{"id":1104808,"date":"2026-07-22T15:50:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1104808\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:50:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:50:40","slug":"european-forces-intercept-shadow-fleet-oil-tanker-in-mediterranean-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1104808\/","title":{"rendered":"European Forces Intercept \u2018Shadow Fleet\u2019 Oil Tanker in Mediterranean Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A European naval mission boarded a Russia-linked oil tanker suspected of sailing under a false flag this week, the EU\u2019s top diplomat Kaja Kallas<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kajakallas\/status\/2079894169527439855\" rel=\"nofollow\"> said<\/a> Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Personnel operating under the Mediterranean naval initiative Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI boarded the MV South Star on Monday for \u201cflag verification,\u201d Kallas wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re turning up the pressure on Russia\u2019s shadow fleet,\u201d she said, referring to vessels with opaque ownership used to skirt Western sanctions against Russia.<\/p>\n<p>The EU\u2019s naval force mission <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/EUNAVFOR_MED\/status\/2079901182798033183\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow\">confirmed<\/a> its crew boarded the sanctioned tanker in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. <\/p>\n<p>Both Kallas and the EU published photos showing military helicopters and speedboats encircling the vessel.<\/p>\n<p>According to marine traffic monitoring data, the South Star, which sails under the flag of Cameroon, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinetraffic.com\/en\/ais\/details\/ships\/shipid:125441\/mmsi:613271012\/imo:9263186\/vessel:SOUTH%20STAR\" title=\"located\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">located<\/a> in the West Mediterranean as of Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>It was not immediately clear\u00a0whether the flag verification operation was still underway 48 hours after the initial boarding.<\/p>\n<p>The vessel reportedly departed the Tunisian port of Rades on July 10 and was scheduled to arrive there again on July 22.<\/p>\n<p>Kallas said EU member states have also authorized the bloc\u2019s naval mission off the coast of Somalia and the western Indian Ocean to conduct similar flag verification boardings of suspected Russian \u201cshadow fleet\u201d vessels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decision further tightens the net,\u201d she posted.<\/p>\n<p>Brussels has<a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/presscorner\/detail\/en\/ip_25_3070\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> sanctioned<\/a> nearly 600 ships suspected of being part of Russia\u2019s \u201cshadow fleet\u201d network.<\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed previous interceptions of Russia-linked vessels as \u201cpiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A European naval mission boarded a Russia-linked oil tanker suspected of sailing under a false flag this week,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1104809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,52867],"class_list":["post-1104808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-shadow-fleet"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116964427673676943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1104809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}