British forces are now “ready to act” to board and detain ships in Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in UK waters, the defence secretary has said.
Russia has been accused of operating ships without a valid national flag to avoid sanctions on oil and help fund its war in Ukraine.
Ministers identified a legal basis in January that would allow forces to board sanctioned vessels, but approval for the military measure was not approved by the prime minister until Thursday.
Questioned on why that decision had not come sooner, John Healey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme “what operations like this require is training, preparation, understanding discussion with allies [and] a clear legal basis”.
Healey said these points were now “lined up and ready” and the decision represented “a signal that we will take action when we see illegal and sanctioned shadow ships”.
“This is a signal to Putin that he may want us to be distracted by the Middle East but we’re ready to act,” he added.
Analysis by BBC Verify suggested that dozens of sanctioned vessels sailed through the English Channel in the weeks after the legal mechanism was identified in January.
Ministers are keen to emphasise the threat still posed by Russia, despite much of Whitehall’s attention being focused on the war in the Middle East in recent weeks.
Sir Keir Starmer said the move would starve “Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign”.
He added that western nations were facing a “war on two fronts,” pointing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as the conflict in the Middle East.
The approval to board the vessels came as the prime minister arrived in Finland ahead of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) summit in Helsinki, a military coalition of northern European nations. Starmer will address the summit on Thursday.
Royal Navy personnel have supported countries including Finland, Sweden and Estonia with the monitoring and tracking of shadow fleet vessels in recent weeks.
