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An Old Solution to a New Problem: Ukraine's Letter of Marque [1]

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Date: 2024-01-07  

One of the key components of the West to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was to enact heavy sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, thus depriving the Russian war machine the money it needed to continue the invasion. There has been some success in this but nowhere near the level that Western and Ukrainian policy makers had hoped for.

The key problem is that Russia purchased a large fleet of used oil tankers and self insured them, thereby bypassing the handicap of international insurers being unable to insure Russian ships due to the fear of sanctions and giving Russia a conduit to the world energy market. Technically, these Russian tankers would be fair game for the Ukrainian Navy, but Ukraine finds itself in the peculiar position of having its navy bottled up in the Black Sea due to the Montreux Convention governing the Bosporus Straits during war time.

During the Age of Sail, several nations including the United States hired privately armed ships to act as an auxiliary navy without the need to fully commission and maintain them. Thus, a legal instrument called a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was issued by one state to allow private vessels to prey upon the merchantmen of another state. It is a tool that is still enshrined in the United States constitution and likely in other countries founding documents as well.

And here we could have a solution to the Russian tanker problem. Ukraine should give legal authority to the President, with legislative approval, to issue Letter’s of Marque for private vessels to hunt down these Russian tankers on the high seas. The Letter can be recognized by friendly countries such as the United States and Japan that these privateers are working for Ukraine within the context of its war with Russia and thus does not fall under the definition of piracy.

The Letters themselves will have to be carefully constructed, with a limited scope and duration (i.e duration of one year or if there is a cessation of hostilities). It should also clearly layout that any captured Russian tanker should be considered a prize of war and subject to the disposition of a Ukrainian admiralty court. Or simply sunk and become a fish hotel with a bounty given for each tanker.

Of course, these privateers would themselves become targets of the Russian Navy but it would force the Russian Navy to widely disperse to cover the now vulnerable oil and LNG tankers. Currently, Russian tankers enjoy protected access to the sea to keep Russia’s economy afloat. Even the perceived threat of privateers prowling the high seas for these ships could give a moment of pause to Russia and the comfort it currently enjoys.

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