Baerbock: “We stand united - as Baltic region states, as the EU and as NATO”
Following an oil tanker incident in the Baltic Sea, German Foreign Minister Baerbock said that Russia was circumventing sanctions and accepting the possibility of environmental damage.
Sassnitz (dpa) - A Panama-flagged oil tanker spent several hours adrift and unable to manoeuvre off the German island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea on Friday. In the afternoon, German emergency services managed to secure the ship, which for safety reasons is now being towed eastwards by three powerful tugboats.
The “Eventin” was en route from Ust Luga in Russia to Port Said in Egypt. According to the environmental organisation Greenpeace, the 2006-built ship is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet”. These vessels are used to export Russian oil. According to a resolution of the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), such ships are part of a “shadow fleet” that is used to circumvent sanctions.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said: “Russia is endangering our European security not only with its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine but also through severed cables, displaced border buoys, disinformation campaigns, GPS jammers and, indeed, with decrepit oil tankers.” She said that she and her colleagues from the Baltic Sea region had repeatedly warned against precisely this scenario.
She explained that, together with partners, the sanctions-listing of the Russian shadow fleet had been pursued consistently in recent months. “We have ensured that sanctions have already been imposed by the EU on over 70 ships. Europe is strong. And we stand united - as Baltic region states, as the EU and as NATO,” said Baerbock.