The Royal Navy will start seizing Russia’s shadow fleet vessels when they slip through UK waters, the prime minister has announced.

Sir Keir Starmer said the UK would join northern European allies in intercepting the tankers as part of a drive to ‘go after’ the sanction-breaking ships fuelling Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

He said: ‘Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets.

‘That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder, not just keeping Britain safe but starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine.

‘He and his cronies should be in no doubt, we will always defend our sovereignty and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.’

Moscow’s shadow fleet is reported to be made up of more than a thousand ageing tankers.

They illicitly ship oil and other goods out of Russia by flying the flags of other countries, with the aim of evading sanctions imposed by the West since the conflict began.

The Prime Minister has given approval for the UK to start seizing shadow fleet vessels as he travels to Helsinki, Finland, for a summit with national leaders from the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).

The JEF, a military coalition of 10 northern European countries led by the UK, aims to defend against Russian incursions.

It also includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

British forces have already been involved in tracking shadow fleet vessels for several years and have supported operations by other countries to seize the ships.

In January, the UK assisted in the seizure of the oil tanker Marinera by the US.

Previously known as the Bella-1, the Russian-flagged vessel was captured by American forces aided by RAF aircraft and the British supply ship RFA Tideforce in the Atlantic.

Later that same month, Royal Navy patrol boat HMS Dagger helped the French seize another sanctioned ship, the Grinch, in the western Mediterranean, shadowing the vessel through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Last week, the French intercepted the Deyna oil tanker in the Mediterranean, supported by the UK.

Libyan authorities have meanwhile towed a suspected shadow fleet oil tanker found drifting in the Mediterranean which was believed to have been hit in a drone strike.

The tanker, carrying liquefied natural gas, was towed to avoid a spill in the Mediterranean.

At the JEF summit, the Prime Minister and other leaders are expected to discuss shared security in the so-called High North and the war in Ukraine.

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The world of chess is witnessing an unexpected controversy involving Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin. The latest FIDE rankings for March have turned into a major debate after Karjakin was added and then removed from the updated list, creating confusion across the chess community.

When FIDE released its latest classical ratings list, many fans were surprised to see Karjakin’s name suddenly back in the top 10. The more shocking thing was that he was listed at world No. 10 with a rating of 2750, pushing India’s reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju down to No. 11.

Why Karjakin’s return to top 10 caused a stir?

Karjakin remains one of the most controversial figures in modern chess. He was born in Ukraine, but later switched his federation to Russia in 2009. He even challenged Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship title in 2016 and pushed him to a tense tie-break.

However, Karjakin’s career took a dramatic turn in 2022. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Karjakin publicly supported the war. In March 2022, FIDE banned him for six months because of his political statements supporting the invasion. Many top tournaments stopped inviting him after that.

Karjakin also refused to play FIDE-rated games when Russian players were not allowed to compete under their national flag. As a result, he became “inactive” in the rankings because he did not play enough official games over the past few years. In February 2025, he was even placed on the European Union sanctions list.

That is why his sudden return to the top 10 has caused such a shock among chess aficionados. Reports suggested that Karjakin had played two private rated games against a junior player to regain his “active” status. Those games appeared in the FIDE database, making him eligible to be ranked again.

Karjakin himself posted about his return on social media. But his comeback did not last long. Within hours, the two games that had made him active disappeared from FIDE’s database. His name was also removed from the top 10 list after that. Gukesh has since returned to No. 10 once again.

Surprise!😉 pic.twitter.com/vrI8tzA38S

— Sergey Karjakin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 (@SergeyKaryakin) February 28, 2026

Vladimir Putin’s ‘goddaughter’ has issued a demand for an end to his horrific war in Ukraine.

TV presenter, media owner, influencer and socialite Ksenia Sobchak, 44, pleaded for an end to the bloodshed in a post this week.

Her late father, former St Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, was Putin’s political mentor, and the dictator attended her Orthodox Church baptism.

In a post marking the fourth anniversary of the war, the former Playboy model lambasted the war started by Putin and said it ‘must end’.

‘For four years, my country has been living in war,’ she said, adding that the worst of the horrors were hidden from wealthier people living in Moscow, St Petersburg and other major cities.

‘This is not visible in the capitals. It is not visible in the cities. But it’s already woven into countless thousands, and thousands, and thousands of human destinies – and if we mark on a map every mother who lost a son or daughter, every wife who lost a husband, every family that lost a person killed at the front – the whole country will be burning with red dots of grief and pain.’

She warned: ‘Russians are dying, Ukrainians are dying—sometimes quickly, sometimes in pain and agonisingly slowly.

‘Cities on both sides are freezing without heat and light. All of this must end. Both countries will be dealing with the consequences for a very long time, many, many years.

‘Today, I wish us all that this day will come sooner.’

