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2026-01-08 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
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Ocean Chase: US Seizes Russian-Flag Tanker
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Vasily Fedorov
| Follow up to this and this and this and this from yesterday. Also possibly this, or it may be they were all just going home for Orthodox Christmas and New Year celebrations. |
[REGNUM] The US military has completed the operation to seize the oil tanker Marinera in the North Atlantic. The US Coast Guard landed a landing party on the vessel, which had been evading pursuit across the ocean for over two weeks.
The US European Command released an official statement on social media confirming the detention.
According to the report, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense "detained" the vessel in the North Atlantic for violating U.S. sanctions.
The tanker story has its roots in the standoff over Iranian and Venezuelan oil supplies.
The vessel, formerly known as Bella 1, has been on the US Treasury Department's sanctions list since June 2024.
According to an official press release from the US Treasury, the company that owns Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises SA was placed on the sanctions list for transporting cargo on behalf of a Hezbollah-owned company and for providing material support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
ESCAPE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
The pursuit began on the night of December 20-21, when a US Coast Guard ship attempted to stop the Bella 1 in the Caribbean Sea. The vessel was heading to the coast of Venezuela to load oil. According to CNN, the tanker was flying the Guyanese flag. US authorities considered the flag invalid and the vessel "stateless" under international law.
The crew refused to allow coast guards on board. The tanker abruptly changed course and headed out into the open Atlantic. Thus began a pursuit that stretched for thousands of nautical miles.
In the following days, as The Wall Street Journal reported, the crew painted the Russian tricolor flag on the ship's hull and declared via radio that the vessel was under Russian protection. By January 1, the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping registered a new vessel—the Marinera, with its home port in Sochi.
According to the analytics firm Windward, this tactic is part of a broader trend. Over the past six months, more than a dozen tankers from the "shadow fleet" transporting sanctioned oil have transferred to the Russian flag. This process accelerated sharply in December after the US military began actively intercepting vessels off the coast of Venezuela.
VENEZUELA BLOCKADE AND THE "SHADOW FLEET"
The operation against the Marinera was part of a large-scale pressure campaign by the Donald Trump administration against Caracas. In December 2025, the US president announced the imposition of a naval blockade against sanctioned tankers sailing to the Venezuelan coast.
The first vessel seized was the tanker Skipper, stopped on December 10 off the coast of Venezuela. This vessel had been under sanctions since 2022 for alleged involvement in an Iranian oil smuggling network. Ten days later, the Coast Guard boarded the Panamanian tanker Centuries, which was carrying approximately 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan oil.
These actions have caused serious concern in the industry. According to experts cited by The Wall Street Journal, tanker traffic to Venezuelan ports has been effectively paralyzed. Fear of hijacking has forced many vessels to remain at anchor or completely turn off their transponders.
The situation escalated further after US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3. According to The New York Times, at least 16 tankers attempted to breach the blockade by disguising their location or disabling their Automatic Identification System (AIIS) transmitters.
The Trump administration justifies its actions by citing the fight against drug trafficking and sanctions violations. However, representatives of the UN Human Rights Office have condemned the blockade, stating that the US is violating fundamental norms of international law.
Analysts point out that Washington has never ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and its actions in the Venezuelan case create a precedent that other states could use to detain ships in international waters.
MOSCOW'S REACTION AND RUSSIAN WARSHIPS
On New Year's Eve, the Russian side sent a diplomatic note to the US State Department demanding an end to the persecution.
On January 6, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement: "Currently, our vessel is navigating in the international waters of the North Atlantic under the state flag of the Russian Federation and in full compliance with the norms of international maritime law," the document stated.
Russian diplomats expressed bewilderment at the increased attention paid to the "peaceful ship" by American and other NATO military personnel.
Moreover, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. official sources, that Russia dispatched naval vessels, including a submarine, to the tanker. Two U.S. administration officials confirmed this information in interviews with Reuters.
Unfortunately, the Russian military vessels did not arrive in time for the American troops to land on the tanker's deck.
The Trump administration refuses to listen to Russia's claims. American officials insist that at the time of the initial boarding attempt, the tanker was flying an invalid flag and was a "stateless vessel."
OPERATION OVER THE NORTH ATLANTIC
At the time of the seizure, the tanker was located south of the Faroe Islands, approximately two thousand kilometers west of continental Europe. According to ship tracking services, the Marinera was moving northeast at a speed of approximately eight knots.
Analysts speculated that the tanker may have been heading to Murmansk, Russia's main ice-free Arctic port, through which a significant portion of the "shadow fleet" operations are conducted. An alternative route was through the Baltic Sea.
The American side had been preparing for the operation for several days. According to The Aviationist, special aviation units were deployed to British airbases, including CV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft from the 7th Special Operations Squadron and helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
The Times newspaper reported on the participation of the British Boeing Poseidon MRA1 anti-submarine aircraft.
On January 7, AIS data recorded a sudden change in the tanker's course to the south. Shortly thereafter, RT published footage showing a helicopter approaching the vessel.
As Fox News journalist Lucas Tomlinson confirmed, citing official sources, American military personnel boarded the ship before the Russian escort ships arrived.
At the same time, US Coast Guard vessels intercepted another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, the M Sophia, which was flying the Cameroonian flag.
Marinera became the third tanker seized in the Venezuelan campaign, and the fourth if M Sophia is taken into account.
However, this particular incident stands out for the unprecedented scale of the operation: a pursuit across the entire Atlantic Ocean, with Russian warships dispatched to escort the vessel. Inspired by the bloodless capture of Maduro, the Americans decided to test their mettle on the Russian ship. The consequences of this incident for Russian-American relations remain to be seen.
China, the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, has already expressed dissatisfaction with Washington's actions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called American claims to Venezuelan oil resources "a classic act of intimidation" and reiterated Venezuela's full sovereignty over its natural resources.
As for the reaction of US officials, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the United States intends to establish significant control over Venezuela's oil industry "indefinitely."
"Going forward, we will be selling products that we produce in Venezuela," Wright said at a Goldman Sachs energy conference near Miami.
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