Cnn
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Until last week, a secret fleet of ships carrying Russian oil worldwide has shown no clear link with the Kremlin. This has changed when, in a spectacular escalation, Russia used a fighter plane in an apparent effort to protect one of the oil tankers considered in the fleet.
After the Estonian army contacted the Jaguar-an unteaded oil tanker sanctioned by the United Kingdom earlier this month-on May 13, in an attempt to make checks, a Russian hunting plane SU-35 flew over the ship, inside Estonian airspace, the Estonian defense forces said. The soldiers finally escorted the oil tanker outside the Estonian waters.
“This is something very new,” the Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna said on Thursday at a NATO meeting in Türkiye. Russia has now “officially linked and connects” to the so-called shadow fleet, he added.
Others agree. “It seems to be a change of steps in Kremlin’s thought,” said Ed Arnold, principal researcher to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a Kingdom-based reflection group.
According to hundreds of strong ships, without official links with Russia, the “shadow fleet” includes many old poorly maintained ships, which in some cases have environmental ravages and, according to some, were involved in damage to vital submarine cables off the Baltic Coast. Russia has denied any role in damage.
The oil tankers, many of which have opaque ownership structures, transport Russian oil for exports to avoid Western sanctions. As such, they themselves have become additional sanctions on Moscow.
The use of Russia, for the first time, of “military action” in response to economic sanctions “testifies to the level of the threat to which we face on the eastern NATO flank,” said French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean-No-No. Barrot to journalists at the meeting in Türkiye.
The video tour of the Jaguar bridge, which seems to have been published, shows a radio call from the Estonian authorities requiring the change of ship, with Estonian military ships and visible planes around the oil tanker. CNN has corroborated the details of the images, which were shared online by Margarita Simonyan, editor -in -chief of Russian State Media Outlet RT.
Later in the video, a single Russian fighter plane SU-35 sweeps in front of the oil tanker, which was previously appointed money, according to the Navigation Archives and the British government. In response, the Portuguese F-16 planes in a NATO mission in Estonia were precipitated in the region to monitor the Russian plane, NATO said.
Jets are part of a reinforced presence of NATO in northern Europe since the large -scale invasion of Ukraine in Russia in 2022.
“Probably what the Kremlin is trying to do is repelled this, so in the hope that the NATO nations were frightened by what happened (last Tuesday),” Arnold told Rusi.
“There will be people in NATO who are a little worried about it and say:” Well, hang on, do we really want to start a wider confrontation with Russia on a ship? “”
For Estonians, the intrusion of the Russian jet into the Estonian airspace is proof that Western sanctions bite.
The incident “demonstrates that the surveillance and sanction of the shadow fleet is effective and that such efforts must be further intensified,” the Estonian defense forces said in a statement.
CNN could not locate the registered owner of the Jaguar to comment. The Russian Defense Ministry refused to respond to the request for CNN comments. The Kremlin previously refused to respond to the charges it uses a “shadow fleet”.
In January, following repeated incidents in which the ships caused damage to the submarine infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, NATO launched the “Baltic Sentry” initiative to strengthen its military presence in the waters.
“We consider the incident (Tuesday) as a reaction to Baltic Sentry,” said Colonel Martin O’Donnell, a NATO spokesperson in CNN. “The destabilizing actions of Russia will not dissuade us from acting in international law to maintain maritime security, security and freedom of navigation.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday that a new package of sanctions could be adopted on Tuesday after Russian President Vladimir Putin did not participate in Russia talks with Ukraine in Turkey last week. Merz had declared earlier than the “shadow fleet” of Russia – “operating permanently in the Baltic Sea with up to 300 ships” – would be specifically targeted in this package.
In a possible move of Tit-For-Tat, a Greek oil tanker, Green admire, was arrested on Sunday by Russia while he passed on Russian waters on a road agreed by Estonia, Finland and Russia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia published on X.
CNN contacted the owner of the ship and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to comment. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not responded.
The Estonian authorities have made more than 450 checks on ships in waters controlled by Tallinn in the Baltic Sea since last June, according to the country’s Ministry of Transport. This includes the Gulf of Finland, one of the main conduits of Russian trade abroad.
