Britain helps US seize Russian oil tanker — follow live

“A ship flying the Russian flag is the same as our land,” he said in an interview with state media. “So I don’t know why the Americans need it.”

RFA Tideforce, one of four Tide-class tankers in service within the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, was there to provide fuel to US assets involved in the mission. A Royal Navy source said it was unclear whether any fuel was needed.

At 39,000 tonnes, the tankers are the largest ships operated by the RFA. Chinook, Merlin or Wildcat helicopters can operate from their flight decks although none of these assets were used, it is understood.

The Marinera is now in the possession of the US Coast Guard, an American official has said, adding that said the operation included US special forces who had since left the vessel.

John Healey, the defence secretary, said: “Today our UK armed forces showed skill and professionalism in support of a successful US interception of the vessel Bella 1 while on its way to Russia. This action formed part of global efforts to crack down on sanctions busting.

“This ship, with a nefarious history, is part of a Russian-Iranian axis of sanctions evasion which is fuelling terrorism, conflict and misery from the Middle East to Ukraine.

“The UK will continue to step up our action against shadow fleet activity to protect our national security, our economy and global stability — making Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

“The US is the UK’s closest defence and security partner. The depth of our defence relationship with the US is an essential part of our security, and today’s seamlessly executed operation shows just how well this works in practice.”

British armed forces provided support including RAF surveillance and a support ship to the US operation to seize the tanker, the Ministry of Defence said.

“The UK has provided enabling support to the United States at their request to interdict the vessel Bella 1 today,” it said in a statement.

“UK armed forces provided pre-planned operational support, including basing, to US military assets interdicting the Bella 1 in the UK-Iceland-Greenland gap following a US request for assistance.

“RFA Tideforce provided support for US forces pursuing and interdicting the Bella 1, while the RAF provided surveillance support from the air.

“The UK and US defence and security relationship is the deepest in the world and the UK provided enabling support in full compliance with international law.”

America’s seizure of the Marinera is the third operation of its kind in less than a month (Tom Ball writes). On December 11, US special forces rappelled from helicopters to board the Skipper, a tanker accused of shipping sanctioned oil from Venezuela. A week later troops boarded a second ship in the Caribbean.

The difference this time however — and what raises the stakes considerably — is that the oil tanker at the centre of the present operation is Russian flagged. Moreover, Moscow has reportedly deployed a submarine and other military vessels into the North Atlantic to escort the Marinera to the Russian port of Murmansk.

An evolving situation in which American and Russian military assets come into close proximity is always going to be a fraught one. But it remains unlikely that the Kremlin will choose to escalate against the US. In the grand scheme of things, one shadow fleet oil tanker counts for very little — unless of course it turns out that it is carrying something of great value. The tanker is known to be empty of oil, raising the question of why there has been so much interest in it.

Russian politicians responding to the present situation have intimated as much, emphasising the need to avoid a clash. “I wouldn’t say there will be any military response, and I hope there won’t be a military clash,” said Yuri Shvytkin, deputy head of Russia’s defence committee. “But in any case, an appropriate response will follow.”

One possibility is that Russia opts for delayed retaliation in the form of the sort of hybrid warfare that Moscow has increasingly waged against Europe over the past four years.

“They might decide to take potshot at Europe somewhere, potentially the UK as we’ve been the basing for this,” said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute. “Or they might just chalk it up to say ‘you win some you lose some’ and carry on firing rockets into Kyiv.”

Chris Wright, the US energy secretary, says Washington will control sales of Venezuelan oil indefinitely. President Trump has announced that Venezuela’s interim leaders have agreed to the US-managed marketing of 30-50 million barrels of crude.

“We’re going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela, first this backed up stored oil, and then indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” Wright said at a Goldman Sachs energy event in Miami on Wednesday.

The US seizure of the Marinera, a Russian-flagged oil tanker, in the Atlantic was a violation of maritime law, the Russian transport ministry has said.

