This morning, in a blaze of publicity, Royal Navy commandos boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the English channel in a move that No. 10 heralded as a blow against Vladimir Putin’s war machine. It’s good, of course, that for the first time in the war the British government has followed the example of the French and finally taken action. However, the boarding of the 107,000 ton Smyrtos has much more to do with political theatre than with actually strangling Russia’s economy.
The boarding of the Smyrtos has much more to do with political theatre than with strangling Russia’s economy
Though you’d never know it from statements from No.10 or Labour ministers, transporting and selling Russian oil is not in itself illegal. Russian oil destined for EU and UK ports is subject to a price cap of $44.10 per barrel, well below the current (discounted) price for Urals crude of between $71 and $83, depending on prices in local markets. But the Smytros’s cargo of 740,000 barrels was bound from the Baltic Russian port of Ust-Luga to Sikka in India – which, crucially, is outside the Price Cap Coalition of mostly Western countries. Enforcing western sanctions on non-Western countries is a political not a legal battle which so far the US and the EU have declined to fight.
The vessel is correctly described as belonging to the ‘shadow fleet’ of some 700 vessels that transport much of Russia’s crude oil. The Smytros – known until June 2025 as the Myrtos – is a classic example of the kind of vessel that makes up the bulk of the shadow fleet. According to MagicPort, a maritime intelligence platform that tracks information from the International Maritime Organization, she was has been owned by the Zhao Yao corporation of Hong Kong since September 2025, or perhaps by Daira Shipping of the Seychelles. The paperwork seems to be ambiguous. Until December 2025 she sailed under a Gambian flag before switching to Cameroonian registration. She’s sanctioned by the UK, the EU, Canada and Ukraine – but again, that applies only if she tries to offload her cargo in any of those countries.
Despite the name, shadow fleet tankers are not pirate ships flying the Jolly Roger. What makes them illegal in some jurisdictions is that they transport cargoes to countries who happen to ignore Western sanctions. Nor are they, for the most part, limping tramp steamers. Their cargoes are too valuable – over $48 million dollars in the case of the Smytros’s current cargo – to entrust to a dodgy vessel. Smytros is an Aframax mid-sized tanker built in 2009 and herself worth at least $35 million at current market prices. With that much cash at stake she is undoubtedly crewed by professional and experienced officers. And because no vessel can dock in a major port without maritime insurance she will also be also fully indemnified – just not at Lloyds of London or in the EU but probably by insurers in India, Russia or China.
So the sight of Royal Marine commandos clattering down gangways in full body armour with their rifles at the ready – filmed from below, by the way, by a cameraperson with their back to the presumed threat – is purely performative. Sir Keir Starmer ‘personally directed the operation’ according to No.10. Presumably he convened his military chiefs in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – melodramatically known as COBRA – and experienced the deep thrill of cosplaying as Barack Obama as he took out Osama Bin Laden. But in truth the boarding of the Smytros is less like a Tom Clancy thriller and more like a John Grisham legal potboiler. In true Starmer style, the underlying story of today’s operation is regulatory, not military.
Downing Street declared that the tanker was ‘falsey flagged’ as Cameroonian. This is technically true, but only because Cameroon de-registered the Smytros and 35 other sanctioned tankers ‘earlier this month’, according to Lloyds List. The Smytros sailed from Ust-Luga on June 4th, meaning that she may have lost her Cameroonian flag while she was already at sea. Under maritime law, legitimately-flagged vessels enjoy the so-called ‘right of innocent passage,’ including transit through territorial waters such as the Danish Straits or the English Channel. Unflagged ships do not. That was the legal loophole that allowed today’s dramatic boarding.
In the coming days lawyers for Zhao Yao – or whichever corporation currently owns the cargo and vessel – will doubtless scramble to assemble new paperwork, find a new flag and pay a fine for sailing without proper registration. That’s exactly what happened with two other shadow fleet tankers boarded – also with helicopters, armed marines, and multiple military camerapersons – by the French Navy last year. The Ethera, another shadow fleet tanker boarded by Belgian and French marines in February, was ultimately fined €10 million and allowed to go on her way.
But the more important point is that the temporary halting of the Smytros’s voyage will do next to nothing to dent the Kremlin’s profits. Starmer’s claims to be cracking down on Putin’s war funding are essentially mendacious fugazi designed to bamboozle the ill-informed. In truth, Europe has handed at least €209 billion to Russia in payment for oil and gas since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – far more than it’s given to the Ukrainians. Europe’s imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) have increased by 17.5 per cen per cent this year alone – accounting for 49 per cent of Russia’s global LNG sales, despite a notional EU ban which will come into force at the end of 2027.
While the UK has banned the import of Russian LNG (less as a matter of high principle but because we never imported much anyway), a significant proportion of European supplies are unloaded and re-gasified at British terminals such as Milford Haven in Wales and the Isle of Grain in Kent before being piped to the continent. Seaspeak, a British company, transports some 37 per cent of all the LNG produced by Russia’s Yamal gas field. For all Starmer’s talk of strangling Russia’s exports, Britain is deeply involved in Europe’s continued bankrolling of the Kremlin – a trade worth some €10 billion this year alone. Starmer’s naval operation today was not a ‘blow’ but a stunt.
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