Few people know Danish waters as well as Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He currently works for the state pilotage DanPilot, which navigates ships safely through Danish waters. But he has also spent several years in the Navy during the Cold War in the 80s, sailed gas tankers around the world in the 90s, and has now been a pilot for more than 26 years, both for the state and privately in Denmark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite his long working life, he has never experienced anything like what he is seeing on the oil tankers in Denmark and the Baltic Sea right now: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russian men in what look like military uniforms, breathing down the pilots’ necks. Important papers that mysteriously disappear. Lack of cooperation and a dismissive tone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s beyond my wildest imagination. We board the ships and are met with total secrecy,” he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is talking about the Russian dark fleet, which since the invasion of Ukraine has been flowing through Denmark every single day with sanctioned Russian oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of the pilots’ responsibility is to be alert to faults and deficiencies and report them to the authorities when navigating ships through Danish waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In practice, it is the only body that provides Denmark with insight into what is actually happening on board the ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Royal Danish Navy, together with NATO allies, is trying to gather as much information as possible about the dark fleet ships through the ‘Baltic Sentry’ operation, but only the pilots actually have eyes on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, it is a “worrying” development that uniformed men are appearing on the ships, explains Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Several of my colleagues are now seeing men on the dark fleet ships who are uniformed in Russian naval camouflage,” he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It can be intimidating to see uniformed men standing guard. If they were just in civilian clothes, you wouldn’t notice them. I suppose it’s part of their tactic to be seen. Not only by us visiting, but also by the crew, so they don’t dare to do anything the Russians don’t want,” says Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Danwatch has seen photographic documentation that men in uniform have been observed on the ships, and internal emails from the state pilotage DanPilot confirm Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup’s statements. However, Danwatch is unable to confirm whether the men or the uniforms are Russian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked, DanPilot has neither confirmed nor denied the reports of uniformed men, despite the fact that emails with reports of mysterious men in camouflage uniforms have been sent internally within the company. It has also not been possible to find out how many reports there are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state pilotage states, however, that its pilots \u201cnaturally\u201d comply with the statutory reporting obligation when they encounter \u201cobvious irregularities\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are monitoring developments closely, but we have no indications of problematic interaction between our employees and members of the ships’ crews,” says DanPilot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Danwatch has asked Minister of Foreign Affairs Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen (M) whether he will discuss the uniformed men on civilian merchant ships in Danish waters with his European allies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has declined to respond. Instead, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has referred to Torsten Shack’s (V) Ministry of Public Security and Emergency Management, but there has been no comment from the ministry either, as the minister does not wish to speak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few hours before the deadline, the ministry instead referred to the Danish Emergency Management Agency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike in the past, when there was often good cooperation on the ships, he now experiences that pilots are put on ice and “escorted” to the bridge they board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup, it often seems as if the crew would prefer the pilots not to see too much. When the pilots arrive at the bridge, they are met by “bad atmosphere” and mysterious secrecy, he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We usually ask to see some papers so we can be sure that the ship has some owners and insurance that can be contacted in the event of an accident. All the information we need to know that the ship is safe has been vacuumed from the bridge,” he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dark fleet is known for sailing with fake companies registered as owners, often without insurance papers and in the worst cases under forged official papers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other words, often none of the information about the ships is correct, making it difficult to find someone who can be held accountable in the event of disasters, espionage or similar incidents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the Baltic Sentry operation, the authorities are contacting the ships and asking them to hand over insurance papers, but as Danwatch has previously revealed, the authorities have been deceived several times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pilots, on the other hand, have been able to see the physical papers and, on that basis, have had the opportunity to report if something was seriously wrong. But this is usually not possible on the dark fleet, says Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In several cases, he has also experienced that among purely Asian crews, there is one Russian who is officially the second mate, but who is clearly the one in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It reminds me of the political officers seen on Soviet ships during the Cold War. I think they are there to control the crew and keep them in line,” he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the seriousness of the situation right now exceeds Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup’s imagination, it did not appear out of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the experienced sailor started noticing ships that were getting \u201colder and older\u201d and mysteriously sailing through Danish waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the very beginning, he was wondering about the companies that owned the ships on paper and the flags under which the ships sailed. He says: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The old ships were not at all as cared for as all the others. They were in poor condition and sailed with far greater draft, which means that the risk of grounding was greater.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem grew and grew, and as Danwatch has revealed, it turned out that a sophisticated Russian operation was underway, in which ships would evade sanctions by being hidden behind fake companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the authorities only really took up the fight against the ships in December 2024 with Operation Baltic Sentry, pilots like Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup and many of his colleagues have for a long time warned about how dangerous the situation looked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We tried to alert the government for years, but they didn’t listen to us. I still don’t think they are doing everything they can. The NATO ships sailing around out there don’t mean much to the Russians,” he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup believes that the governments of Denmark and the other European countries need to realize how serious the situation has become. He calls for concrete and more decisive action against the ships, which, in his opinion, often violate international law and the sanctions against Russia completely without any consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Danwatch has contacted the Danish Emergency Management Agency, which is the body that has ultimately been referred to after going through both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security and Emergency Management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the agency has not responded to Danwatch’s questions about either uniformed Russians on civilian ships or Bjarne C\u00e6sar Skinnerup’s claim that the pilots’ work is becoming increasingly difficult due to the tense situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, the agency refers to the Pilotage Act and the pilots’ reporting obligation without further explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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