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BRUSSELS — Russia threatened retaliation if the EU follows through on new proposals to grab more Moscow-linked oil tankers in the Baltic Sea, warning it would treat any seizures as an attack.
Alexei Zhuravlev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s parliamentary defense committee, on Monday said that “any attack on our carriers can be regarded as an attack on our territory, even if the ship is under a foreign flag.”
His comments come after POLITICO revealed that countries including Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia were considering new legal mechanisms to detain more of Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet — aging vessels with obscure ownership and unknown insurance.
The countries are increasingly frustrated that Russia is using these creaky tankers to dodge Western sanctions designed to cut Moscow’s oil revenue and drain its war chest. Oil and gas exports account for almost half the Kremlin’s total tax revenues and are central to funding its war in Ukraine.
Zhuravlev, the leader of the nationalist Rodina party, said any move to grab tankers would also prompt “retaliatory measures” from Moscow, which could include “boarding Western ships in the Baltic, but also active measures from our Baltic fleet, which is certainly no match for the Baltic countries’ array of small boats.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine lauded the countries’ proposals, which gained fresh momentum after Finland seized a Russian shadow fleet vessel in December, suspecting it of sabotaging several Baltic Sea cables.
Andriy Yermak, who heads the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Monday that the new initiatives were “very important now because every day of disrupted logistics seriously affects Russia’s ability to finance the war.”
