Wagner member and Russian intelligence officer worked on attacked tanker

A joint investigation with NRK found that journalists gained access to crew lists and discovered that on the tanker’s penultimate voyage, not only crew members were on board but also two Russians — Oleksandr Malakhov and Viktor Aleksandrov. In the ship’s documents, their names were marked as “guards.”

As it turned out, Malakhov is a 49-year-old native of Russia’s Volgograd Oblast. He served in the 22nd Separate Guards Special Purpose Brigade of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, and in February 2024 returned from Syria. Since journalists found no records of budget payments in his tax documents, they assume that Malakhov was linked to private military companies.

Aleksandrov was born in Crimea and is 59 years old. He had direct ties to the Wagner private military company, journalists said. Since 2017, he had been in Syria, where he fought as part of the 6th Assault Detachment as a BMP infantry fighting vehicle driver under the call sign “Katso.”

In 2019, he was dismissed for drunkenness and unauthorized absence, but in 2020 he returned to the ranks of the “Wagnerites.” After the start of Russia’s full-scale war, Aleksandrov repeatedly visited occupied territories of Ukraine.

Malakhov and Aleksandrov boarded the tanker in September 2025 before its departure from Ust-Luga but left the vessel before it was attacked by drones in December. The tanker’s documentation does not list their certificates or qualifications required for service on a ship, unlike those of other crew members.

In addition, the vessel had not hired guards for previous voyages, leading journalists to doubt that they were on board to protect the ship from Somali pirates or Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Kari Aga Myklebost, a professor at the Arctic University of Norway, told NRK that Russia uses a “shadow fleet” for разведка, and that a route passing near Yemen and Somalia provides a convenient pretext to deny espionage.

On Dec. 19, 2025, Ukraine’s Security Service struck a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker for the first time in neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The vessel, QENDIL, sustained critical damage and will no longer be able to be used for its intended purpose.