The six-hour interception operation was supported by Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters and a maritime patrol aircraft, a Ministry of Defence statement said.<\/p>\n
The frigate HMS Sutherland and the minehunter HMS Ledbury were also involved.<\/p>\n
Further video clips showed armed personnel conducting searches of cabins.<\/p>\n
\u2018Blow\u2019 to Putin<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first UK-led operation of its kind, the vessel Smyrtos was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, despite Russia\u2019s best efforts to evade sanctions and continue fuelling its barbaric war with Ukraine,\u201d the ministry statement said.<\/p>\n
The vessel was to be moved to an anchorage off the south coast of England and monitored, it added.<\/p>\n
The UK has sanctioned hundreds of vessels suspected of being part of the shadow fleet used by Russia to bypass Western embargoes since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
The ships \u2013 usually ageing tankers with obscure ownership and doubtful insurance \u2013 are banned from accessing UK ports and services.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin\u2019s illegal war,\u201d said newly appointed UK Defence Minister Dan Jarvis.<\/p>\n
He said the operation was carried out in \u201cclose co-ordination with the French\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Hybrid war\u2019 <\/p>\n
Jarvis said disrupting the shadow fleet was \u201cdirectly bearing down on the resources sustaining Russia\u2019s aggression in Ukraine and reducing its capacity to threaten security across Europe and beyond\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to the MarineTraffic website, Smyrtos sails under the Cameroon flag and left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on June 5, with Port Said, Egypt, listed as its destination.<\/p>\n
In March, the British Government announced that UK forces would be able to board and seize shadow fleet vessels passing through its waters.<\/p>\n
The announcement followed the easing of restrictions by Washington on Russian oil to soften prices sent soaring by the US-Israel war against Iran.<\/p>\n
France, Belgium, Finland and other European countries have also recently seized sanction-busting vessels believed to belong to the so-called shadow fleet.<\/p>\n
London has said such ships are suspected of damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea on several occasions.<\/p>\n
The Government has said it will propose new legislation aimed at preventing \u201cRussia and other hostile states\u201d from sabotaging vital subsea internet cables.<\/p>\n
There have been a series of incidents in the Baltic Sea since 2023, when undersea cables and power lines have been damaged.<\/p>\n
Military experts and European leaders say Russia has ramped up its \u201chybrid war\u201d in the strategic region \u2013 now bordered entirely by Nato members barring Russia.<\/p>\n
Former Defence Minister John Healey, who resigned after claiming the Government was failing to provide sufficient funding to defend Britain, said in April armed forces had tracked and deterred three Russian submarines on an alleged month-long \u201ccovert operation\u201d in UK waters in the North Atlantic near vital undersea cables and pipelines.<\/p>\n
The row about funding that also triggered the resignation of Healey\u2019s deputy, Al Carns, and two aides comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u2019s beleaguered centre-left Government, elected in July 2024 following 14 years of Conservative rule, is under pressure to raise spending and prioritise Nato, as the threat from Russia grows.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Nato allies to spend more and become less reliant on Washington for security.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The six-hour interception operation was supported by Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters and a maritime patrol aircraft,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7814,34555,26862,14801,45456,18089,11908,28828,8223,28726,305,42,78,46660,240414,98669,32515,8226,43,20419,17286,8221,20701,52365,7801,108678,40,38,41,39,1613,35146],"class_list":["post-477341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-armed","tag-belonging","tag-blow","tag-british","tag-channel","tag-dramatic","tag-english","tag-fleet","tag-forces","tag-hailed","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-intercepted","tag-intercepts","tag-kyiv","tag-machine","tag-moscows","tag-news","tag-nighttime","tag-operation","tag-russian","tag-russias","tag-sanctioned","tag-shadow","tag-tanker","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk","tag-vessel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}