The French navy has intercepted a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean suspected to be part of the shadow fleet that enables Russia to export oil despite sanctions. This morning, the French Navy boarded and searched an oil tanker from Russia, subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag, President Emmanuel Macron said on X. The operation was carried out on the high seas in the Mediterranean, with the support of several of our allies, he added, saying the vessel had been diverted.
"The UK has provided enabling support to the United States at their request to interdict the vessel Bella 1 today."
To trace the path of the Skipper, a ship that was intercepted on December 10 by the United States off the coast of Venezuela, is to follow the trail of a piece of the illegal oil industry. This single cargo ship was representative of the many actors and practices involved in an illicit trade that keeps the crude oil flowing even where international sanctions are trying to shut it off.
Ukraine says it has attacked a Russian shadow fleet tanker with aerial drones 1,250 miles (2,000km) from its borders, in the first such strike in the Mediterranean Sea since Moscow's full-scale invasion nearly four years ago. Friday's strike off the coast of Libya, which reportedly caused critical damage, took place on the day of Vladimir Putin's annual end of year press conference in which he said Russia would respond to recent Ukrainian attacks on shadow fleet tankers.
The reported attack on the Midvolga-2 comes days after Ukraine hit two other Russian-flagged ships in the Black Sea. A Russian-flagged tanker in the Black Sea has reported being attacked off the Turkish coast, the third such vessel to have been targeted within a week. The Turkish Directorate General of Maritime Affairs said on Tuesday that the Midvolga-2 had reported coming under attack about 130km (80 miles) from land. list of 4 itemsend of list The tanker was reportedly carrying sunflower oil to Georgia.
A Russian oil tanker was hit again in the Back Sea on Tuesday which is the fourth incident in a week as Ukrainian forces are stepping up their attack on Vladimir Putin's shadow fleet. The Turkish directorate of maritime affairs said the tanker, Midvolga 2 was hit 80 miles of their coastline by a Ukrainian drone as it sailed from Georgia carrying a cargo of sunflower oil. The ship did not request any help and no injuries were reported among their thirteen crew members.
A former Russian diplomat linked to a sanctions-evasion scandal involving one of the FBI's top former counter-intelligence agents and a notorious Russian oligarch was sentenced to two months in jail on charges of lying to US law enforcement. Sergei Shestakov's sentencing closes a chapter in a case that both embarrassed the FBI and also shone a new spotlight on Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-connected billionaire who has long been on the FBI's radar screen.
The components found in downed Russian drones and cruise and ballistic missiles range from microcomputers and sensors to switching connectors and converters. Ukraine says they're coming from the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Some of these nations are among Kyiv's closest partners. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over 100,000 foreign-made parts were found among the 550 Russian drones and missiles used in a large-scale bombardment, underscoring the scale of the problem.
The captain of an oil tanker that authorities in France have detained off the country's Atlantic coast and that President Emmanuel Macron has linked to Russia will go on trial in February over the crew's alleged refusal to cooperate, a French prosecutor has said. Macron has alleged that the tanker belongs to Russia's shadow fleet of ageing tankers of uncertain ownership that are avoiding western sanctions over Moscow's war in Ukraine.