Sobchak stood as a ‘liberal’ rival to Putin in the 2018 presidential election, but she is usually loyal to her godfather.

It comes as Russian media confirmed the names of 200,000 Russians who died in the war.

Other sources indicate the full death toll to be around 320,000.

Shortly after the war broke out in 2022, Knesia used her Israeli passport to enter Lithuania from Belarus.

It is believed she was running away from persecution as Moscow state investigators looked into whether she said the invasion into Ukraine was ‘funded from abroad’.

Many suspect Putin actually allowed Knesia to leave – rather than see the woman dubbed his ‘goddaughter’ held in detention like his other political foes.

But the socialite-turned-politician, who was once called the ‘Paris Hilton of Moscow’, grew up to become a critic of the Kremlin.

As Canadians hold commemorations marking four years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Ukrainian woman living in Winnipeg is among the many marking this day.

Kristina Miroshnyk is originally from Sumy in eastern Ukraine, just 30 km from the Russian border.

In early 2022, she felt anxious over what was a looming possibility of a Russian invasion and was considering moving to another place in the country.

“Everyone said to me just calm down, everything will be all right, it’s the 21st century, no one will allow this to happen,” she told Global News this week from her home in Winnipeg.

Miroshnyk bought a ticket to Lviv, which is close to Poland, but on the day they were to leave they didn’t.

“The next morning I got a call at around, I don’t remember, 5:30 a.m., or 6 a.m. It was my friend who was panicking and she was like screaming, ‘It’s a war, the war has started.’”

She and her daughter fled to Poland where her husband worked, before leaving for Greece.

The family are just a few of the roughly 300,000 Ukrainians who arrived in Canada under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel.

Now, four years later as they watch the war continue to ravage their home, some Ukrainians in Canada say they’re still surprised they’re here.

5:12
Saskatoon resident looks back four years after fleeing Ukraine

“My parents are still back home in Ukraine and lots of my friends and my male friends, lots of them were drafted and now they’re fighting,” said Anastasiia Ravska, who also lives in Winnipeg.

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“I do what I can do, I’m trying to support them, I am always trying to donate something to them as much as I can.”

For many Ukrainians in the city, they’re working to get work permits extended or applying for permanent residency as their children are already established in schools.

R.F. Morrison School, where it’s estimated about half the students in most classes are Ukrainian-born, marked the four-year anniversary with an assembly. Poetry and commemorative pieces were a part of the ceremony.

One province over, a prayer service was held at St. Demetrius Church in Toronto for all Ukrainian children displaced or lost in the war.

“It’s been really stressful because around a year ago my father’s house was attacked, so I was really worried about him,” said Polina Zaitseva, a Ukrainian student at St. Demetrius Catholic School.

Principal Lily Hordienko said they have welcomed 185 students from Ukraine. That welcome has included more than just education.

“Basically from the moment they would enter we would give them toiletries, we would give them food, we would give them clothing, anything they would need,” said Hordienko.

“Basically we would try to help them knowing they had arrived with nothing and had no way of knowing how to help themselves.”

The ceremonies at both schools were just two of many happening from coast to coast.

In Saskatoon, a commemoration vigil was held in the chapel of St. Thomas More College.

3:39
‘Four years of unbroken resistance’: Ukraine marks 4-year anniversary of Russian invasion

“It’s sad that it’s becoming just a common occurrence every year, attending this vigil,” said Petro Zerko, a second-generation Ukrainian-Canadian.

“Obviously, we look forward to the end of this war, but it’s great that we still keep those that fought for the freedom in our memory, especially on a day like today.”

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is also expected to hold a walk in Saskatoon later on Tuesday.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Governing Council Members of the Community of Democracies, which includes Canada, said it continues to stand in solidarity with Ukraine’s people and called on all the nations to exercise pressure on Russia to return the abducted Ukrainian children to their homeland and families.

It also said it reaffirmed the protection of children in armed conflict is “not optional, negotiable, or political.”

But as countries reaffirm their support, some Ukrainians in Canada say they worry people are forgetting what’s happening.

“People seem to be forgetting about the war, they don’t seem as interested anymore in discussing it,” said Kateryna Rudenko, who arrived in Halifax in 2022. “They seem to be more and more uncomfortable with sitting with our grief, witnessing our grief although the shellings only have been worse since 2022.

Rudenko, who arrived as a student just months after the war broke out, said she’d like people to educate themselves about Ukraine’s history so they have a better understanding of what its people are going through.

For those like Ravska, even as the years drag on, the feeling never disappears.

“It’s kind of playing peek-a-boo when you’re a child,” she said. “If you close your eyes, you may feel like you’re out of the room, but you’re still present and what is going on around you is still happening. That’s the kind of situation we are all put into.”

–with files from Global News’ Iris Dyck, Caryn Lieberman, Slavo Kutas, Grace Miller and Mitchell Bailey

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