Friday 10 January 2025 · below the Index · spike
Russian shadow fleet tanker disabled in Baltic Sea
A disabled Russian 'shadow fleet' oil tanker adrift in the Baltic Sea was secured by German tugs in January 2025. The incident drew significant media attention to Russia's use of aging, uninsured vessels to circumvent Western sanctions on oil exports.
Peak 65.8 on Saturday 11 January 2025. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Media-led, both over the window and on the peak day.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 64% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Tuesday 31 December 2024.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: shady industry. Trade press was 9% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 58% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor; 3% of it was strongly negative in tone.
What the coverage said
- Germany tows disabled Russian 'shadow fleet' tanker adrift in Baltic Seacnn.com · 2025-01-11
- Germany says Russian 'shadow' oil tanker stuck in Baltic Seabbc.com · 2025-01-11
- Germany races to save a Russian 'shadow fleet' tanker to prevent an oil spillscmp.com · 2025-01-11
- Germany battles to secure 'Russian shadow fleet' oil tanker adrift off northern coast | Germanytheguardian.com · 2025-01-11
- Russian 'shadow fleet' oil tanker towed to German port – DW – 01/12/2025dw.com · 2025-01-12
- Fully Laden Shadow Fleet Tanker Breaks Down in Baltic Stormmaritime-executive.com · 2025-01-11
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- tier C: only a Wikipedia article, GDELT sub-vocabulary term, or social per-term query fired — not yet confirmed as a real maritime incident (Phase C naming/is_maritime_incident does that).
- coverage scored on title only (no excerpt) — measured ~8pp frame precision cost vs title+excerpt (docs/HANDOVER-incidents.md §2.3)
- coverage filtered to articles matching this incident specifically (336/750 kept) — see coverage.filter.terms
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Russian shadow fleet tanker disabled in Baltic Sea, peak 65.8 on 11 January 2025. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2025-russian-shadow-fleet-tanker-disabled-in-baltic-sea/