March 2 (UPI) -- Belgium has seized a Russian oil tanker believed to be part of a shadow fleet of vessels the Kremlin uses to sell its energy products blocked by sanctions, Belgium's defense minister said.
The armed forces of the European nation, with the support of French navy helicopters, boarded the oil tanker in the North Sea over the weekend, Defense Minister Theo Francken said in a statement.
The vessel was being escorted to the Belgian port city of Zeebrugge where it would be seized by authorities, he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who announced that French helicopters were used in Operation Blue Intruder, published a 23-second video online of clips from the night siege edited together, showing soldiers rappelling down ropes from a helicopter to the vessel's deck.
A major blow to the shadow fleet: in the North Sea, our French Navy helicopters helped last night in the boarding by Belgian forces of an oil tanker under international sanctions.
