The U.S. Coast Guard seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker on Wednesday after a cat-and-mouse chase across the Atlantic, despite the vessel being shadowed by a Russian submarine and Moscow publicly opposing its capture.
The big picture: It was one of two seizures early Wednesday morning as part of the enforcement of President Trump's blockade on sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil. The capture of the Russian-linked Bella-1 was particularly dramatic given the geopolitical implications.