“In accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation applies in the high seas, and no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered in the jurisdictions of other states,” it said, adding that contact with the vessel had been lost after it was boarded by American naval forces.

As action unfolded on the high seas, President Trump took to Truth Social to claim that the US “will always be there for Nato, even if they won’t be there for us”.

In a lengthy post, Trump added that he was responsible for getting Nato nations to increase defence spending, that Russia would control the whole of Ukraine if it was not for him, and again attacked the decision not to award him the Nobel peace prize.

“Remember, for all of those big NATO fans, they were at 2% GDP, and most weren’t paying their bills, UNTIL I CAME ALONG. The USA was, foolishly, paying for them!”

He added that “without my involvement, Russia would have ALL OF UKRAINE right now”.

Trump also wrote: “I single-handedly ENDED 8 WARS, and Norway, a NATO Member, foolishly chose not to give me the Noble Peace Prize. But that doesn’t matter! What does matter is that I saved Millions of Lives.”

The US leader finished: “We will always be there for NATO, even if they won’t be there for us. The only Nation that China and Russia fear and respect is the DJT REBUILT U.S.A.”

The second tanker, which was seized in the Caribbean, is named the M Sophia and is under UK and US sanctions.

For the past five months, it has been sailing with its AIS positioning system — an important safety feature which allows the vessel to be tracked — switched off or falsified. It last appeared on maps off Nigeria, where it broadcast a false signal.

It has been carrying sanctioned oil on behalf of Russia, Iran and Venezuela and, like the Marinera, takes part in high-risk ship-to-ship transfers, where oil is moved from one vessel to another on the open sea to obscure the oil’s origin and destination.

Sanctioning the vessel, the US warned that it was part of a network disguising Russian oil via mid-Atlantic transfers before shipping it to China.

Other shadow fleet tankers attempting to flee Venezuela have taken refuge under Russian flags, Emma Yeomans writes.

At least 17 such ships have switched their flag to Russia in the past month, analysis by the shipping journal Lloyd’s List has found, including several of the other vessels under blockade in Venezuela.

Before it fled across the Atlantic, the Marinera had tried to evade American intervention by switching its flag from a falsified Guyanese flag to a Russian flag, and changing its name.

The Hyperion, Aquila III and Galileo are among the shadow fleet vessels serving Venezuela that have reflagged to Russian and may also receive Russian military protection.

The Hyperion is halfway across the Atlantic on a course that last night suggested an upcoming transit of the English Channel.

The Marinera is one of more than 1,000 vessels considered to be part of the “shadow fleet” or “dark fleet”, Emma Yeomans writes.

These are ships that carry oil in violation of sanctions and price caps. Many serve multiple countries, carrying Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan oil at various times. The Marinera has previously carried Iranian oil and engaged in risky transfers to disguise its origin and destination.

The shadow fleet uses various tactics to evade intervention. Most vessels are registered under the flags of nations which do little to regulate shipping, and many are ageing or have safety deficiencies.

Little has been done to curb the rampant, high-risk shipping of oil by the shadow fleet. That is, until today.

The United States has confirmed that it carried out two missions to seize Venezuelan “ghost fleet boats” this morning.

Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, wrote on X that the US military had apprehended a second sanctioned vessel, the MT Sophia, in international waters and is escorting it to the United States. The Sophia was apprehended near the Caribbean, officials said.

“Both vessels — the Motor Tanker Bella I [the Marinera] and the Motor Taker Sophia — were either last docked in Venezuela or en route to it,” she wrote.

“The world’s criminals are on notice. You can run, but you can’t hide.”

The United States has also apprehended the sanctioned vessel MT Sophia in international waters and is escorting it to the United States, US Southern Command said on Wednesday.

Notably it added that the boat was “stateless” and not Russian-owned.

“In a pre-dawn action this morning, the Department of War, in co-ordination with the Department of Homeland Security, apprehended a stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker without incident,” the military said.

Two legal instruments are broadly invoked by states aiming to seize vessels that are either owned by or flying the flag of another country, writes Jonathan Ames.

