French troops board oil tanker linked to Russian 'shadow fleet'

The Boracay, also known as Pushpa and Kiwala, is a Benin-flagged vessel but has been listed under UK and EU sanctions against Russia.

It was detained by Estonian authorities earlier this year for sailing without a valid country flag.

It had set off from the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on 20 September and sailed through the Baltic Sea and past Denmark, before entering the North Sea and carrying on through the English Channel.

It had been scheduled to arrive in Vadinar in north-western India on 20 October, according to data from the Marine Traffic tracking website. However it was followed by a French warship after it rounded the Brittany coast and then altered course and headed east towards the French coast.

EU leaders have been meeting in Copenhagen under pressure to boost European defence after a series of Russian incursions into EU airspace, and days after the drones targeted Danish airports.

Copenhagen airport, followed by several Danish airports and military sites on the Jutland peninsula, faced drone disruption last week.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters that "from a European perspective there is only one country... willing to threaten us and that is Russia, and therefore we need a very strong answer back".

Danish authorities have not found any evidence that Russia was behind last week's drone disruption, but Frederiksen linked it explicitly to other so-called hybrid attacks such as Russian drones over Poland.

It was part of a pattern that had to be viewed from a European perspective, she told reporters on Wednesday.

The incursions have become most acute for countries on the EU's eastern flank, such as Poland and Estonia.

A number of member states have already backed plans for a multi-layered "drone wall" to quickly detect, then track and destroy Russian drones.