[78934] France seized a Russian oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean; the Kremlin threatens: "It borders on piracy"

France seized a Russian oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean; the Kremlin threatens: "It borders on piracy"

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on June 1, 2026, that the French Navy, with the assistance of forces from the United Kingdom, took control of the oil tanker "Tagor" in the Atlantic Ocean. According to Macron, the tanker, which belongs to the Russian "shadow fleet," violated international sanctions imposed on Russia. The French President emphasized that "a situation where ships bypass sanctions, violate maritime laws, and fund the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine cannot be accepted."

According to reports in Russian channels such as RT in Russian, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded with fury to the seizure and declared: "Russia views the seizure of the tanker as an illegal act that borders on piracy." Russian diplomatic sources, including the Russian Embassy in Paris, noted that according to preliminary information, the ship's captain is a Russian citizen, and that authorities in France did not update Moscow on the details of the seizure.

The tanker, which according to VesselFinder data sails under the flag of Madagascar, left the port of Murmansk at the beginning of May. Independent media outlets such as The Insider noted that this is at least the fourth tanker that France has seized since September 2025 as part of the fight against smuggled oil.

While Western and Ukrainian channels, such as Unian, emphasized the importance of enforcing sanctions on the Russian economy, channels identified with Russian positions like Два майора claimed that the West is exploiting the situation to exert economic pressure and assessed that this is "piracy" that will not receive a significant military response from Russia due to an unwillingness for broad escalation. Independent experts and commentators, among them Sergey Markov, pointed out that France's policy is intended to increase the transportation costs of Russian oil in order to weaken the financing for the war.