Royal Marines Take Control Of Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker | BBC Newscast

So footage has been released by the Ministry of Defense of first of all it was news released without any picture but then pictures have come of an operation to board a shadow Russian oil tanker in the English Channel. >> And they're very dramatic images.

You can see helicopters flying low in the darkness and then you can see actually with their guns going down the stairs boarding the ship of what happened this morning and Russia's shadow fleet are essentially tankers that are still moving oil around the world trying to defy the sanctions

in order to keep the Russian war economy that funds the war in Ukraine going. The government said in January that they would look at doing this but it's significant this morning is the first operation of its kind and those images now will dominate

the news probably for at least for the rest of the day. >> Hello, it's Paddy in the studio. >> It's Laura in the studio. >> And it's also Joe Pike in the studio.

>> Hello Joe, it's very nice having you with us again at the weekend. >> Hi Laura. >> Hi Laura. >> So at 7 minutes past 7 the Prime Minister posted

online and I will just read it because this is a big story. 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 let them hide. I want to thank those involved including our armed forces and law enforcement officers who keep this country safe.

Now in and of itself it is a significant story but it's kind of really pertinent given that the Prime Minister has been in a giant row about not giving enough money to defense in the last few days. >> It's a good example of some progress in particular as

Laura they've been talking about this we've been talking about this for many months. The legislation came through I think in what March giving armed forces the power to board vessels, but we've had this sort of weird awkward wait.

Al Khan, the former armed forces minister on your program, seemed to be saying there were a couple of reasons for that. Partly because in some cases there were other Russian vessels protecting tankers.

Secondly, because there were uh concerns about making sure they had sort of the right legal justification, but also they needed to ensure the right cargo was on the ship to prove it is, you know, part of a a shadow fleet.

And with those sort of different boxes ticked, it meant that tonight was the night that those uh marine commandos and all of these uh this quite long list of of aircraft uh got involved and um apprehended the the Smertos, previously the Murtos.

>> Right. Well, it's now on its way to an anchorage in the southeast of England. Uh it represents a more muscular approach by the UK government because other countries have boarded these tankers from the

Russian oil fleet, the shadow fleet, which is said to carry 75% of those sanctioned oil. So, we had BBC's Frank Gardner on Radio 4 today and I asked him if he was braced for this, if he was anticipating this.

>> They trained for this since January, and it wasn't until March that the Prime Minister uh announced that this is something that was going to be done by by UK forces. It will infuriate the Kremlin.

President Putin, I think, will be very angry about this. And I think the the jeopardy here um is that um what happens when Russia starts escorting these tankers with warships. Now, it hasn't got enough to do all of the