The UK government is preparing a legal framework that will allow London to detain civilian vessels that are part of the so-called "shadow fleet". It was reported by BBC News with reference to its own sources.
Unnnamed interlocutors of the publication said that the day before, the British military helped US troops in the capture of the Marinera tanker, which Washington accuses of transporting oil bypassing sanctions. At the same time, no British soldiers boarded the tanker or any other vessel.
British officials are currently studying this issue. They believe that the use of military force to detain shadow fleet vessels can be authorized through the Sanctions and Money Laundering Act of 2018.
According to BBC News, the British government intends to develop a legal framework that will allow military personnel to board and detain ships. It is not known exactly when the first UK military operation may take place
"The defence secretary set out in parliament this week that deterring, disrupting and degrading the Russian shadow fleet is a priority for this government <...> We will not comment on specific operational planning," said an unnamed UK Ministry of Defence official.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, last Friday, January 9, the US military detained the Olina tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel has been under US sanctions since January 2024.
We also wrote that from December 10 to January 7, the United States detained four tankers, three of which were under sanctions.
The most notorious of them was the detention of the Marinera tanker, which had been trying to break away from the US Coast Guard ship for several weeks. The aggressor country of russia sent warships to meet it. At the time of the tanker's seizure, they were nearby, but did not dare to intervene.
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