{"id":365400,"date":"2026-01-12T01:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/365400\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T01:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T01:57:10","slug":"uk-can-legally-stop-shadow-fleet-tankers-ministers-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/365400\/","title":{"rendered":"UK can legally stop shadow fleet tankers, ministers believe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2018\/13\/contents\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sanctions and Money Laundering Act, external<\/a> from 2018 can be used to approve the use of military force, ministers believe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is understood there are plans for the armed forces to use these powers, in what is being described inside government as a ramping up of action against the ships. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is not known exactly when the first UK military action might occur.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Two oil tankers subject to US sanctions were reportedly spotted sailing east through the English Channel towards Russia on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The UK has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c04e9gwqzyeo\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">already imposed sanctions<\/a> on more than 500 alleged shadow vessels, which it believes are helping to fund hostile activity, including Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ministers say that action taken by the UK and its allies has forced around 200 ships off the seas, most of which will have been operating without a legitimate flag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ship flagging is the process used to register a vessel to a specific country, which then allows it to travel in international waters and offers it certain protections under law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government believes the new legal mechanism they have identified could be applied to any sanctioned vessels not legitimately flagged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sanctions and Money Laundering Act, external from 2018 can be used to approve the use of military&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-365400","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}