Putin Threatens Retaliation Over EU Plans To Seize Russian Commercial Ships

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to retaliate if European Union moves to seize his country’s commercial ships are carried out, calling such actions “piracy.”

“calling such actions “piracy.””

Insurance Journal

Putin said he was responding to European plans approved as part of a new sanctions package last month that allow member states to sell oil and other goods seized from sanctioned vessels detained at sea.

ABC News

Speaking during Pacific Fleet exercises in Russia’s Far East, Putin said, “We will be forced to respond in kind,” and added that Moscow’s response would not necessarily be confined to the same waters where Russian vessels were seized.

The threat came as European countries and the UK have boarded, detained or seized several Russia-linked or so-called shadow-fleet vessels since late 2024, and as the US, the UK and the EU have sanctioned hundreds of tankers for helping Russia export oil to fund the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.

Putin issued the warning during a meeting with Pacific Fleet personnel aboard the missile cruiser Varyag, telling them that European authorities were trying “to restrict the movement of vessels operated by our businesses.”

The Moscow Times reported that Pacific Fleet Commander Viktor Liina said the Russian military had conducted a “detailed analysis” of maritime traffic in the Asia-Pacific region and that “1,001 vessels had passed through Russia’s exclusive economic zone along the Kuril Islands between April 24 and Aug. 6.”

DIE WELT

Liina said 379 of those vessels sailed under flags Moscow officially classifies as “unfriendly,” and he added that the navy had “enough assets for inspection and detention of vessels of the unfriendly nations and their shadow fleet.”

In the same context, ABC News reported that Putin described the shadow-fleet concept as a matter of flags of convenience, noting that many ships operated by British, French and other European carriers fly the flags of other nations.

Beyond oil shipments, Foreign Policy described how Russia’s sanctioned liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports are increasingly routed through China, saying that between August 2025 and June 2026 the southern Chinese port of Beihai received more than 40 cargoes from Russian LNG projects under U.S. sanctions.

“Between August 2025 and June 2026, the southern Chinese port of Beihai received more than 40 cargoes”

Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy also said those cargoes were offered to Chinese buyers at discounts reportedly reaching 30 percent to 40 percent below prevailing Asian spot prices, and it linked the shift to the emergence of a “sanctions-resistant LNG trading system.”

In parallel, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that the US House moved to advance a sweeping Russia and Iran sanctions package on August 10 after the Senate approved it by an overwhelming 86-11 vote, with the bill named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham targeting Russian banks, energy revenues, oligarchs, and the Kremlin-linked “shadow fleet.”

RFE/RL said the bill’s most powerful provision would give President Donald Trump authority to impose tariffs of up to 500 percent on goods imported from Russia and targeted duties of up to 100 percent on goods from countries that rank among the largest purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas or leading facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion.