News that the Venezuelan-Russian tanker skirting Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has been seized by US forces will have led to a sigh of relief in the corridors of Leinster House.
Aside from the awkward political issues that such an intervention taking place near Irish-controlled waters may have led to, there is the fact that a significant threat to Irish and European interests has been averted.
The “now it’s Venezuelan, now it’s not” tanker had re-registered itself as a Russian vessel halfway across the Atlantic. This was really just declaring the truth of it being part of Russia’s sanction-busting “shadow fleet”.
We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Irish Army soldier and security & defence analyst Declan Power, who says “Donald Trump has done Ireland a favour by intercepting the Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tanker”.
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