UK Boards Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker in Channel, Stepping Up Europe's Enforcement Drive

British forces boarded and detained a sanctioned Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel on Sunday, in what the Ministry of Defence described as the first operation of its kind led by the UK, marking a significant escalation in European efforts to choke off the Kremlin's sanctions-evading oil trade.

Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency boarded the vessel during a six-hour operation, supported by Chinook, Merlin and Wildcat aircraft, an RAF P-8, and the warships HMS Sutherland and HMS Ledbury. The Cameroonian-flagged Smyrtos, which departed Russia's Ust-Luga port near St Petersburg on 5 June bound for Port Said in Egypt, has been moved to an anchorage off the south coast near Weymouth, where it will be monitored for environmental or safety concerns.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he directed the armed forces to act in the early hours, describing the operation as a fresh blow to Moscow's war financing. The MoD noted that the legal basis for boarding had been agreed in March, drawing on powers under the 2018 Sanctions and Money Laundering Act.

The interception forms part of a widening European campaign against a fleet estimated at more than 700 vessels that carries roughly three-quarters of Russia's sanctioned oil exports. French forces impounded the suspected tanker Grinch in January, and in March detained the Deyna, which had sailed from Murmansk under a Mozambican flag, in Marseille. Sunday's operation was coordinated with French authorities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the detention and urged the bloc to go further. Europe, he argued, must enact legislation allowing not only the detention of tankers but the confiscation of the oil they carry. The Russian embassy in London declined to comment.