marketing to sidestep sanctions, adding to price volatility.
Chinese stockpiling over 2025, driven by lower oil prices, supported tepid global oil demand growth, which the International Energy Agency estimated in December at 0.8% for the year.
Logistics inefficiencies driven by disrupted and bifurcated seaborne energy commodities trades supported freight rates for crude tankers. Rates peaked in December with very large crude carriers briefly averaging $120,000 per day, beforeearnings rapidly slumped below $40,000 by early 2026.
Clean trades are expected to recalibrate for a third time in four years as EU bans on refined products from Russia-derived crude change ripple through global markets in late January.

Maritime Critical Infrastructure Protection

Global drifting and low-speed activity over strategic underwater cables and pipelines climbed 11% quarter-on-quarter to the highest level in 2025.
17% of ships engaged in these activities over the 12-month period were flagged in China, followed by the world’s two largest registries, Liberia (11%) and Panama (10%).
33% of all Q4 25 drifting and slow-speed activity occurred in the South China Sea, and 26% in the Mediterranean. China was the next port of call for 37% of ships after global drifting or low-speed activity was observed.
Less than 2% of all global drifting or low-speed activity was observed in the smaller Baltic Sea region. NATO launched Baltic Sentry in January 2025 to safeguard critical undersea infrastructure after three suspected sabotage incidents in the prior 18 months.
In Q4 2025, cargo vessels accounted for 56% of observed ships, with tankers making up 44%, broadly in line with previous quarters.

Dark & Gray Fleets

49% of Windward’s total dark fleet of 2068 vessels is now sanctioned, rising to 76% for all internationally trading crude tankers.
Registered ownership was incorporated in Russia for 15% of the dark fleet,
- followed by Marshall Islands (also 15%)
- Hong Kong (10.5%)
- Seychelles (8%)
- and the UAE (6.7%).
- The use of single-ship special purpose vehicles for registered ownership is common in shipping but within the dark fleet, they are structured in ways that prevent beneficial ownership discovery.

Similar single-ship structures for dark fleet ISM management companies are used. Russia, UAE and China were the top three countries of incorporation, followed by Hong Kong. ISM manager was unknown for 26% of the dark fleet.
21% of dark fleet ships were flagged in Russia, followed by 9% in Panama*, the world’s second-largest registry. Panama’s ship registry introduced regulations in late 2023 to delete sanctioned vessels.
Cameroon, Comoros, Palau, Gambia and Barbados were top open registries used by the dark fleet. Gabon, one of the largest in 2024, became one of the smallest after being sanctioned by the EU and UK in mid-2025.

AIS Signal Losses and Port Calls

- In Q4 2025, 94% of sanctions-related dark activities were linked to Iran or Russia, underscoring their dominant role in driving global deceptive shipping practices.

Q4 2025 saw sanctions-related dark activities rise by 46% in the DPRK and 48% in Syria..
- This quarterly increase in Syria marks a shift in trend after we saw a significant decrease in Q3.
Port calls to Syria continued to rise in Q4 2025, increasing 41% compared to Q3, reflecting the continuous impact of the gradual lifting of sanctions on the regime.

Ship-to-Ship Transfers

Anchorages off Lomé in Togo, Port Said in Egypt, and Linggi in Malaysia were the top three areas used by tankers for ship-to-ship transfers of oil and gas cargoes in 2025.
- More than 420 ship-to-ship activities were seen off the West African port in Q4 2025, and nearly 1650 for the year. This compares with over110 at Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, and +250 at Linggi.
+160 transfers were seen off Cyprus, +60 off Malta and +30 off Augusta, Italy in Q4 2025. Including Port Said, nearly all Mediterranean STS occurred in international waters,outside port state control, and is considered a deceptive shipping practice.
International waters off Hong Kong emerged over 2025 as the newest STS hub used by sanctioned and/or high-risk tankers, totaling over50 activities for the year, including more than 10 in the last quarter.
The fastest-growing STS hub in 2025 was Sohar, Oman. STS activities at the port rose 78% in H2 25 to +40 compared with the first half of 2025.
The Riau Archipelago off Malaysia was the most popular area for dark ship-to-ship activity involving sanctioned and high-risk tonnage.

A Turbulent Q1 2026 Ahead

Further geopolitical disruption driving inefficient, atypical trading routes is expected to continue through Q1 2026. This will keep skewing supply and demand indicators that influence freight prices, which shipowners rely on to assess asset profitability and guide investment decisions.

Foreign policy misalignment between the U.S.,EU, and UK over Russia could play out in the maritime sector with the Oil Price Cap likely scrapped.

Divisions between military and commercial shipping are blurring. Vessels affiliated with state actors were used for non-commercial purposes, and military personnel are now being placed on dark fleet tankers to protect assets.

2026 begins with maritime order upended, global trade rules rewritten, and a re-examination of maritime laws and conventions that will have commercial and operational consequences for those left behind.