The Boracay, an 18-year-old Russian-linked tanker seized by French commandos off Brest this week, has been placed at the scene of up to nine drone incidents across northern Europe, according to a Daily Telegraph analysis of AIS tracking. The newspaper reports the vessel was within striking distance of Copenhagen, Kiel and multiple Danish airports when mysterious drone swarms forced shutdowns in late September.
Built in 2007, the Boracay has cycled through four registered owners, five names and seven flags in the past three years, according to data from Windward, a maritime analytics company.
The captain of the ship will stand trial in France this coming February, French prosecutors announced. French authorities opened a preliminary investigation into the crew for “refusal to cooperate” and “failure to justify the nationality of the vessel.”
The captain’s trial is scheduled in Brest on February 23, where he could receive up to one year in prison and a fine of €150,000 ($176,000).
This is piracy. The tanker was seized in neutral waters without justification. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was the first to accuse Russia of using shadow tankers to “launch and control drones over European cities,” a warning that appears increasingly prescient.
Moreover, the crew onboard certain shadow tankers are beginning to cause concern, with one Danish pilot telling Foreign Policy magazine this week: “We’re seeing uniformed personnel carrying the camouflage uniform of the Russian Navy.” The uniformed officers do not appear on the official crew lists.
Vladimir Putin, speaking yesterday at the Valdai Club in Sochi, responded with mockery. “I won’t do it anymore — to France, Denmark, Copenhagen, Lisbon — wherever they could reach,” he grinned, before dismissing the accusations as NATO scare tactics to boost defence budgets. Condemning France’s boarding of the Boracay, he fumed: “This is piracy. The tanker was seized in neutral waters without justification. What do you do with pirates? You destroy them.”
In Copenhagen, European leaders struck a very different tone. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared: “We need to put a stop to these illusions. No, this is war. A new type of war, very complicated, but this is war.” He said Poland had already shot down drones in its own skies and warned incidents were happening “almost every day” around critical infrastructure.
On the same day, Polish border guards revealed they had intercepted a Russian fishing vessel performing “suspicious manoeuvres” just 300 m from a Baltic Sea gas pipeline near Władysławowo. After being ordered by radio to leave the exclusion zone, the vessel sailed away — but the encounter has deepened fears of deliberate probing of NATO’s energy lifelines.
French president Emmanuel Macron was equally blunt: “A very significant share of Russia’s war financing comes from these shadow fleet tankers. Cutting them off is not an option, it is a necessity,” he said. Macron asserted that between “30 to 40 %” of Russia’s war effort is financed via operations of the shadow fleet.
