EU officials developing mechanism to detain russian tankers in Baltic Sea - EUObserver

The European Union is preparing legal grounds for detaining russian tankers in the Baltic Sea that are trying to transport oil in circumvention of sanctions.

This is reported by the EUObserver portal.

Currently, the number of vessels under restrictions is growing and could reach almost 600. Although only a few dozen have been detained so far, Brussels predicts that this figure will gradually increase.

As part of the 19th package of sanctions, the EU intends to add another 120 vessels from the shadow fleet to the "black list", bringing the total number of tankers subject to sanctions to 568.

At the same time, most of them do not use the services of European ports or insurers, which complicates the implementation of sanctions measures.

The EU also plans to invoke Article 110 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows the interception of ships without nationality. According to EUObserver, among the 120 newly sanctioned tankers, 16 have no designated flag, and the Eqasis database confirms their "flagless" status.