And if the crew resists being boarded . . . . .
Posted on 01/07/2026 6:17:09 AM PST by Libloather
U.S. forces are attempting to board the Russian-flagged Marinera oil tanker in the North Atlantic Sea, sources told Fox News.
The news, first reported by Reuters, comes after The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Russia had sent a submarine and other naval assets to escort the tanker.
The vessel, previously operating under the name Bella 1, has spent more than two weeks attempting to slip past U.S. enforcement efforts targeting sanctioned oil shipments near Venezuela, the outlet reported.
U.S. Southern Command, which oversees U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, said on X that it "remains ready to support our U.S. Government agency partners in standing against sanctioned vessels and actors transiting through this region."
"Our sea services are vigilant, agile, and postured to track vessels of interest. When the call comes, we will be there," the post read.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in December that the U.S. Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, seized a second oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/marinera-srussia-tanker-cargo-opinion-5HjdQMn_2/
....As of January 7, 2026, U.S. Special Forces, backed by Coast Guard teams, have boarded the Marinera, formerly Bella 1 - in the frigid North Atlantic, just before Russian naval escorts could close the gap....The tanker, empty of crude but perhaps laden with secrets, had dodged an initial Coast Guard attempt off Venezuela in December, executed a U-turn, spoofed signals, and bolted northeast, painting a tricolor flag and slipping into Russia’s registry like a counterfeit passport.
Moscow’s response: dispatching a Yasen-class submarine and warships, turning a shadow fleet ghost into a state-protected asset. But the U.S. didn’t blink; they struck first, between Iceland and the British Isles, preempting the Kremlin’s rendezvous.
This validates the intelligence-payload hypothesis, shattering the weak cover story of a routine oil run.....
...It could have been a high-value delivery of Russian or Iranian advisors, electronic warfare suites, and air-defense modules: the specific asymmetric assets Maduro desperately needed to survive before his January 3 capture...”
Wouldn’t it have been better to put the gold on a submarine in order to make a stealthier get away ?
It’s the old WW2 Nazi Gold to South America Trick in Reverse !
And if the crew resists being boarded . . . . .
“Something fishy, observers stated the waterline indicated no oil, something else on board?”
***********
Something more valuable than oil perhaps?
She’s as hot as I remember Erin Gray from the Buck Rogers space .... fantasy.
Nonsense. If the Russians wanted to extract gold and silver from Venezuela, they would have flown it out. They would not transport it on an old tanker that the Americans want to seize. That tanker left Venazuela in a hurry empty becaue the Russians need the tanker. So far its made it to the coast of Ireland and avoided seizure for now.
“What’s going to happen here is that we have a quarantine on their oil,” Rubio told ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday. “That means their economy will not be able to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interest of the Venezuelan people are met. And that’s what we intend to do.
“That leverage remains. That leverage is ongoing. And we expect that it’s going to lead to results here.”
Let us hope for Venezuela to become free of the evil tyranny that has oppressed them for so long! And may America be the second greatest beneficiary of that action!
I’ve boarded hundreds of foreign flagged vessels who were suspected of embargo violations. I’ve boarded Panamanian, German, UK, Spanish and a multitude of other flagged vessels. What makes Russia different from any other country who tries to skirt the law? I’ll give you the location of the boarding is different, but everything else is the same.
Or the crew simply painted a Russian flag on it... Pretty darned sure there were phone calls made to Moscow from the State Department to get the story straight before all this went down.
It’s not a Russian vessel. This was a false flag.
Under UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea):
Every ship must have one nationality only. A ship flying a false flag may be treated as stateless and is not entitled to diplomatic protection from any state.
Ahhhhh you failed the test...
There were a lot of conversations between our State Department and Moscow before all this went down. Don’t be afraid. It’s all good in the hood.
I can put Colorado plates on my North Carolina car. Looks cool, but doesn’t mean anything other than a ticket and loss of my car.
Free Republic is infested with russians and russian assets. They reveal themselves by their own rhetoric.
Fair
Not an expert but I was working off shore in the North Sea and read a book rapidly one time on who can board whom.
Some EU country demanded to board our drilling rig (which was in this weird area that was either international or Norway waters, depending on what treaty you believed in).
We really didn’t want to them on board or even close to us, because it was a direct violation of safety policy to have anyone else there and a good way to get killed when we were tripping pipe, which is exactly what we were doing.
Anyway, according to the book I hastily read most countries have a treaty with the USA and each other saying we can board their boats and vice versa or we routinely grant permission to do so and vice versa. It’s super not clear if this applies to something that doesn’t move like a drilling platform, but we decided we were obligated to let them on.
But we had called the British Navy (British rig) due to confusion and they chased the other people off.
Still no clue what they wanted.
Yeah, that pesky detail makes "everything else that's the same" not the same at all.
Ты меня поймал, товарищ.
“Moscow’s response: dispatching a Yasen-class submarine and warships,”
Where did they dispatch them to?
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