Neither the U.K. Royal Navy nor any other British authority has boarded and seized any Russian “shadow fleet” vessels in or near British waters since Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to stop all such vessels a few weeks ago. The Telegraph reported on April 9 that no such operations have taken place because of concerns about breaching international maritime law, which sets a high legal bar for a state to board a foreign vessel. This is reportedly based on legal advice issued by Lord Hermer, the Attorney General. Just the day before, two Russian ships, sanctioned by the U.K., passed through the English Channel escorted by the Russian Navy frigate Admiral Grigorovich, causing an uproar in London. The Royal Navy sent a civilian-manned auxiliary vessel to tail the Russian ships because it had no warships available for the task.
On April 9, Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, told The Telegraph that Sir Starmer had to stop the shadow fleet and recover “some of the respect Britain has lost recently” over its military response to the war in the Middle East. He said: “I think it’s pathetic. I don’t know why we don’t board these sanction-busting ships. They are fueling Putin’s war machine and funding his slaughter of innocent Ukrainians and we have a golden opportunity to stop it. I think if we did, it would do a lot to recover some of the respect Britain has lost recently for our inability to defend our friends in the Gulf and use our bases in Cyprus. Putin is breaking the law—he knows he is, and he is laughing at us. It’s important to choke off Putin’s income. They need to restore a bit of pride in the British Armed Forces. This is not the fault of the Armed Forces—it’s the abysmal leadership of the Government.”
Minister for Defense Procurement Luke Pollard denied that there was any legal prohibition on boarding Russian vessels. “We retain the ability to interdict at a time of our choosing,” Pollard told the BBC on April 10. “I won’t be able to tell you exactly when that will be, but it’s precisely that ambiguity and the options available to us that supports that deterrence against Russian activity. And we will be continuing to clamp down on the Shadow Fleet activities, working with our allies to do so.”
