The President of the United States, Donald Trump, refused to say, in an interview on Thursday (8), whether he had spoken with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, after the US seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean.
“I don’t want to say that, but the fact is that the Russian ships — a submarine and a destroyer — left very quickly when we arrived, and we took control of the ship. The oil is being unloaded right now,” he told Fox News when asked if he had spoken to his Russian counterpart.
American forces on Wednesday (7), after a weeks-long chase on the high seas that increased tensions with Moscow and further pressured Venezuela, its ally.
Although Trump claimed oil was being unloaded from the ship, the vessel was not carrying oil at the time of the seizure, according to analysis firm Kpler, unlike other tankers successfully intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard in recent weeks.
The aging and rusting tanker, originally named Bella I, was found to be operating in a “parallel fleet” of vessels carrying illicit Iranian oil.
Last month, the US Coast Guard while he was heading to Venezuela to load oil, then operating under the Guyanese flag.
But the ship’s crew refused to board and turned sharply towards the Atlantic.
Bella 1’s crew later painted a Russian flag on its side, and the ship entered the Russian naval register under a new name: Marinera.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the risks of a confrontation with Russia when asked about the seizure earlier this week, arguing that Trump has a good relationship with Putin.
