Machine guns were discovered on the Russian gas tanker “Marshal Vasilevsky”
29 June 21:19
Russia has begun equipping gas tankers with machine guns amid growing risks of vessels being detained in the Baltic Sea. On the LNG tanker “Marshal Vasilevsky,” which supplies liquefied natural gas to Kaliningrad, two firing positions equipped with large-caliber “Kord” machine guns have been spotted for the first time, reports The Times, as cited by "Komersant Ukrainian".
Sandbags are positioned nearby to stabilize the firing positions. The weapons can engage targets at a range of up to 2 km. The photographs were taken in May 2026 by the Estonian Border Guard from a reconnaissance aircraft.
Defending against aerial drones with single machine guns is ineffective, noted Danish independent military analyst Jens Wenzel Christoffersen. An intelligence officer from one of the Baltic states agrees with him. In a conversation with Delfi, the source noted that for such purposes, several automatic weapons connected into a single system are typically used: “The Baltic Sea is not the Mediterranean. There are no countries here from whose territory maritime drones could be launched. Ukraine won’t be able to do this and remain undetected. I am more than certain that none of the Baltic Sea countries would take such a political risk.”
Since August 2025, the “Marshal Vasilevsky” has been under heightened security; there were about 24 people on board with ties to Russian security agencies — the FSB, the Russian National Guard, and the army, according to Russian propaganda media. For example, Dmitry Artemenko, who is linked to the FSB Special Forces Center in Balashikha, was on board. “This only underscores how important LNG is to Russia’s military economy,” said Sebastian Retters, a sanctions expert at Urgewald.
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An intelligence official stated that the weapons could prevent European countries from boarding the ships. “If it becomes known that ships in the shadow fleet may be armed with large-caliber machine guns, the risk assessment for seizure operations will change,” he said. “The likelihood that anyone will board such a ship will be practically zero. No one will approach it by helicopter.” Patrick Bolder, a defense expert at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies, believes this is a warning to NATO: “Don’t try to attack us, because it could provoke a war.”
Gazprom, which owns the “Marshal Vasilevsky,” did not respond to questions about the machine guns. Over the past year, Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Russian ships. A similar LNG carrier, the Arctic Metagaz, was disabled in the Mediterranean Sea in March 2026. According to sources, it was struck by Ukrainian naval drones launched from Libya.
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