{"id":4615,"date":"2026-03-03T14:44:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/4615\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:44:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:44:29","slug":"belgium-seizes-russian-shadow-fleet-tanker-in-north-sea-sanctions-crackdown-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/4615\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium seizes Russian shadow fleet tanker in North Sea sanctions crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Belgian navy has intercepted and seized a tanker suspected of forming part of Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet, used to circumvent EU sanctions, Euronews has learned.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The operation was carried out by the Belgian Ministry of Defence in the country&#8217;s exclusive economic zone. Authorities say the vessel was sailing under a false flag and that its ship documents had been falsified. The tanker was identified as the Ethera, registered under the flag of Guinea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Belgium may be a small country, but we are among the founding fathers of NATO and the EU, and we take our responsibilities seriously,&#8221; Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said on social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">French President Emmanuel Macron said French naval helicopters assisted Belgian forces during the boarding operation.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Europeans are determined to cut off the sources of funding for Russia&#8217;s war of aggression in Ukraine by enforcing sanctions,&#8221; Macron wrote on X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The European Union has previously designated several dozen tankers as members of Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet. Those vessels are banned from docking at European ports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Belgian navy has intercepted and seized a tanker suspected of forming part of Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet, used&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3274,3522,7,168,1945,390,941,3237],"class_list":["post-4615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-belgian-forces","tag-belgian-ministry-of-defence","tag-belgium","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-euronews","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-shadow-fleet"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116165782051581666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}