Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tanker allowed to leave French port after detention

An oil tanker detained by the French authorities over suspected links to Russia’s “shadow fleet” last week has set sail from the port of Brest and is now on its way to the Suez Canal, France24 reported on Friday.

France24 said that the captain of the ship, the Boracay, who had been expected to face charges for failure to cooperate with the authorities, had been allowed to return to the ship. The ship resumed its journey Thursday evening and was off the coast of western France on Friday morning, data from vessel tracking websites Marine Traffic and VesselFinder showed. The captain is due to go on trial in February, The Guardian reported.

Paris detained the Boracay, which was sailing under the flag of Benin, on 27 September in the English Channel, though details of the incident only emerged on Thursday. The ship, which appears on both EU and UK sanctions lists, left the port of Primorsk, in Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, bound for India on 20 September, according to MarineTraffic.

According to AFP, the Boracay was in Danish waters from 22 to 25 September, dates that correspond to a series of unidentified drones being spotted flying over the country.

A group of tankers used to bypass international sanctions on Russian oil and petroleum product exports, the vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet are generally owned by anonymous shell companies registered in third countries that provide flags of convenience.

Speaking at the 22nd meeting of the annual Valdai Discussion Club on Thursday, Vladimir Putin described the impounding of the oil tanker as “piracy” and said that the incident was merely being used to distract the French from their own domestic problems. He said the tanker had been “captured” in international waters “for no reason”, though played down any Russian connection to the incident.