European Union (EU) countries with access to the Baltic Sea are developing legal measures that will enable them to carry out mass seizure of ships belonging to the Russian “shadow fleet,” European officials and diplomats have told Politico, the latter reports.

According to them, the new legislation will permit the seizure of a ship for alleged environmental damage and damage to undersea cables and some other critical infrastructure at sea. In the latter case, the basis for the seizure of tankers will be “the fight against piracy,” the aforesaid interlocutors noted.

According to them, a number of EU countries, in particular Lithuania and Estonia, also plan to create a list of “reliable” marine insurers, and, as a result, ships will be seized if they are insured by companies that are not on this list.