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As the issue of staffing the Russian “shadow” tanker fleet has begun to receive some attention, but its main focus is still on business directly related to the Kremlin’s oil empire.
But several structures that are daughters of powerful global maritime corporations, are still under Russian jurisdiction regarding relevant crewing activities, and it is worth understanding how their activities are comparable to the sanctions regime and shipping safety, including in the dimension of oil transportation.
So it is worth starting with the Russian daughter of such a global structure as “CMA CGM”, as one of the largest shipping corporations in the world, owned by Marseille billionaire Rodolphe Saadé, who inherited it from his father Jacques Saadé, who transferred his commercial activities to France from Lebanon half a century ago.

Rodolphe Saadé is a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and a member of the US Chamber of Commerce, his corporation pays great attention to PR and sponsorship of sports processes, including the Tour de France and the recent Olympics in Paris.
The basis of “CMA CGM”’s activities, as well as that of another global structure “Delmas Shipping”, headquartered in Le Havre, acquired by it twenty years ago, is maritime container transportation, and formally the trade lines of this corporation, including the Black Sea and Baltic, do not include Russian ports.

However, an “interesting coincidence” recently surfaced when the manager of the Georgian office of “CMA CGM”, Gogi Churkveidze, simultaneously headed the Azerbaijani “Aegis Voyage Shipmanagement” from Sumgait, which was noted as the ISM manager of the sanctioned tanker “Luna”, IMO number 9258868 under the flag of Vietnam.
This vessel in January 2025 exported 100 thousand tons of ‘Urals’ oil worth $ 38.7 million from the Russian port of Ust-Luga through the mediation of the Russian-controlled company from the UAE “Fuel and Oil Dynamics FZE”.
Therefore, it is necessary to more carefully examine the activities of the Russian subsidiary of the “CMA CGM” corporation, the St. Petersburg company LLC “CMA SHIPS RUS” («СМА ШИПС РУС»), tax number 7840061499 with a director like Roman Baranets. This crewing structure, founded by “CMA SHIPS SINGAPORE PTE. LTD” from Singapore and the Russian LLC “СMA СGM RUS” («СИЭМЭЙ СИДЖИЭМ РУСЬ»), was formed in 2017 and has since had a license in Russia for the employment of seafarers 20117781343.

This structure, with an office in the “Stealth” business center, has not faced any obstacles in doing business from the Russian authorities over the past few years, and for 2024 it declared a net profit of 35.4 million rubles.
However, “CMA CGM” has been operating in Russia much longer, since the beginning of the 21st century, in particular through the above-mentioned LLC “СMAСGM RUS”, tax code 7705563140, which declares its functionality in the field of various transportations, is founded by the French “CMA CGM Agencies World wide”, and its director is Mikhail Pochtarev. Mr. Pochtarev is a classic “multi-director”, as he is followed by five more companies, apparently of different beneficiaries, the most notable of which is the Moscow LLC “AIRBUS RUS” («ЭЙРБАС РУС»), tax code 7706644169, that is, the Russian daughter of the French corporation “Airbus”.
But his permanent directorship in the Russian structures of “CMA CGM” began quite a long time ago, when in 2009 it was reported that the then director of the Russian branch of “CMA” Vladimir Glikson would be replaced by the Norwegian Jesper Pedersen, and that “during the transition period, Mikhail Pochtarev will manage the business”.

However, later Pedersen quite quickly stopped cooperation with “CMA CGM” as a whole and “rooted himself” in the top management of Ukrainian logistics companies, but in relation to Pochtarev, the phrase “nothing is more permanent than temporary” turned out to be prophetic.
However, much more interesting is the person of Oleg Shabotin, the former long-time co-founder of “CMA SHIPS RUS”, who disappeared from the relevant list in 2024.
This same person for many years headed the Russian subsidiaries of another global shipping structure, namely “Marlow Navigation”. The official history of this corporation begins in 1982, and the founder of the corporation is called the Dutchman Hermann Eden, and the company’s offices from the very beginning operated with registration in the Netherlands, Cyprus and Germany.

Shabotin, in turn, has “marked himself” as the main “talking head” of the Russian office of “Marlow Navigation” since at least 2003, and he headed the now-defunct CJSC “Marlow Navigation Russia” («Марлоу Навигейшн Россия») and LLC “Marlow Navigation Kaliningrad” («Марлоу Навигэйшн Калининград»), as well as the current Rostov LLC “Marlow Navigation Rus” («Марлоу Навигейшн Рус»), where he is also the CEO.

At the same time, the offices of “Marlow Navigation Rus” actually operate in St. Petersburg and Vladivostok, and in Novorossiysk, the actual structure of Marlow Navigation was the company “Sunrise Marine” LLC («Санрайз Марин»), founded in 2015, tax code 9204004521, the founder of which was first Boris Ezri, and then Andrey Bugrimov.

“Sunrise Marine” had the “working name” as “Marlow Navigation Taurica” in the first years of its existence, and it was under this brand that its first Novorossiysk office was opened, and this company is mentioned on the official website of “Marlow Navigation Rus”.

At the same time, neither during the creation of this structure, nor in the subsequent one, it was particularly clear that its main “target audience” is Crimean sailors; there are reports on social networks about the activities, at least in Sevastopol and Kerch, of “Marlow Navigation” recruiters “under the umbrella” of “Sunrise Marine”, which coordinated the corresponding “shadow offices” in these cities.

In this sense, it is not surprising that the aforementioned Bugrimov is originally from Kerch, and the aforementioned Ezri received the Russian tax number 920455539058 in Sevastopol and purchased an apartment there in 2015, for which, however, he later began to sue the sellers. But the activities of “Sunrise Marine” are noteworthy for our research in another sense.

The fact is that the “main Russian office” of “Marlow Navigation”, just like “CMA CGM”, as follows from open sources, recruits seafarers primarily for container ships and bulk carriers.

But among the dozens of advertisements from 2025 from the “Marlow Navigation Rus” office in St. Petersburg, we found at least two for positions on tankers, namely the senior and, respectively, the second mate on the German-flagged tankers “Seamarlin” IMO number 9380489, “Seaconger” IMO number 9352298, which are operated by “German Tanker Shipping GMBH” from Bremen.

And by a “strange coincidence” on the “Magic Port” maritime portal, in August 2025, both of these vessels were listed as being at risk of sanctions, since they repeatedly called at Novorossiysk for loading, from where they exported oil to the ports of the Mediterranean Sea.