On Tuesday another provocation in the Baltic Sea-Gulf of Finland strategic zone occurred when Estonia attempted to seize a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker: 

Estonian Naval Commander Ivo Vark told Reuters the Jaguar was near Naissaar Island off the Estonian capital Tallinn when it was contacted by radio on Tuesday afternoon to check its status because it was sailing “without a nationality.”

Recall that the Western-fabricated moniker ‘shadow fleet’ merely means a tanker which is not registered in accordance with Western EU/G7 “sanctions”, which themselves do not apply to Russia in the slightest, since Russia is not party to those organizations. Here an Estonian military rep acknowledges that they attempt to check all Russian ships for compliance, which primarily means making sure the ships have proper “insurance”: 

Except one small problem—you see, the EU’s sanctions specifically barred Russia from obtaining normal Western insurance for its ships. Here’s Bloomberg admitting to this fact:

Another source: 

The Financial Times, citing its own sources, wrote about the decision of the UK and EU authorities to ban insurance for merchant ships that transport oil from Russia. This decision actually closes the largest insurance market Lloyd’s of London for Russian tankers and limits the possibility of exporting crude oil from the Russian Federation.

The methods of the West’s criminal economic terrorism are clear: they cut Russia out of the largest insurance market, then attempt to “enforce” Russia’s “illegal” lack of insurance for its ships. The only definition of a “shadow fleet” tanker is one which is not registered in London’s insurance market, because it was deplatformed by the criminal ‘Rules Based Order.’ 

Swell how that works, no?

Getting back: The ship’s crew took this video of Estonian military choppers attempting to intimidate them into pulling into an Estonian port: 

From a screenshot of their dashboard we can see the exact coordinates of the ship at 59°43’25.2”N, 24°27’50.5”E:

As can be seen the ship is technically transiting what would normally be international waters, but due to the narrowness of the Gulf of Finland, both Estonia and Finland’s EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zone) extend outward to cover virtually the entire channel. I’ve written many times before about how Estonia and Finland were planning to play EEZ games in order to restrict Russia’s internationally accepted right of passage here. 

But Russia is no longer tolerating this behavior. It sent an Su-35S to buzz Estonian assets, which immediately scurried off, allowing the Russian ship to successfully continue navigating toward St. Petersburg. Estonia claims that the Su-35S violated its airspace in speeding to the scene of the crime—well, one supposes that’s a justified tit-for-tat given that Estonia violated international law for safe maritime passage in illegally obstructing the ship.