london
\nBritish forces on Sunday intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia\u2019s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the defence ministry said, in a six-hour operation hailed by Kyiv.
\nNavy commandos boarded the ship under cover of darkness by fast-roping from a helicopter in the dark, according to footage released by the ministry.
\nThe interception in the early hours was supported by Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters and a maritime patrol aircraft, a statement said.
\nThe frigate HMS Sutherland and the minehunter HMS Ledbury were also involved.
\n\u201cIn the first UK-led operation of its kind, the vessel Smyrtos was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, despite Russia\u2019s best efforts to evade sanctions and continue fuelling its barbaric war with Ukraine,\u201d the ministry statement said.
\nThe vessel will now be moved to an anchorage off the south coast of England and monitored, it added.
\nUkraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga welcomed the operation.
\n\u201cRussia\u2019s shadow fleet is a tool of war. Every such vessel stopped means less money for Russia\u2019s war machine,\u201d he posted on social media.
\n\u201cCutting off these revenues helps reduce Russia\u2019s ability to finance missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.\u201d
\n\u201cRussia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin\u2019s illegal war,\u201d said newly appointed UK Defence Minister Dan Jarvis.
\nHe said the operation was carried out in \u201cclose coordination with the French\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Hybrid war\u2019
\nThe UK has sanctioned hundreds of vessels suspected of being part of the shadow fleet used by Russia to bypass Western embargoes since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
\nThe ships \u2014 usually ageing tankers with dubious ownership \u2014 are banned from accessing UK ports and services.
\nJarvis said disrupting the shadow fleet was \u201cdirectly bearing down on the resources sustaining Russia\u2019s aggression in Ukraine and reducing its capacity to threaten security across Europe and beyond\u201d.
\nPrime Minister Keir Starmer said the operation delivered \u201cyet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling Putin\u2019s war in Ukraine that they cannot hide\u201d.
\nIn March, the government announced that British forces would be able to board and seize shadow fleet vessels passing through its waters.
\nThe announcement followed the easing of restrictions by Washington on Russian oil to soften prices sent soaring by the US-Israel war against Iran.
\nFrance, Belgium, Finland and other European countries have also recently seized sanction-busting vessels believed to belong to the so-called shadow fleet.
\nLondon has said such ships are suspected of damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea on several occasions.
\nThe government has said it will propose new legislation aimed at preventing \u201cRussia and other hostile states\u201d from sabotaging vital subsea internet cables.
\nThere have been a series of incidents in the Baltic Sea since 2023, when undersea cables and power lines have been damaged.
\nMilitary experts and European leaders say Russia has ramped up its \u201chybrid war\u201d in the strategic region \u2014 now bordered entirely by Nato members barring Russia.
\nFormer defence minister John Healey, who resigned this week accusing Starmer of failing to provide sufficient funding to defend Britain, said in April armed forces had tracked and deterred three Russian submarines on an alleged month-long \u201ccovert operation\u201d in UK waters in the North Atlantic near vital undersea cables and pipelines.
\nThe row about funding that also triggered the resignation Healey\u2019s deputy Al Carns and two aides comes as Starmer\u2019s beleaguered centre-left government, elected in July 2024 following 14 years of Conservative rule, is under pressure to raise spending and prioritise Nato, as the threat from Russia grows.
\nUS President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Nato allies to spend more and become less reliant on Washington for security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
london British forces on Sunday intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia\u2019s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the defence ministry said, in a six-hour operation hailed by Kyiv. Navy commandos boarded the ship under cover of darkness by fast-roping from a helicopter in the dark, according to footage released by the ministry. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99081,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99057\/revisions\/99081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}