Captain of oil tanker linked to Russia’s shadow fleet will face trial in France

By SYLVIE CORBET and ANGELA CHARLTON
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The captain of an oil tanker immobilized off the country’s Atlantic coast which President Emmanuel Macron linked to Russia will go to trial in February over the crew’s alleged refusal to cooperate, a French prosecutor said Thursday.

Macron has alleged that the tanker belongs to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers of uncertain ownership that are avoiding Western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Stéphane Kellenberger, prosecutor of the western port city of Brest, said two Chinese crew members, the captain and the chief mate, who had been detained since Tuesday, were released from police custody. The chief mate has been released without charge.

A preliminary investigation was opened into the crew’s “refusal to cooperate” and “failure to justify the nationality of the vessel” after the Atlantic Maritime Prefect alerted justice authorities Monday, Kellenberger said. The probe showed the captain could not be directly considered responsible for the second offense, he added.

European naval experts have said the tanker, which was sailing last week off the coast of Denmark, may be involved in drone flights over the country.

Kellenberger said members of the French Navy intervened and boarded the ship on Saturday off France’s Atlantic coast in line with international law when there appeared to be a discrepancy between its apparent nationality and real nationality.

An investigation led by the French Navy concluded that the ship, coming from Russia and heading to India with a “large oil shipment,” was flying no flag, he said.

The captain was summoned for trial in Brest on Feb. 23. He faces up to one year in prison and a 150,000-euro ($176,000) fine.

French military spokesman Col. Guillaume Vernet said the ship was ordered to stay in place in a safe area.

On Thursday, Macron praised the work of the French navy to “identify the presence of a shadow fleet.”

“You kill the business model by detaining even for days or weeks these vessels and forcing them to organize themselves differently,” he said.

Speaking at a European summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Macron said “30 to 40%” of Russia’s war effort is “financed through the revenues of the shadow fleet.”

“It represents more than 30 billion euros. So it’s extremely important to increase the pressure on this shadow fleet, because it will clearly reduce the capacity to finance this war effort for Russia,” he said.

Macron said the ship was flying a fake flag, but that it was “exactly the same” one which was detained by Estonia earlier this year for the same flag issue.

In April, Estonian public broadcaster EE reported that the ship, then identified under the name “Kiwala,” was stopped outside Tallinn Bay on way to the Russian port of Ust-Luga. At the time, Prime Minister Kristen Michal tweeted that Estonia’s navy had “detained a sanctioned vessel with no flag state” and authorities had boarded the ship — without specifying.

The ship, now known as “Pushpa” or “Boracay,” left the Russian oil terminal in Primorsk near St. Petersburg on Sept. 20, and sailed off the coast of Denmark. It has stayed off the coast of the French western port of Saint-Nazaire since Sunday, according to the Marine Traffic monitoring website.

The tanker, whose name has changed several times, was sailing under the flag of Benin and appears on a list of ships targeted by EU sanctions against Russia.

Asked by journalists about it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he had “no information” on the ship. He also said that many countries were carrying out “provocative actions” against Russia.

The shadow fleet is made up of used, aging tankers that were often bought by nontransparent entities with addresses from countries that have not sanctioned Russia. Their role is to help Russia’s oil exporters elude the price cap imposed by Ukraine’s allies.

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Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, U.K. and Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Lorne Cook in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed to the story.