French navy seized an oil tanker, the Deliver, near the coast of Sicily on Thursday. Local authorities reported that the vessel was taken to the Gulf of Fos near Marseille on Friday, where it will be held at the disposal of the Marseille public prosecutor as part of an investigation into the alleged offense of sailing under a false flag.
President Emmanuel Macron described the interception as part of France's latest actions against the shadow fleet Russia uses to ship oil and gas to skirt Western sanctions. Macron stated that France will not allow the shadow fleet to circumvent sanctions and finance Russia's war effort. The Deliver is the fifth alleged Russian vessel that France has boarded.
A military source indicated that the tanker was operating under a Cameroonian flag despite having been formally struck off Cameroon's registry weeks earlier. This meant the ship was navigating without nationality and breaching international maritime law, which enabled France to board and detain it. The Russian embassy in France has called the seizure illegal, unacceptable from the point of view of international law, and another case of piracy.
The seizure of the Deliver is one of nine ships taken across Europe since the start of 2026, all thought to have been used by Russia to evade Western sanctions on its oil trade. This operation follows a similar incident earlier this month when the UK intercepted and boarded the Russian shadow fleet tanker Smyrtos in the English Channel.