U.S. seizure of Russian tanker marks rare escalation in sanctions enforcement against "dark fleet," but experts say move unlikely to trigger confrontation.

Russia has strongly condemned the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker. It heralds a new chill in relations between Moscow and Washington that could spread to other areas and affect President Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade Russia to end its nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

Despite a close relationship with Caracas stretching back for decades, Russia has been reserved in its response to the U.S. attack on Venezuela.

The attack was just the second time that Moscow had launched the nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic weapon.

First came Russia’s “turtle tank”, a metal shed rumbling across the battlefield. Then Ukraine laughed at the so-called “hairy tank”, coated in long, wavy metal wires.

Chinese, Russian, and Iranian warships have launched a week of naval drills off South Africa’s Cape Town coast, amid high geopolitical tensions over the United States’ intervention in Venezuela and its move to seize tankers carrying Venezuelan oil.

Simon Migliano, who compiled the Top10VPN shutdown report, told me “Iran’s current nationwide blackout is a blunt instrument intended to crush dissent, starkly different from the sophisticated, slow-burn digital censorship we’re seeing in Russia.”