French sea police have seized a ship in the Channel that authorities
suspect belongs to a Russian company targeted by EU sanctions over the war
in Ukraine, a government official told Reuters.

The cargo vessel transporting cars, which was headed for St Petersburg, is
“strongly suspected of being linked to Russian interests targeted by the
sanctions”, said Capt Veronique Magnin, of the French Maritime Prefecture.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/26/france-seizes-suspected-russian-owned-ship-in-channel

The ship was diverted to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France
between 3am and 4am local time, Magnin said, adding that checks were being
carried out by customs officials and that the ship’s crew was “being
cooperative”.

The Russian embassy in France is seeking an explanation from authorities
over the seizure, Russia’s RIA news agency quoted the embassy as saying.

The French newspaper La Voix du Nord, which first reported the news, said
the vessel was the Baltic Leader, which – according to marinetraffic.com –
sails under a Russian flag.

The company that owns the ship belongs to a Russian businessman who is on
the EU’s list of sanctioned people, Magnin said.

On Friday, EU states agreed to freeze European assets of Vladimir Putin
and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to punish Russia for the attack
on Ukraine. A wider list of sanctioned people was put in place earlier
this month.

### - hmm... when the uk suspended all russian aeroflot flights to & from
the uk yesterday as part of the sanctions, russia immediately retaliated
by equally suspending all uk flights to & from russia?

iow: this is a signal they are sending of a 'tit-for-tat' type response to
anything the west might do to them... thus the french having now seized a
russian ship the russians will prolly do something similar to france...
equally: if we sink one of their ships they'll likely sink one of ours!!!

an alternate/unspoken means of communication then should, for example, the
worst ever come to the worst and all normal channels of communication go
down... (as in if we turn one of our planes they'll turn one of theirs,
like in the movies etc...)

i.e., they may indeed be currently taking an 'active' stance in ukraine,
but are apparently taking a 're-active' stance towards the west?

we move, they counter-move in-kind etc etc...

it also works the other way around too, in that if we don't throw anything
at them they wont throw anything back at us...

(and perhaps more directly: if we don't nuke them they wont nuke us!)