The first legal port of call is the seizing state’s own domestic legislation as officials will generally have to prove that the vessel has breached that law.

But that provision is limited by the internationally accepted definition of territorial waters, which is up to 12 nautical miles from the country’s coastline. If the target vessel is beyond that boundary, then domestic laws are not applicable.

In those cases, the seizing country would turn to the 1982 UN convention on the law of the sea, which has achieved such wide international acceptance that it is considered to apply even to countries that are not signatories.

However, the UN convention is strict — its default position is that ships of all states enjoy the right of what is described as “innocent passage” and that seizure by another state is usually unlawful under international law.

Still, there is some limited room for manoeuvre — for example, a state intending to seize a vessel in international waters could rely on the legal concept in the convention of “hot pursuit”. That means that a vessel that is deemed to have breached the law can in some cases be pursued — but that pursuit must be without interruption.

Importantly, the convention gives seizing states some protections by defining piracy as an act committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship or aircraft. Therefore, state authorities that seize a vessel cannot be prosecuted under international law for piracy.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has posted on X that sanctioned Venezuelan oil will be targeted “anywhere in the world”.

“The blockade of sanctioned and illicit Venezuelan oil remains in FULL EFFECT — anywhere in the world,” he wrote.

Earlier this week, Hegseth mocked Russian-supplied air defences in Venezuela for failing to protect Nicolás Maduro.

“Those Russian air defences didn’t quite work so well, did they?”, he said during a visit to a shipyard in Virginia.

The US European Command has confirmed the seizure of the Marinera “for violations of US sanctions”.

In a social media post, they said: “The vessel was seized in the North Atlantic pursuant to a warrant issued by a US federal court after being tracked by USCGC Munro.”

It added that the operation was in line with Trump’s proclamation “targeting sanctione dvessels that threaten the security and stability of the Western Hemisphere”.

The Russian foreign ministry said it was monitoring the “seizure” of the Russia-flagged tanker vessel Marinera, according to media in the country.

The ministry described the situation as “abnormal”.

The British government would have given the green light for the American mission to seize a Venezuela-linked oil tanker, a senior UK military source said.

The source said the operation had to be pre-cleared because the US was making use of its bases in the UK. There are plans by the UK Ministry of Defence to issue a statement later today, it is understood.

“We are really close to the Americans. For them to do anything it has to come through us as there could be ramifications for the UK as well,” they said.

They said “the UK does have a red card, we can say no, how that would go down politically is a different question”.

“Nothing will be a surprise to us”.

President Trump will meet US oil executives on Friday, a White House official has said.

Chevron is the only major American oil company currently operating in Venezuela’s oil fields, although Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips were major producers before their projects were nationalised two decades ago.

• Trump secures up to 50m barrels of Venezuela’s oil for US

The US helicopter filmed boarding the tanker appears to be an MH-6 Little Bird operated by the army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).

The elite unit, better known as the Night Stalkers, operates a range of special forces helicopters and specialises in flying soldiers into combat in hostile environments.

The same unit played a pivotal role in the mission to seize Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and extract them to the US over the weekend.

Some of the 14 Globemaster transport aircraft that have landed at British bases in the past few days had flown from Fort Campbell in Kentucky, which is home to SOAR, indicating that Britain may have been used as a base for the raid on the tanker.

The US broadcaster NBC is reporting that the tanker has been successfully seized. US law enforcement officials are on board the Marinera, an official told the station.

A senior Russian politician said he hoped there would not be a military confrontation in the event that the Venezuelan-linked tanker is seized by US forces.

Yuri Shvytkin, deputy head of the Russian defence committee, said that seizure of the Marinera would be a gross violation of international law, and that Russia was using all diplomatic means to prevent it from happening.

Speaking to Russian media shortly before reports emerged that US forces were attempting to board the tanker, he said: “I wouldn’t say there will be any military response, and I hope there won’t be a military clash. But in any case, an appropriate response will follow.”

An RAF Poseidon MRA1 spy plane appears to have been supporting US efforts to seize the tanker to the south of the Faroe Islands.

