Mike Baker

But what makes this operation particularly noteworthy is Britain's role.

If you've followed our coverage of the West's war on the Shadow Fleet, you'll know that London has spent quite some time helping allies such as France identify track and target vessels tied to the Shadow Fleet.

This time, however, British forces weren't simply passing along intelligence.

The vessel is now being held off England's southern coast, while investigators review its documentation and activities.

According to vessel tracking data, the Smirtos was sailing under the flag of Cameroon, one of the many foreign registries often utilized by Shadow Fleet operators seeking to obscure ownership and evade scrutiny.

Video released by the British government posted to X shows commandos descending onto the vessel from a helicopter before conducting searches throughout the ship.

The footage shows troops moving through the cabins with weapons drawn while officers inspected the ship's records.

For Moscow, these ships are more than tankers, of course.

They're floating sanctions workarounds.

Over the past several years, the Kremlin has assembled a sprawling network of aging vessels, shell companies, foreign registries, and opaque ownership structures designed to keep Russian oil flowing to global markets despite Western restrictions.

The arrangement has helped Russia keep generating billions of dollars in revenue, even as sanctions pile up, providing a financial lifeline for a war that's dragged on for more than four years.

It's estimated that the fleet of more than 700 vessels transports roughly 75% of Russia's sanctioned oil exports, helping fund the missiles and drones launched at Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer framed the operation in a statement as another step toward cutting off that source of revenue, saying, quote, This operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin's war in Ukraine that they cannot hide, end quote.

British Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis said, quote, Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund its conflict in Ukraine, and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin's illegal war.

But for most of the war, enforcement largely meant sanctions, blacklists, and financial penalties.

Physically stopping the ships was far less common.

And that is what's been changing.

As discussed on the PDB at the end of May, French authorities boarded the tanker Tagore in the Atlantic after determining that the vessel was operating under international sanctions.

And earlier this year, France intercepted another Russia-linked tanker in the Mediterranean after receiving intelligence from the U.K.,

The British Defense Ministry claims Russian oil revenues have fallen roughly 27% from October 2024 levels and are currently at their lowest point since the war began.