France detains tanker breaching anti-Russia sanctions, Macron says

France has detained a tanker originating from Russia in the Mediterranean that was sailing under a foreign flag. French President Emmanuel Macron announced today that the vessel is subject to international sanctions imposed over Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. The operation was carried out by the French navy in cooperation with several allies, fully in line with international rules, the president added. Russia said it had not been informed of the operation, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed it.

Using intelligence provided by Britain, France detained a tanker named Grinch that was sailing from the port of Murmansk in northwestern Russia, unnamed French officials told AP. The vessel was flying the flag of the African archipelago of the Comoros and had an Indian crew. It was detained in the western Mediterranean near the southern Spanish port of Almería.

In recent years, the European Union has imposed extensive sanctions on hundreds of vessels in the so-called Russian shadow fleet. This term is commonly used for foreign vessels transporting Russian oil products, which Moscow uses to circumvent Western sanctions. European countries have so far been unable to enforce compliance with these sanctions, and the greatest difficulties for tankers in recent months have apparently been caused by attacks by unmanned vessels or drones in the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed responsibility for some of them, while no one claimed others.

Coincidentally, in an address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, today, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy criticised European countries for their passivity and questioned why they were unable to seize tankers carrying oil from Russia, as the United States had done with tankers carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil.

"We are determined to ensure respect for international law and guarantee the effectiveness of sanctions. The activities of the shadow fleet contribute to financing the war of aggression in Ukraine," Macron wrote, announcing the tanker’s detention shortly after Zelenskyy’s remarks.

Reacting to the news later, the Ukrainian leader welcomed the French action and said that precisely such determination was now needed to deprive Russia of the money it uses to finance aggression against his country. "Ships must be detained. And wouldn’t it be fair to confiscate and sell the oil they transport?" he wrote on X.

Russia’s embassy in France said, according to TASS, that it had not been informed of the operation. The consulate in Marseille is now determining whether Russian citizens were on board in order to provide them with assistance if necessary, the Russian agency wrote.

France already seized another tanker in September which, according to Macron, also belonged to the Russian shadow fleet, AP reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin at the time called it an act of piracy and said Macron was trying to distract attention from domestic political problems.