Captain of the oil tanker linked to the Russian “Shadow fleet”

The captain of an oil oil tanker who would be part of the “Shadow fleet” of the ships used by Russia used to escape the sanctions was charged by the French authorities.

The Chinese national received a refusal chief to follow the instructions of the French navy and said to attend a court hearing in the coastal city north of Brest next February.

The Boracay left Russia last month and was out of the Denmark coast when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week.

The oil tanker was embarked by French soldiers earlier this week because he was on a list of ships subject to EU sanctions for having exported Russian oil. Russian President Vladimir Putin called France’s actions “hacking”.

The Kremlin had already denied all knowledge of the ship.

The Boracay is currently recorded in Benin, but has changed its name and flag several times in recent years in the context of alleged efforts to escape the sanctions made in response to the large -scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The French prosecutor’s office said that the captain was unable to give a coherent answer on the flag that the ship was carrying.

He and the second captain, also a Chinese national, had been detained since Tuesday while the French authorities investigated them on the suspicion of two offenses: refusing to comply with naval orders and not to justify the nationality of the ship’s flag.

The second captain was released without accusations after being questioned.

The Boracay is now anchored near the port of Saint-Nazaire, at the bottom of the coast of Brest.

Under the maritime international law, naval forces can stop a merchant ship at sea if they have a reasonable suspicion that the ship is without nationality.

Many Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russian energy by limiting imports and capping the price of its oil in response to the war in Ukraine.

To escape these sanctions, Moscow was what was called a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers whose property and movements could be obscured.

Russia would have a fleet of several hundred oil tankers recorded in other countries and which are used to export its essence. French president Emmanuel Macron said that the shadow fleet of Russia contained between 600 and 1,000 ships.

The Boracay was detained by the Estonian authorities earlier this year to navigate without a valid country flag.

He started from the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on September 20 and had sailed through the Baltic Sea and former Denmark, before entering the North Sea and pursuing the Channel.

He had to arrive in Vadinar in northwestern India on October 20, according to data from the maritime traffic monitoring website.

The separate question of whether the oil tanker was used to launch the incursion of last week’s drone in Danish airspace is not resolved.

Macron refused to be shot the question when participating in an EU security summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

This summit came in direct response to events in Denmark, as well as in forays in several other European nations in recent weeks.

The drones above Denmark appeared on several of its military airports and bases, although the Danish authorities declared that there was no evidence suggesting a Russian participation.

Poland, Estonia and Romania reported that their airspace has been raped by Russian drones or fighter planes. Moscow denied having violated Estonian airspace and said the other incursions were accidental.