UPDATE: France Investigating Russia-Tied Tanker’s Possible Ties to Recent Drone Incursion into Denmark

UPDATE: France Investigating Russia-Tied Tanker’s Possible Ties to Recent Drone Incursion into Denmark

About a week ago, there was a series of drone attacks and incursions that disrupted operations at several airports in Denmark.

The incidents impacted the Copenhagen Airport, where flights were halted for almost four hours due to unidentified large drones entering its restricted airspace. Danish authorities described them as part of a suspected “hybrid attack”, potentially linked to hostile state actors (most likely, Russia), intending to sow confusion and disrupt transport and military preparedness.

Multiple airports in Denmark have been disrupted by drones this week in what its government called a “hybrid attack,” as the country considers whether to invoke NATO’s Article 4 for the first time in its history.

Speculation is rife that Moscow could be behind the incursions, as Danish authorities say they are linked to recent alleged violations of NATO airspace in Poland and Romania by Russian drones.

Danish national intelligence chief Finn Borch said that the risk of Russian sabotage in Denmark is high, though he did not directly accuse a specific country. “We have seen this in other parts of Europe, and we must also expect to see it in Denmark,” Borch said at a news conference Thursday night, according to the Associated Press.

As a reminder, NATO Article 4 allows any member country to call for consultations with allies whenever it perceives a threat to its territorial integrity, political independence, or security. Poland and Estonia recently called for such consultations with the U.S. after Russian jet incursions into their airspace.

Now, French authorities are investigating an oil tanker with links to Russia that is subject to European Union (EU) sanctions, due to suspected “serious offences” that are related to the drone activity in Denmark.

France has launched an investigation into a Russian-linked oil tanker for “serious offences,” President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.

Authorities have opened a probe into the Benin-flagged Boracay vessel, which is named on a list of shadow fleet ships and subject to EU sanctions.

“There were some very serious offences committed by this crew, which justify the current judicial procedure,” Macron said at an EU leaders’ defence summit in Denmark.

Part of the investigation will look into whether the Boracay was used as a launchpad for a drone incursion into Denmark’s airspace last week which forced the closure of its airports.

French authorities have detained the first mate and the captain of the tanker.

The Boracay, a Benin-flagged vessel blacklisted by the European Union for being part of Russia’s sanction-busting “shadow fleet” of ageing oil tankers, was stationed off Denmark from September 22 to 25, according to ship tracking data analysed by AFP. Drones have been sighted across Denmark, including over military sites, since September 22, prompting brief closures at several airports and a ban on all civilian drone flights until Friday.

French military personnel were Wednesday on the deck of the tanker, now stationed off the coast of western France, AFP journalists who overflew the area said. Later Wednesday, Brest prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger told AFP that two crew members – who presented themselves as the ship’s captain and his first mate – had been taken into custody. A military source, asking not to be named, told AFP the vessel had been boarded on Saturday, with a government source confirming the boarding.

The investigation was launched after the crew refused to cooperate.

The probe was launched over the crew’s “failure to justify the nationality of the vessel” and “refusal to cooperate”, Brest public prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger told AFP.

The tanker left the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on September 20 and was due to arrive in Vadinar in northwestern India on October 20, according to data from the Marine Traffic tracking website.

Late last year, I noted the Europeans and Americans were becoming more concerned about “hybrid warfare” in the wake of Baltic Sea communication cables being cut in an incident in which the ship was Chinese and the captain Russian.

It looks like those concerns were justified.

UPDATE: Reports now reveal that the captain and the first mate are Chinese nationals.

The captain of an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of vessels used to evade sanctions has been charged by French authorities.

The Chinese national was handed one count of refusing to follow instructions from the French navy and told to attend a court hearing in the northern coastal city of Brest next February.

…The Boracay is currently registered in Benin, but has changed name and flag several times in recent years as part of alleged efforts to evade sanctions brought in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The French prosecutor’s office said the captain was unable to give a coherent answer about the flag the ship was carrying.

He and the second captain, also a Chinese national, had been detained since Tuesday while French authorities investigated them on suspicion of two offences: refusing to comply with naval orders and failing to justify the nationality of the ship’s flag.

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