Estonia images show machine guns on Russian LNG carrier in Baltic
Estonian border guards say the tanker carried two heavy machine guns and sandbagged firing positions, a move officials said could deter inspections.
- On Monday, June 29, 2026, reports revealed Estonian border guards photographed the Russian Gazprom LNG tanker Marshal Vasilevsky operating in the Gulf of Finland with a Kord heavy machine gun mounted on its wheelhouse.
- The Marshal Vasilevsky supplies energy to Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian exclave between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, as European countries impose sanctions to diminish Russian income.
- Captured in early May, the photographs provide the first public evidence of a Russian civilian tanker operating with heavy weaponry; the almost 300-metre-long natural gas tanker is not an ordinary cargo ship.
- An intelligence officer from the Baltic region noted that if heavy machine guns are aboard, "then the boarding risk assessment becomes completely different," making the probability of boarding effectively zero.
- Investigative journalist Holger Roonemaa suggested the weapon may counter Ukrainian UAV attacks or prevent inspections, while a Russian warship fired warning shots at a British-flagged yacht in the English Channel earlier this month.
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45 Articles
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The Russians have armed a Gazprom gas tanker with two Kord heavy machine guns. The weapons were spotted on board the civilian ship by Estonian border guards in May.
It is worrying images taken by the Estonian border guard during a surveillance flight over the Baltic Sea. On the Russian gas tanker "Marshal Vasilevskiy" two heavy machine guns were discovered. It is the first time that an armament was discovered on a civilian Russian tanker.
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