Putin mocked Starmer as a Russian warship escorted sanctioned tankers through the English Channel

Yesterday, the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich escorted two tankers sanctioned by London through the English Channel. At the same time, the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker RFA Tideforce was following behind.

This was reported by the British newspaper The Telegraph.

The paper writes that in this way Russian President Vladimir Putin is “mocking” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had promised to seize sanctioned Russian vessels.

On Wednesday, another British outlet, The Telegraph, also wrote about two sanctioned tankers passing through the Channel under the escort of the same frigate. Journalists from the paper, who were aboard the vessel Royal Charlotteabout ten miles from Dover, observed how the Admiral Grigorovich, equipped with anti-ship, cruise, and anti-aircraft missile systems, sailed between the two tankers Universal and Enigma.

Russia’s shadow fleet includes 700 vessels that account for up to 40% of Russian oil exports. Of these, 544 are under British sanctions.

Last month, Starmer granted British special units the authority to seize the “armada of rusting ships” illegally transporting oil to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. At the time, the prime minister said he would deliver an “even stronger blow” to the shadow fleet if its ships entered British waters. However, Britain has not yet seized a single Russian vessel.

France, by contrast, has been doing so regularly. In early March, Emmanuel Macron announced the seizure of an oil tanker from Russia’s shadow fleet in the North Sea. Then, on March 20, France seized another oil tanker in the Mediterranean that had come from Russia under the flag of Mozambique.