France has seized a car cargo ship in the English Channel that the United States says was linked to the son of a former Russian spy chief, in one of the first visible displays of the West enforcing sanctions on Russia for its Ukraine invasion.
The US Department of the Treasury has issued blocking sanctions against the vessel, which it said is owned by a subsidiary of Russian lender Promsvyazbank, one of the Russian entities hit by Washington’s sanctions.
The bank’s CEO, Pyotr Fradkov, is the son of Mikhail Fradkov, a former head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, who also served as prime minister under Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pyotr Fradkov was himself included in the latest round of US sanctions.
The Baltic Leader vessel was headed for Saint Petersburg but was diverted to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France between 3am and 4am (02:00 – 03:00 GMT), Captain Veronique Magnin, of the French Maritime Prefecture, told the Reuters news agency.
The vessel was “strongly suspected of being linked to Russian interests targeted by the sanctions”, she said.
Promsvyazbank told Reuters in a statement that its subsidiary no longer owns the Baltic Leader, which was bought by a different entity before the sanctions were imposed.
Magnin, the maritime prefecture spokeswoman, said checks were being carried out by customs officials and the ship’s crew was “being cooperative”.
The US Treasury said Promsvyazbank was put under sanctions “for operating or having operated in the defence and related materiel and financial services sectors of the Russian Federation economy”. It was also targeted by EU sanctions.
Washington sanctioned two of Russia’s state-owned banks – Promsvyazbank and VEB – and blocked them from trading in its debt on US and European markets. The two Russian banks are considered especially close to the Kremlin and Russia’s military, with more than $80bn in assets.
The Russian embassy in Paris said it will send a note of protest to the French foreign ministry against the seizure.
The United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Taiwan and New Zealand unveiled a series of sanctions against Russia targeting banks, oil refineries and military exports.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the United States will impose sanctions on Putin in coordination with the EU.
I have a couple friends who have issues with archive.is specifically so I’ll try to use the wayback machine next time. I’ll paste the article text in the post body in just a sec comrade
very weird. Sometimes when I have weird SSL issues it’s because my clock is set wrong, maybe check that? Either way, full text is in the description now
I wonder if eric prince needs a captain for his up-coming privateer fleet? :soviet-hmm:
god damn america and its minions just fucking loooove doing naval piracy
fReEdOm Of NaViGaTiOn
edit: This actually really pisses me off. The U.S. has a policy of regularly sailing armed warships right through the territory of other countries just to intimidate them and swing their dick around, acting self righteous and saying that it’s to “uphold international law”, namely to uphold a U.N. treaty which the U.S. hasn’t even ratified or otherwise acknowledged, and which was designed to protect the ability of civilian vessels to pass peacefully through international waters. Meanwhile, a ship which is supposedly owned by a Russian bank is minding its own buisness, passing peacefully through the English channel (which, as far as I can tell, is international waters), in other words exactly the kind of situation freedom of navigation is supposed to protect, and France just steals it!
