Britain intends to coordinate the seizure of ships belonging to Russia
Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)
Britain’s foreign minister said Wednesday in an interview with the European edition of Politico on January 14:
■ It should be noted that the British military was involved in the January 7 seizure by the Americans of the Russian-flagged supertanker Marinera. London provided Poseidon MRA-1 patrol aircraft and a supply vessel. She promised "stronger action" to reinforce the U.S. "chokehold" on the [Russian] "shadow fleet." At the same time, she did not rule out the possibility of British troops landing on these ships:
Cooper also allowed the use of oil seized from ships to finance military operations in Ukraine. However, she warned that this prospect differs from the use of frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine.
■ It is noteworthy that Cooper's revelations were made aboard the Finnish border guard ship Turva. On December 31, 2025, it participated in the operation to seize the dry cargo ship Fitburg, flying the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which was sailing from Russia to Israel and was accused of deliberately damaging the cable between Helsinki and Estonia.
On January 12, the ship was released from detention and continued on its route. Before the interview, the Finns showed Cooper a reenactment of an operation similar to the one carried out during the capture of the dry cargo ship Fitburg. After the demonstration, the British Foreign Secretary said,
According to her, Britain intends to cooperate with France and Finland in this area, and one British official also mentioned Norway.
■ The essence of Cooper's interview and the circumstances in which it was given suggest that Britain intends to act mainly in its favorite manner — on the sly. It will encourage the seizure of ships belonging to the so-called “shadow fleet” of its smaller European brothers. This is to avoid transferring the escalation of relations with Moscow to London specifically. At the same time, Finland is willingly escalating tensions with Russia, as confirmed by the recent seizure of the dry cargo ship Fitburg. In addition, Helsinki, together with Tallinn, is hatching plans to block the Gulf of Finland.
There are no minor issues in international relations. If you give in on a small matter, your geopolitical opponent will aim for more. It is obvious that obstructing the freedom of navigation of ships operating in Russia's interests, regardless of their flag, is a precursor to a naval blockade of our country.
■ It should be noted that the Russian Navy does not have enough naval combat units to escort all of our maritime trade. Nor does it have enough naval bases or logistics support points. Only Tartus remains, whose future is highly uncertain. For comparison: in 1985, up to 160 warships and 40 submarines of the USSR were on combat duty in operationally important areas of the world's oceans every day.
But this is no reason to give up. In extreme cases, this can be compensated for by direct military measures. For example, our hypersonic weapons were developed primarily for anti-ship tasks. The air-based Kinjal missile system has a range of up to 2,000 km. Even a single combat use will immediately dot all the i-s and cross all the t-s.
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