Belgium has seized an oil tanker believed to form part of the so-called “shadow fleet” used by Russia to circumvent western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
Special forces assisted by French helicopters boarded the ship in a clandestine operation in the North Sea on Saturday night, Belgium’s defence minister, Theo Francken, said on Sunday.
Prosecutors said the tanker, identified as the Ethera, was falsely flying the flag of Guinea and was believed to be on its way back to Russia when it was seized in Belgium’s exclusive economic zone.
Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office said the ship’s captain, a Russian citizen, was being questioned and a criminal investigation was under way. In a statement, the office added that ship’s documents found on the Ethera were also suspected of being false.
Francken said the vessel was escorted to Zeebrugge harbour, where it will be officially confiscated.
The seizure suggests a hardening of Europe’s attitude towards Russia’s shadow fleet. Since the start of the year, western naval forces have intensified their tracking of shadow fleet vessels in the Baltic and North Sea. The US, the UK, France and Germany in particular have been increasing surveillance operations and possess a higher readiness to board vessels at gunpoint using helicopters.
The often dilapidated tankers, which tend to be either uninsured or under-insured, sail under the flags of countries such as Panama, the Gambia, Barbados or the Comoros and transport Russian crude oil to destinations including China and India. The oil is processed in the destination countries and then sold on international markets.
By this point, it is no longer identified as Russian, and therefore circumvents international sanctions imposed on Moscow as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has previously described the seizure of its tankers and other vessels carrying its cargoes as acts of piracy.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised Belgium on Sunday for its “strong action against Moscow’s floating purse” and thanked France for its support of the operation.
“This particular vessel has long been under US, EU and UK sanctions, but nonetheless continued to illegally transport Russian oil using a false flag and forged documents,” he said.
The Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, congratulated the military on its “successful operation of the past night”. On social media, he thanked France for its support and added: “Belgium will uphold international maritime law and the security of its territorial waters.”
In December, De Wever blocked the EU from using Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine, citing fears that Belgium, where the assets are mostly held, could face a multibillion-euro legal challenge from Moscow.
France has estimated the size of Russia’s shadow fleet to be somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 ships. Of these, more than half are now subject to sanctions, with the rest evading detection through the use of shell companies and reflagging to disguise their true origins.
The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, called the seizure of the Ethera a “serious blow” to Russia’s shadow fleet.
“Last night in the North Sea our French Navy helicopters contributed to the boarding of an oil tanker subject to international sanctions by Belgian security forces,” he wrote on social media, also including footage of Belgian forces rappelling from the aircraft to the deck of the ship.
Russia’s shadow fleet has also been involved in what has been judged to be the deliberate vandalising of western underwater infrastructure, including electricity and data cables and gas pipelines.
Eagle S, a tanker bearing the flag of the Cook Islands, is alleged to have severed several underwater cables connecting Finland to Estonia and Germany in December 2024 by trailing its anchor along the sea bed.
The EU has also warned that shadow fleet ships could be serving as platforms for drone launches, radar jamming and general espionage.
Due to the often dilapidated nature of the fleet, which cannot easily put in for repairs due to sanction restrictions, it is also considered a growing danger to the environment and other shipping
