Belgium has detained a tanker that previously delivered cargo from Russia to Morocco

The Belgian Navy has detained the sanctioned tanker Ethera, which previously delivered cargo from Russia to a port in Morocco.

This is reported by RTBF.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga thanked for the detention of the vessel.

“We welcome Belgium’s decisive step in seizing the illegal Russian tanker of the shadow fleet. Such decisive and justified actions are necessary to deprive Russia of the resources to continue its aggression and war crimes against Ukraine,” he commented.

Project manager of the Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies Andriy Klymenko specified that the vessel was returning from the Moroccan port of Mohammedia in ballast.

The tanker arrived in Morocco on February 18 with cargo from the Russian port of Ust-Luga in the Baltic Sea (from where it set sail on January 3).

It can be assumed that the ship was returning to one of the Russian ports in the Baltic for a new cargo, Klymenko added.

Previously, Belgium detained the tanker because of a false flag – that is, from a legal point of view, the ship did not belong to any state.

The tanker is under sanctions from the USA, Switzerland, Great Britain and the EU. However, within the framework of the detention of the shipowner, they can only force the vessel to obtain a certain “citizenship”.

According to the Institute’s Monitoring Group, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ethera has made 10 voyages and transported about 460 thousand tons of oil products to the ports of Turkey, Morocco, Brazil, as well as to transshipments near EU countries (Greece and Cyprus).

The vessel was transporting petroleum products from Russian ports on the Black Sea (Novorossiysk, Taman, a transshipment port south of the Kerch Strait) and the Baltic Sea (Primorsk, Ust-Luga, St. Petersburg).

Earlier, USM reported that Iran had attacked a “shadow fleet” tanker carrying its own citizens.