AFP, citing photos taken from the air, said that soldiers who patrol the deck were present on the unit. The military source said the agency that the tanker was detained last Saturday (September 27) for control and that the appropriate team came on board.
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The French media reported on Tuesday that a tanker investigation was initiated in France, and in Wednesday the prosecutor's office announced that it was related to the fact that The unit's crew did not provide information about its belonging and did not comply with orders. The Reuters agency, referring to the data on ships traffic, informed on Wednesday that the tanker was followed by a French war ship.
From Primorsk to France with oil
The 244-meter tanker, currently floating under the flag of Benin and using the names of Boracay and Pushpa, was built in 2007 on September 20 this year. The ship sailed from Primorsk in the Leningrad region, 137 km west of St. Petersburg, and swam through the Baltic Sea, but on September 28 he turned back and took the course to Saint-Nazaire.
As the media in France emphasized, the presence of a tanker is disturbing not only because of his belonging to the Kremlin so -called shadow fleets, but because His name appeared in connection with recent incidents related to drones over Copenhagen and Norway. According to media reports, three ships were identified in the Baltic Sea after these incidents and one of them was Pushpa's tanker.
The Danish authorities have not confirmed that the tanker is suspected of a relationship with drones. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that he would be “very careful” regarding a possible relationship between Tankowiec and recent drones in Copenhagen.
The shadow fleet finances 40 percent wars of Russia
Macron at the same time emphasized that through a shadow fleet of 600 to 1000 units, Russia finances in about 40 percent. your war effort during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
According to the Ouest-France daily, the tanker is called Pushpa, but since 2007 he changed it many times, using the names: Odysseus, P. Fos, Kilaw and Varuna. He swam under the flag of Gabon, Liberia, Marshall Islands and even Mongolia. The source of the journal, a military from the NATO country, said that the tanker was on the sanction lists of several countries. In particular, the Unit was imposed on the Sanctions of Great Britain and the European Union.
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According to the EU, the unit is associated with the transport of Russian oil and oil products, and also conducts “risky transport operations” from time to time. The British authorities decided that the ship participates in activities aimed at destabilizing Ukraine, or obtaining benefits or support from the Russian authorities. The daily “Le Parisien” said that the tanker is also on the “black list” of Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.
