A suspected Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker seized by Belgium is being held on a 10-million-euro ($12 million) bond after inspections revealed infractions, Brussels said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The Ethera, which Belgium says is part of a flotilla of aging vessels Moscow uses to avoid Western sanctions, was seized by Belgian special forces in the North Sea on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Investigations carried out after it was brought to the port of Zeebrugge confirmed it had been sailing under a false Guinean flag, the Belgian government said.<\/p>\n
In total inspectors found 45 infractions, including technical defects, leading to the ship being impounded, it added.<\/p>\n
The tanker’s Russian captain and its 20-strong crew were ordered to remain on board.<\/p>\n
“The ship will only leave the port once it is compliant and the deposit has been paid,” said Belgium’s mobility minister Jean-Luc Crucke.<\/p>\n
Most of the crew was of Indian origin, with three Georgians and one Indonesian national among the seven officers on board, the government said.<\/p>\n
Russia has used its so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers of opaque ownership to get around restrictions on its lucrative crude exports imposed over its 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The Belgian Defense Ministry said the seized vessel was on the European Union’s sanctions list. The EU has blacklisted hundreds of vessels in a bid to sap Moscow’s war chest.<\/p>\n
“Our government is taking decisive action against ships from the shadow fleet,” said Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken.<\/p>\n
“With this operation, we are enforcing European sanctions, protecting the North Sea, and limiting the financing of the Russian war against Ukraine.”<\/p>\n
In February, it was revealed that two employees of a Russian private security company were aboard another suspected Russian “shadow fleet” tanker seized by France in September.<\/p>\n
The two men were employed by Moran Security Group, a Russian private security company, and were tasked with monitoring the crew and gathering intelligence, a source with knowledge of the matter told AFP.<\/p>\n
French forces boarded another suspected Russian tanker, the Grinch, in January.\u00a0But the ship was later let go after its owner paid a multi-million-euro fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A suspected Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker seized by Belgium is being held on a 10-million-euro ($12 million)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7655],"tags":[1789,299,332,2663,52867],"class_list":["post-801680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-russia","tag-belgium","tag-europe","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-shadow-fleet"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116166518168347269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801680","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=801680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}