French soldiers have boarded an oil tanker that is believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” which is used to get around sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.
The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones caused several airports to temporarily close last week. It has been anchored off western France for a few days.
French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned at an EU leaders’ summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday that the crew had committed “serious offences,” but he did not provide more details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia had no knowledge of the vessel.
News agency AFP reported that a source indicated French military personnel boarded the vessel on Saturday.
Macron did not comment on whether the ship might have been used as a platform for the drone flights that caused major disruption in Denmark last week.
Prosecutors in Brest have started an investigation for two reasons: refusing an order to stop and failing to clarify the nationality of the ship’s flag.
Many Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russian energy by limiting imports and capping the price of its oil after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
To avoid these sanctions, Moscow has created what is called a “shadow fleet” of tankers whose ownership and movements can be hidden.
Russia is thought to have a fleet of several hundred tankers that are registered in other countries and are used to export its fuel. Macron stated that Russia’s shadow fleet contains between 600 and 1,000 ships.
The vessel is Benin-flagged but was listed under the UK and EU sanctions against Russia. The vessel in its peculiar way of spelling free, Détained by Estonian authorities for having apparently sailed without a valid country flag earlier this year.
Departing the Russian port of Primorsk near Saint Petersburg on 20 September, the vessel had navigated through the Baltic Sea and around Denmark, entered the North Sea, and kept going toward the English Channel.
Had been expected on 20 October to berth at Vadinar, in north-western India, according to tracker Marine Traffic data. However, it was trailed by a French warship after rounding Brittany and turning eastward towards the French coast.
EU leaders have met in Copenhagen to bolster European defence in the course of a series of Russian intrusions into EU airspace, just a couple of days after Danish airports had themselves been targeted.
Copenhagen airport and later several Danish airports and military installations on the Jutland peninsula were disrupted by drone activities last week.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke with the press and said, “From a European standpoint, there is only one country… ready to threaten us, and that is Russia. Therefore we have to have a very strong answer back.”
Although Danish officials have found no evidence that Russia was behind the drone disturbances of last week, Frederiksen herself tied it to other so-called hybrid attacks, including those using Russian drones in Polish airspace.
The said pattern had to be viewed with an eye towards Europe, she said on Wednesday.
Those incursions have been felt most keenly by the countries along the EU’s eastern flank, such as Poland and Estonia.
Several member states have already announced their preference for a layered “drone wall” that could swiftly detect, track, and then annihilate Russian drones.
Leave a Reply