The French Navy has intercepted a tanker from Russia, President Macron says. This happened yesterday morning more than 700 kilometers west of the French peninsula of Brittany.

The operation in the Atlantic Ocean was carried out in collaboration with “a number of allies”, Macron said. The United Kingdom was involved. The Netherlands played no role in the interception.

The Tagor(opens in new window) probably belongs to the Russian shadow fleet and sailed under the flag of Madagascar. The shadow fleet consists of ships that sail under a different flag in order to circumvent Western sanctions on Russian oil. The 250-meter oil tanker was last spotted in the Russian city of Murmansk on the Barents Sea.

“It is unacceptable that ships circumvent international sanctions, violate the law of the sea and thus finance the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for more than four years,” President Macron wrote. X(opens in new window). According to him, such shadow fleets, which do not respect shipping rules, “pose a threat to the environment and everyone’s safety.”

According to French authorities, the Russian captain refused to cooperate. Russia calls the seizure “international piracy”. Kremlin spokesman Peskov says that Russia will take measures to guarantee the safety of its cargo ships. It is unclear what exactly those measures are.

At the beginning of this year, several suspicious ships were intercepted in the Atlantic Ocean by American forces. France also more often stops ships in international waters that probably belong to the Russian shadow fleet.

Earlier this year, France and the UK worked together to stop the 250-metre ship The Grinch, which is on Western sanctions lists.