PARIS (AP) 鈥� The French Navy, with support from the United Kingdom, has intercepted an oil tanker under international sanctions that was traveling from Russia, the most recent effort by nations that support Ukraine to target Russian oil exports helping to finance
French President announced the interception in a post Monday on X, saying the Tagor was boarded on Sunday in the Atlantic. Soldiers descended on a rope one after another from a French navy helicopter, video released to The Associated Press by the French military showed. It is the latest in a series of French naval interceptions of tankers suspected of links to Russia.
鈥淚t is unacceptable that boats skirt international sanctions, violate the law of the sea and finance the war that Russia has been waging for more than 4 years against Ukraine,鈥� Macron wrote. 鈥淭hese ships, that don鈥檛 respect the most elementary rules of maritime navigation, are also a threat to the environment and everyone鈥檚 security.鈥�
Oil revenue is a , allowing Putin to pour money into the war effort against Ukraine without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a .
Russia is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships to evade international sanctions imposed over the war. France and other countries have vowed to crack down on the sanction-busting so-called 鈥渟hadow fleet.鈥�
Responding to the latest French interception, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia 鈥渃onsiders such actions illegal.鈥�
鈥淭hey border on piracy,鈥� he said Monday. 鈥淲e absolutely disagree that they are being carried out in full compliance with international law.鈥�
French maritime authorities said the tanker was intercepted more than 400 nautical miles west of France, in international waters in the Atlantic. It was traveling from the northwestern Russian port of Murmansk, according to the authorities鈥� statement.
It said the tanker is suspected of operating under a false flag and that the French navy is now escorting it to an anchorage for more checks.
The captain says he is Russian, French prosecutor St茅phane Kellenberger, overseeing the investigation from Brest in western France, said in a statement to AP.
The captain repeatedly refused to comply with French navy instructions, 鈥渕aking it necessary to take control of the vessel,” Kellenberger said.
He said his office has opened a criminal investigation on charges of failure to provide proof of a vessel鈥檚 nationality, navigating without a flag and refusal to comply with orders.
Tankers previously intercepted by France include the Deyna, in March. Another tanker, the Grinch, in the Mediterranean in January, was released in February after .
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Associated Press writer Elise Morton in London contributed.
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