A wave of anger, frustration, and outrage washed over Russian media, but top Kremlin officials were staying totally silent, in the wake of a pair of US raids capturing two tankers operating as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.” Russian milbloggers usually strongly supportive of Russia and the Russian military were more critical of the Kremlin, a few going so far as to accuse the national leadership of conducting feeble foreign policy. "The US actions demonstrated the Russian state’s inability to protect its citizens and their property."A wave of anger, frustration, and outrage at “international law not being respected” washed over Russian airwaves and print and social media, but top Kremlin officials were staying close to totally silent, in the wake of a pair of US raids on Wednesday, capturing two tankers operating as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
White House spokesmen described the captures, one taking place in the Caribbean and the other between Iceland and Scotland, as legitimate law enforcement operations targeting ships, crews, and owners facilitating US sanction evasion.
The vessel, arrested in the North Atlantic and called Bella-1 by US officials and by its hastily registered new name, Marinera, by Russian outlets, was halted and boarded in choppy seas by US Coast Guard officers following a week-long chase that started near the Venezuelan coast.
US naval and special operations elements supported the Coast Guard-led operation to take custody of the Russia-flagged vessel, as did United Kingdom military bases and a UK warship.
A parallel detention in the Caribbean stopped and placed into US law enforcement custody a stateless ship claimed by US authorities to be a clandestine Russian shadow tanker. That vessel, called the Sophia, reportedly was not registered with any country, including Russia.
By Thursday afternoon, top-level Russian reaction to the US Coast Guard and military move to stop, board, and take control of a Russia-flagged tanker and its crew on the high seas – by some interpretations of international law a potential act of war – has been muted, and neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor his spokesman have made public comment on it.
Prior to the US takeover of the tanker, the Russian Foreign Ministry described the US pursuit of the tanker as “excessive and clearly disproportionate attention...to a peaceful Russian vessel.” The most visible Kremlin physical response to the US moves against the Russian tankers had been to send a submarine to the area of the Bella 1/Marinera at high speed. The Russian warship was in the vicinity of the tanker when the Coast Guard boarded, but did not interfere, Russian and international news reports said.Following the tankers’ capture, the Russian Foreign Ministry, in a Wednesday statement carried by TASS and other Russian official media, condemned the US moves as “illegal” and, in mild language, demanded the crew receive humane treatment and be returned quickly. There were no threats towards the US, nor did Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, make public comment on the US actions.
State-run Russian media kept to a narrative and tone matching the Foreign Ministry’s, with reporting emphasizing the “illegality” of the US operations while eschewing confrontational language. The state news platform RT featured exclusive photos and videos from aboard the tanker showing a US helicopter approaching.
According to RT, the tanker had been “legally flagged” as a Russian commercial vessel for nearly two weeks and was under the “full protection” of the Russian state and military. The US boarding amounted, that and other official Russian news reports said, to state-sponsored piracy and was “in direct violation of 982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: No state has the right to use force against vessels that are duly registered under the jurisdiction of other states.”
The presence of a Russian warship or warships in the vicinity that did not move to protect the tanker, as was reported by Reuters and major Western media, was not mentioned by RT, TASS, Russian national television, or any other major Kremlin news outlet.
Russia’s independent Astra and Sota news platforms, both internet-based media with professional journalistic standards but limited viewership, said the US actions demonstrated the Russian state’s inability to protect its citizens and their property.
Influential Russian military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk, a nationally promoted “patriotic” influencer close to Russia’s Defense Ministry, criticized the US for “illegal acts” but also hammered the tanker’s operators for re-flagging the ship as a Russian vessel without any Russian warships or aircraft anywhere nearby, to give the ship security. The precedent set – that the US or any other state might take possession of any Russian commercial ship anywhere in the world, provided the Russian military was not physically present – was dangerous and undermined Russia’s “international authority,” he said.Russian MP Aleksey Zhuralyov, first deputy head of the Duma’s Defense Committee, in a statement released on Wednesday to local news outlets, said that the US had effectively declared maritime war against the Russian Federation and that there was no alternative but to arm all Russian commercial vessels and give them orders to shoot first to defend themselves. Russian naval elements should, he said, seek out US commercial vessels and sink them, he added.
“We need to provide a military response: attack with torpedoes or sink a couple of American boats. This is nothing more than piracy: the seizure of a civilian vessel by the armed US Navy. It is essentially the same as an attack on Russian territory,” Zhuralyov said in part.
Russian milbloggers usually strongly supportive of Russia and the Russian military were more critical of the Kremlin, a few going so far as to accuse the national leadership of conducting feeble foreign policy.
The popular geopolitical writer Business Basics, in a Wednesday article entitled “Russia Responds With Threats After Failing to Defend Its Tanker,” wrote in part: “Now, instead of real deterrence, the Kremlin majority is throwing around threats that it clearly can’t execute. Russia’s navy didn’t stop the seizure. Its diplomatic protests haven’t changed anything. What we’re seeing is a desperate regime lashing out because it knows it can’t actually defend its own interests. This is yet another humiliation for Moscow.”
The usually outspokenly pro-Kremlin Two Majors (Russian: Два майора) in a Wednesday X post to more than one million followers slammed the Kremlin, calling the US detention a “humiliation” and Russian navel deployments inept: “Russia….sent a submarine and other forces for escort, but probably didn’t make it in time.”
Igor Korotchenko, a prominent Russian military expert and editor-in-chief of the journal National Defense (Национальная оборона), in Wednesday comments published on his personal Telegram channel said the only way left for Moscow to prevent further captures of Russian ships by the US or any other allied navy on the high seas, is to launch a non-nuclear ballistic missile at a NATO naval base and then to be prepared to go nuclear if needed.
“The seizure of the Russian-flagged tanker... sets an extremely dangerous precedent for the further complete cessation of Russian maritime traffic in the Baltic by European NATO forces. Russia’s only possible response to this is a demonstrative strike with a non-nuclear Oreshnik IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) against a NATO naval base on the Baltic or North Sea coast, with a resolute readiness for further nuclear escalation if the enemy continues its naval blockade of Russian ports,” Korotchenko fumed.
“The current political Euro-b*llshit [vulgar word is spelled out in original] does not understand or accept any other arguments,” he said.
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