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France and its allies detained a sanctioned Russian oil tanker in the Atlantic over the weekend, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
According to a prosecutor, the Russian captain of the seized tanker refused to comply with the French navy’s orders, and “taking control of the vessel proved necessary”.
The Brest prosecutor’s office said that a criminal investigation had been opened over failure to prove a vessel’s nationality, absence of a flag and refusal to comply.
The Tagor was detained on Sunday morning in international waters with the help of the United Kingdom and other partners, he said in a social media post.
“It is unacceptable for ships to circumvent international sanctions, violate the law of the sea, and fund the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for more than four years,” he said.
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov challenged the seizure by France and other navies, calling it “illegal” and comparing the move to “piracy”.
Since September, France has boarded three other ships believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.
In October last year, French forces seized the Benin-flagged tanker Boracay off the Atlantic coast, and Macron later said a probe had been opened to determine whether the vessel had been used as a launchpad for a drone incursion into Denmark’s airspace, which forced the closure of its airports.
On 1 March this year, French Navy helicopters supporting Belgium’s armed forces boarded the Ethera tanker in the North Sea. That vessel was flying the flag of Guinea.
On 20 March, the French Navy intercepted and boarded another suspected shadow fleet tanker, the Deyna, in the Mediterranean Sea. According to French maritime authorities, the vessel was suspected of operating under a false flag designation. It was flying the flag of Mozambique.
Russia has reportedly built up a flotilla of old oil tankers of opaque ownership to get around sanctions imposed by the European Union, as well as the United States and the G7 group of nations, over Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The shadow fleet vessels frequently change the flags they fly, a practice known as flag-hopping, or use invalid registrations in an attempt to escape tracking.
They are often poorly kept and lack verifiable insurance. Some of the vessels also carry grain stolen from Ukraine.
Russia’s use of the vessels has also raised environmental concerns about accidents, given their age and uncertain insurance coverage.
Nearly 600 vessels suspected of being part of Russia’s shadow fleet are subject to EU sanctions.
Additional sources • AFP
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