British armed forces intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker attempting to pass through the English Channel.
The vessel SMYRTOS was boarded by Royal Marine Commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency, Britain's Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The vessel will be held and monitored off the south coast as investigations continue, the statement said, adding that enforcement action in Britain's territorial waters was carried out in accordance with domestic and international law.
In the early hours of this morning, I directed our Armed Forces to intercept a shadow fleet oil tanker attempting to pass through the English Channel.This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin's war in Ukraine that we will not…
British Prime Minister Kier Starmer said that he had directed the interception.
"This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin's war in Ukraine that we will not let them hide," Starmer said in a post on X.
Aerial footage showed the tanker moored off the Dorset coast as a frigate and several smaller vessels circled in the surrounding waters.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X that he was grateful to Britain for the tanker's detention. Kyiv has been lobbying its allies to toughen enforcement against the shadow fleet, which it says funds Russia's war machine.