Germany, France, Italy, Spain start boarding and seizing Russian ships

For much of the war, Europe’s sanctions regime has relied on legal pressure and financial restrictions while avoiding direct confrontation at sea. This created a gray zone where Russian oil and cargo could still move, exploiting jurisdictional gaps, cautious enforcement, and the assumption that boarding ships carried escalation risks. Over time, this permissive environment allowed the shadow fleet to normalize its presence in European waters, treating sanctions as an administrative inconvenience rather than a physical barrier. What is changing now is not the legal framework, but Europe’s willingness to operationalize it. When enforcement shifts from paperwork to hulls, decks, and ports, the calculus for sanctioned shipping changes immediately. Europe appears to be moving from deterrence-by-threat to deterrence-by-action, testing whether Russia is willing or able to contest control of its maritime access routes.

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