An oil tanker believed to be part of Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions went adrift and had to be towed by a German tugboat Friday in what Germany's foreign minister called a danger to security and tourism in the Baltic Sea.
The Panamanian-flagged Eventin was believed to be carrying 99,000 tons of oil from Russia en route to Egypt when it went adrift for several hours north of the German island of Rügen. The Bremen Fighter tugboat was deployed to pull the ship into a harbor, and there was no immediate danger to the environment, the German news agency dpa said.
Greenpeace says that Eventin belongs to a so-called Russian shadow fleet, which is made up of hundreds of aging tankers that are dodging sanctions in order to keep oil revenue flowing into the Russian state budget. The sanctions were imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the incident shows that Russia is endangering European security “not only with its war of aggression on Ukraine” but with sabotage and disinformation “and even with dilapidated oil tankers.”
She said that Russia was not only circumventing sanctions “with the nefarious use of a fleet of rusty tankers,” but also endangering tourism in the Baltic Sea.
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4 Comments
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TaiwanIsNotChina
Keep your wreckage near your own shores, russia!
JJE
Ahh the tanker not owned by Russia, not Russian flagged or crewed...
Pull the other one.
theFu
Ships have been "flagged" in other countries for hundreds of years in an attempt to hide the true owners.
This ship is a danger to others and the crew. Off load the cargo and use it to pay for required fixes to the ship before allowing it to sail again. If the cargo won't cover the needed repairs, scrap the ship and sell it to cover any charges incurred and for legal representation costs in German court. Send a bill to the owners of record for any excess. If they don't pay, block them from all German ports and see if other European ports want to block their ships too.
If there's no money to be made, the owners will stop doing what they are doing.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Alternatively they could scuttle it in the tiny access Saint Petersburg has with the Baltic.