French authorities on Monday confirmed the country’s Navy intercepted and seized a Russian oil tanker sailing under a false flag.
The Tagor, which departed from the Russian port of Murmansk, was boarded more than 400 nautical miles off France’s Atlantic coast on Sunday. French officials suspect the ship was flying a false flag and is part of the so-called shadow fleet of mostly aging oil tankers used to circumvent sanctions imposed after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“It is unacceptable that ships circumvent international sanctions, violate the law of the sea, and finance the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for over four years,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X.
The operation was undertaken with the support of the United Kingdom, which recently expanded its military powers to detain Russian ships evading sanctions.
Moscow’s envoy in Paris told Russian state media the Tagor’s captain is a Russian citizen. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday condemned the seizure, describing it as “illegal” and bordering on “international piracy.”
Moscow will be “taking into account, so to speak, this existing negative experience,” as it tries to ensure the safety of its cargo, he added.
The latest incident marks France’s fourth seizure of a Russian ship this year. European capitals have clamped down on the Kremlin’s circumvention of Western sanctions, and a French court sentenced a ship captain in March for operating a Russian ship.
The tanker is now being escorted to a port by French ships, France’s prefect for the Atlantic said in a statement.