Inside six-hour mission to storm Putin's shadow oil tanker

One by one, Royal Marine commandos wearing night vision goggles fast-roped from a hovering CH-47 Chinook onto the deck of a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It was the first time that a Russian tanker had been seized in the English Channel .

The operation, ordered by Sir Keir Starmer, comes after months of warnings that Russian vessels – which Vladimir Putin uses to trade sanctioned oil across the world – were sailing with impunity through the Channel.

British forces had carefully chosen their moment: the Smyrtos had entered the Channel just 12 hours earlier, carrying a reported 704,962 barrels of Russian oil to prop up Moscow’s war economy.

Part of Putin’s “shadow” fleet, Smyrtos had left port 13 days earlier and was en route to Port Said in Egypt. Its final destination was unclear.

Its journey through the Channel was yet another brazen challenge by Moscow, which had sent more than 200 UK-sanctioned vessels through British waters since the Prime Minister vowed in March to “go after” Putin’s shadow fleet by boarding tankers flying false flags.

This time, British forces were primed to act. As the Royal Navy monitored the vessel, Marines from the elite 42 Commando waited to spring into action.

The operation involved aircraft from the Maritime Air Group, which included Chinook, Merlin Mk4 and Wildcat helicopters, an RAF P-8 “submarine hunter” aircraft, as well as HMS Sutherland, a Type 23 frigate, and HMS Ledbury, a minehunter.

The helicopters took off from a location in the south-west of England around midnight to meet the Smyrtos in the Channel.

While the operation was “bread and butter” for the Marines, flying into a target at night and fast-roping on to the deck was not without its risks, as their commanding officer, said Lt Col Tom Quinn.

Upon boarding, Marines armed with KS-1 advanced 5.56mm assault rifles searched the vessel from top to bottom, including cabins, while National Crime Agency (NCA) officers inspected paperwork.

There were no armed guards aboard the vessel, and the 25-strong crew, of various nationalities, co-operated fully.

Several hours in, with the sun breaking over the horizon, marines from 42 Commando continued to board the Smyrtos. Footage released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) showed more military personnel fast-roping, this time from a Merlin Mk4.

The political expediency of the operation’s timing, just days after the dramatic resignation of John Healey as defence secretary , has triggered some speculation.

Lt Col Quinn said that while his team was “certainly aware of the strategic context at the tactical level”, their focus had been on “planning the execution of the tactical action itself”.

In the early hours of this morning, I directed our Armed Forces to intercept a shadow fleet oil tanker attempting to pass through the English Channel. This successful operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fueling Putin's war in Ukraine that we will not…

So why did Britain choose to act now? According to the MoD, the operation, announced in a post on X by the Prime Minister, was the result of weeks of military and political planning.

Whitehall sources said there had been “many, many” meetings of Cobra, the Cabinet Office’s coordination body for national security issues, in recent weeks as ministers prepared to act against the tankers.

Senior figures familiar with the discussions said a complex legal framework had been established, which would allow the UK to seize a tanker legally, under the watchful eye of Lord Hermer, the Attorney General.

British forces required separate legal justifications to stop a vessel, board it, arrest members of the crew on suspicion of breaking sanctions, to impound the ship, and to deal with junior crew after landing in the UK.

Ministers and officials established a series of criteria for selecting a Russian tanker to board.

First, in order to be legally seized, any ship must have been sanctioned by the UK as a shadow fleet vessel carrying Russian oil.

Second, at the time of the seizure the ship must fall within the jurisdiction of the NCA, which was charged with domestic enforcement. Third – and perhaps the most challenging – the Navy must have the available resources to mount an operation.

According to sources, any attempt to board a vessel escorted by a Russian warship had been ruled out amid fears that it could result in open warfare.

The Admiral Grigorovich, a Black Sea Fleet frigate, has been seen protecting several shadow tankers in the Channel in recent months.

There were also serious logistical concerns. Almost three-quarters of Russian shadow tankers are more than 15 years old, with creaking hulls and leaky tanks, making boarding them a dangerous exercise.

Officials recalled the US’s seizure of the shadow tanker Bella 1 in January, which almost went awry when American officials boarded the ship and discovered it was barely seaworthy.

A hasty agreement was struck with UK authorities to allow the ship to moor off the Moray Firth, while the crew were evacuated to the British mainland, rather than having it towed to the US to face justice.

That incident also raised the issue of whether merchant seamen in the employ of Putin’s shadow fleet would be eligible to claim asylum in the UK.

Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the Secretary, had voiced concerns that seizing a tanker could effectively import Russian operatives into the UK asylum system.

It was feared that Putin may have deliberately placed spies on shadow tankers in the hope they would land in the UK as “refugees” from Russia.

When the Bella 1 sailors landed – minus their captain and first mate, whom the US had charged – the Office and Foreign Office were forced to process them in the middle of the night to deport them before they could claim asylum.

Finally, ministers were concerned the risks of bringing a creaking shadow tanker to port in the UK without first assessing its condition.

The risk was that a leaking ship could spill oil off the British coast, damaging beaches and wildlife, and seriously risking the Government’s environmental credentials.

Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, was charged with supervising the ship after any operation, and commissioned officials to find an agency to act as a “shipping agent”.

The Telegraph understands that the conditions for an “interdiction” operation, as it is legally known, were almost met by several shadow fleet tankers over the past few weeks.

The Government established a round-the-clock monitoring operation, checking tankers against ministers’ criteria to decide which would be the first target.

“On this occasion, the vessel in question here satisfied those criteria. And we were in a position to execute when all the factors came together,” said Lt Col Quinn on Sunday.

A Cobra meeting was called to the vessel, which had previously sailed under a Cameroon flag but had been deregistered to join Putin’s shadow fleet.

The tanker had been sanctioned by the UK in October and, crucially, lacked a Russian naval escort.

Plans were made for the ship’s seizure on Friday and Saturday, although the boarding operation was not confirmed until shortly before it went ahead and was conducted in close coordination with French authorities.

Officials said the Smyrtos had been provisionally moved to an anchorage off the south coast to be “monitored for any environmental or safety concerns”. Tracking data suggested it was off the coast of Dorset.

The operation appeared to have had a deterrent effect, with at least five other shadow tankers turning sharply away from British waters in the hours afterwards.