The press secretary of the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said that the detention by the French authorities of the Tagor tanker, which was traveling from the Russian Federation, is illegal. He told reporters about this on June 1 and was quoted by the Russian Interfax.
On the morning of June 1, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that on May 31, his country’s naval forces detained the sanctioned vessel Tagor in the Atlantic Ocean, which was coming from Russia.
“They [такие действия] border on international piracy. We absolutely disagree that they are carried out in full compliance with international law,” Peskov said.
He pointed out that Russia is taking a number of measures to ensure the safety of its cargo.
The Russian Federation “will continue to take this series of measures taking into account, let’s say, this negative experience,” Peskov said.
The captain of the tanker, according to preliminary data, is a Russian citizen, TASS reports, citing the Russian Embassy in Paris. The embassy also added that the French side did not inform the diplomatic mission about the actions regarding the tanker.
According to BFMTV, the Brest prosecutor's office said that the ship was taken under control due to the captain's refusal to obey the orders of French naval sailors, so “the seizure of the ship turned out to be necessary.”
Law enforcement officials said they had launched an investigation into allegations of “failure to provide evidence of the vessel’s nationality,” “absence of a flag,” and “refusal to comply with an order.”
According to the VesselFinder monitoring service, Tagor flies the flag of Madagascar. The last time the ship called at the port of Murmansk was in early May.