The British maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft pinged up on flight tracking sites after “going dark” over the North Atlantic.

Its visible flight path shows it circling the airspace and heading towards the east coast of Scotland after completing a mission.

In the hours before the tanker was seized, flight data showed a flurry of US military aircraft activity over the North Atlantic between Britain and Iceland.

KC-135R Stratotankers, which are used for aerial refuelling, were recorded taking off and landing at RAF Mildenhall from early this morning, flying over the east cost of Scotland towards Iceland.

The aircraft then turned around over the ocean before heading back to Britain, possibly indicating that they had completed refuelling missions.

P-8 Poseidon spy planes have been monitoring the movements of the tanker around the clock. Several have been seen taking off from Mildenhall before turning their trackers off over the ocean.

The aircraft, which are equipped with advanced sensors, are capable of air-to-air refuelling, which allows it to conduct extended patrols.

Three American Pilatus U-28A Draco aircraft, used by US Special Operations Command for reconnaissance and specialist missions, also departed from the same airbase and flew north along Scotland’s east coast.

The Russian state broadcaster RT said it looked like US forces were trying to board the oil tanker Marinera from a helicopter.

Reuters could not immediately verify the RT report, which also published an image of a helicopter hovering near the ship.

A US official told Reuters that the United States was attempting to seize the sanctioned oil tanker after a more-than-two-week-long pursuit across the Atlantic.

RT cited an unnamed source as saying that a US coastguard vessel had been following the tanker and that an attempt to seize it during a storm had already been carried out.

The Russian foreign ministry has been cited by state media as saying that the ship, which is now flying the Russian flag, is in international waters and acting according to international maritime law. It has called on Western countries to respect the vessel’s right to freedom of navigation.

The runaway tanker Marinera made an abrupt turn and slowed down shortly before officials confirmed an operation was in process.

Tracking information via MarineTraffic showed the ship slowing suddenly from 9kn to 7kn, and changing course from north east, to due south.

Since fleeing the US blockade on Venezuela, Marinera has been on course to cross the Atlantic and enter the North Norwegian Sea. It is expected to be heading to the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk, which is ice-free at present.

Two tankers were seized last month after President Trump ordered a complete blockade of “all sanctioned oil tankers” moving in and out of the country. The sanctions remain in place following the US capture of President Maduro last week.

Evidence collected by the monitor TankerTrackers found a dozen tankers appear to have escaped the US blockade on Venezuela in a co-ordinated action that took place in the immediate wake of the operation in Caracas.

The Marinera, previously known as the Bella 1, is part of the so-called “shadow fleet” carrying oil in breach of sanctions. It has had six names since 2020, and sailed under five country flags. These include a false Guyanese flag, and three others which are classified as “flags of convenience” — countries that allow ships to register with minimal oversight.

It sailed from Iran to Venezuela via the Suez Canal and Strait of Gibraltar last year. The US coastguard attempted to intercept the ship as it crossed the Caribbean Sea, but after it reflagged and declared itself a Russian vessel, Russia asked the US to stop the chase.

The Marinera was believed to be attempting to reach the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk.

Before the attempted seizure, Russia deployed its navy to escort the tanker amid growing speculation a US operation was imminent.

Moscow’s foreign ministry had said: “Our vessel is sailing in the international waters of the North Atlantic under the state flag of the Russian Federation and in full compliance with the norms of international maritime law.”

It added: “For reasons unclear to us, the Russian ship is being given increased and clearly disproportionate attention by the US and Nato military, despite its peaceful status … we expect that western countries, which declare their commitment to freedom of navigation on the high seas, will begin adhering to this principle themselves.”

The United States is attempting to seize a Venezuela-linked oil tanker after a more than two-week-long pursuit across the Atlantic, two US officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

The seizure, which could stoke tensions with Russia, came after the tanker, originally known as the Bella 1, slipped through a US maritime “blockade” of sanctioned tankers and rebuffed US coast guard efforts to board it.