“It is extremely important to increase pressure on the shadow fleet because it clearly reduces Russia’s ability to fund its war effort,” said Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, October 2, at a European Political Community summit in Copenhagen. “We have decided to take things further by moving toward policies to impede” Russia’s shadow fleet, the French president said. “In the coming days, our chiefs of staff, in coordination with NATO and within the framework of the ‘coalition of the willing,'” a group of some 35 countries that have come together to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, “will meet to create joint actions in the coming weeks,” he added.

On Wednesday, October 1, Paris announced that, on September 27, it had detained a suspicious vessel off the French coast, and that the ship was under investigation for maritime offenses. “It was operating under a false flag, but it was exactly the same vessel that had been checked by Estonia in March, for the same reasons,” the president said, adding that the ship was found operating under another name and another flag.

You have 76.7% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.