French President Emmanuel Macron announced that French naval forces had detained the oil tanker Deliver off the coast of Sicily for violating international maritime law.
He posted a video showing special forces rappelling from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck.
The operation was the latest in a French campaign against the “shadow fleet,” Macron said, coming just days after a similar action by the United Kingdom.
“We will not allow the shadow fleet to circumvent sanctions and finance Russia’s war effort,” he wrote. “Europe is determined.”
Since the start of 2026, France has detained several tankers belonging to Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ that were carrying oil above the established price cap. One of the first was the tanker Grinch, detained in January. In March, the tanker Deyna followed — a month later it was allowed to leave the port of Marseille. On June 1, the oil tanker Tagor was detained by French military forces in the Atlantic Ocean, and in mid-June, the United Kingdom detained a Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker attempting to pass through the English Channel for the first time.
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