In a coordinated operation with British support, the French Navy has seized a Russia-origin oil tanker subject to international sanctions over Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marking the latest enforcement action by Western nations aiming to cut off funding for Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
French President Emmanuel Macron broke the news of the interception in a public post on the social platform X on Monday, confirming that special forces boarded the vessel, named the Tagor, off the French coast in the Atlantic Ocean the previous day. The announcement was accompanied by dramatic footage showing a operator rappelling from a military helicopter onto the tanker’s deck. This seizure is not an isolated incident: it joins a growing list of French naval interdictions targeting tankers accused of evading Western sanctions on Russian crude exports.
In his post, Macron emphasized that allowing vessels to bypass internationally agreed sanctions, violate maritime law, and funnel revenue into Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine — now in its third full year — is unacceptable. He added that these unregulated vessels, which flout basic navigation rules, also pose significant risks to marine ecosystems and global maritime security.
Crude oil export revenue remains one of the pillars of the Russian federal budget, a critical source of income that has allowed the Kremlin to ramp up military spending for its Ukraine campaign while avoiding severe domestic economic instability, including runaway inflation and a collapse of the ruble. Since the invasion began, Western nations have imposed sweeping price caps and trade bans on Russian oil, but Moscow has turned to a large “shadow fleet” of hundreds of unregistered or loosely regulated vessels to move crude to countries that have not joined the sanctions regime, effectively evading the restrictions. France and other coalition members have made cracking down on this shadow fleet a top enforcement priority.
French maritime officials specified that the interception took place more than 400 nautical miles west of mainland France, in international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The vessel was en route from Murmansk, Russia’s major northwestern Arctic port, when it was stopped. Authorities say the Tagor is suspected of operating under a falsified flag of convenience to hide its connections to Russian entities, and the French Navy is now escorting the tanker to a designated anchorage where it will undergo full inspections to confirm any violations.
This latest operation follows a string of similar interdictions by French forces earlier this year. In March, French special forces boarded the tanker Deyna in the Mediterranean Sea, while the tanker Grinch was seized in the same region in January. The Grinch was ultimately released in February after its operators paid a multimillion-euro fine for sanctions violations.
The Kremlin has already pushed back fiercely against the new interception. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Moscow views the French operation as unlawful, claiming the actions “border on piracy” and do not comply with existing standards of international maritime law.
The Associated Press reports that journalist Elise Morton contributed reporting from London for this story.