{"id":499020,"date":"2026-06-14T09:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499020\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T09:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:40:08","slug":"uk-forces-intercept-russian-vessel-in-english-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499020\/","title":{"rendered":"UK forces intercept Russian vessel in English Channel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>British forces have intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the defence ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency boarded a sanctioned oil tanker during a six-hour operation &#8211; the first UK-led operation of its kind.<\/p>\n<p>The vessel Smyrtos will be provisionally moved to an anchorage off the south coast of England and be monitored for any environmental or safety concerns.<\/p>\n<p>According to the MoD, the operation was supported by aircraft from the Maritime Air Group (Chinooks, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat), an RAF P-8 aircraft, and HMS Sutherland and HMS Ledbury.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">Despite Putin&#8217;s best efforts to evade sanctions, we will not let him get away with it. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IIW3Cv2ENQ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IIW3Cv2ENQ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Keir_Starmer\/status\/2066080756053549505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement: &#8220;This operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling (President Vladimir) Putin&#8217;s war in Ukraine that they cannot hide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to pay tribute to all those involved, including our armed forces and law enforcement officers who keep this country safe 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis said: &#8220;Operations like this require skill, professionalism and courage. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel and all those involved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin&#8217;s illegal war.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine&#8217;s foreign minister hailed the interception.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet is a tool of war. Every such vessel stopped means less money for Russia&#8217;s war machine,&#8221; Andriy Sybiga posted on social media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cutting off these revenues helps reduce Russia&#8217;s ability to finance missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Additional reporting AFP<\/p>\n<p>                    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British forces have intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker belonging to Russia&#8217;s shadow fleet in the English Channel, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-499020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}