Alexey Cranelev, Deputy president of the Russian Parliamentary Defence Committee, said on Monday that "Any attack on our tankers can be considered an attack on our territory, even if the ship is under a abroad flag".
His comments emerged after POLITICO revealed that European countries, including Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, are considering fresh legal mechanisms to halt more ‘Shadow floats’ Moscow — ageing ships with unclear ownership and unknown insurance.
Countries are increasingly frustrated that Russia is utilizing old tankers to avoid Western sanctions, whose aim is to reduce Moscow's income from oil and empty its box of war. Oil and gas exports account for almost half of full taxation gross The Kremlin and is crucial for backing the war in Ukraine.
The crane, leader of Rodin's nationalist party, said that any decision to take over the tankers would besides origin ‘retaliatory measures’ from Moscow, which could include "going aboard western ships in the Baltic, but besides the active activities of our Baltic fleet, which surely cannot be compared to a number of tiny boats of the Baltic countries".
Ukraine praised the proposals that gained fresh momentum after Finland occupied a Russian ship in December, suspected of sabotaging and cutting respective cables at the bottom of the Baltic.
Andrij Jermak, who heads the office of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenski, said on Monday that New initiatives are now "very crucial due to the fact that all day of disrupted logistics seriously affects Russia's ability to finance the war".
