Rod Liddle: UK Correspondent on the UK helping the US seize a oil tanker flagged for Russia

The US says it's seized two Venezuela-linked oil tankers – one vessel in the Caribbean and a Russian-flagged vessel in the North Atlantic. 

The UK military supported the seizure of the second. 

Russia says the tanker was only temporarily flagged to Russia, but no state has the right to use force against properly registered vessels in other countries' jurisdictions. 

UK Correspondent Rod Liddle told Andrew Dickens the response from Russia was more moderate than expected.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
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Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I welcome to the program from Durham County. It's
Rod Little. Good morning to your Rod.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Good morning. It's pretty get pretty snowy up here and
quite cold. I envy your temperature.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yes, we've got to high thirty seven this weekend in Hastings,
so yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
A lot different.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Okay, Now, the US military intercepted a Russian flag tanker
as part of its pressure campaign against Venezuela. But we
now also learned that the UK was involved in that seizure.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah. Well, the Tanka was on the cusp of UK
waters in between Irish waters. The Irish don't do anything,
just ignore, but they have a come by and it
was heading into that gap between Iceland and the UK
towards we think the port of Murmansk in Russia. So

(01:18):
the RAF deployed plays in a surveillance capacity and we
also apparently had a role Navy ship out there looking
at it as well, while the Americans did their season job.
Has to be said, the response from Russia has been
less spell coats than I expected. The Russians have said,
you know, ships should be allowed to no nation. As

(01:41):
a writer in too doubte any of these ships really,
but it seemed rather more moderate than I possibly expected.
And the ship does have a very very very checkered
history of carrying arms to hesper Lah for example.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Maybe we're just getting used to crazy being the new normal.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, yeah, there is also that. I mean, no one
quite knows what to do about Trump. Certainly we over
here don't know what to do and orders Europe and
nor as the rest of the world by the look
of things, including I would think Moscow. The stuff which
is really filling up the newspapers over here is the
threat from Donald Trump to take Greenland militarily as one

(02:27):
of its options, which is to acquire Greenland. As much
as I want to go out on an evening date
with Nustasiukinski, but as far as the Americans are concerned,
they think they could do all this quite happily. That
has caused real problems. Britain is involved in part of
the solidarity and defense of Greenland with France. France is

(02:50):
coordinating that goodness knows what it will mean, whether we're
going to send ships, whether we're going to send troops
to Greenland all in defense of Denmark, and nobody knows,
as you say, crazy is a new normal. And then
at the same time there's also Britain involved with the

(03:10):
rest of Europe in putting troops on the ground in
Ukraine once a peace deal is sorted out, which of
course Fladimir Putin has said must not happen.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yes, and I see the US lawmakers have actually pointed
out that the United States actually has a deal. It's
an old Cold War deal which says that they can
do whatever they like militarily on Greenland as part of NATO,
So in fact annexation is not even necessary. But hey, whatever,
Maybe maybe it's just that Donald Trump knows what's underneath
the ice, and he might quite want it because he's
still a real estate guy at the end of the day. Now,

(03:42):
the other hotspot, we've got to talk about Venezuela. What's
happening in the UK about Venezuela.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Well, there is greater and greater pressure on Secure Starma
to condemn the action of approducted Maduro. So far he's
refused to do anything like that, and indeed his front
bench have kept a very straight line saying we shed
no is over the abduction of Maturo. He was an

(04:11):
appalling man. But the labor left is screaming blue murder.
How do you have to say. It does set a
dangerous precedent. I mean, I think we should all understand that.
And really the British government hasn't said anything to that effect.
It hasn't said what sort of message it sends to

(04:32):
Moscow or indeed to Beijing, which is of course eye
in Taiwan, very very greedily. So this is the sort
of thing which could have repercussions all around the world.
But still the British government is sticking to its line
and being pro American. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
And I found it interesting that Russia also complained about
about the Venezuelan thing, even though of course they've kind
of done the same thing in Ukraine. And I'm just
saying they're thinking, once again, Rod Little, crazy as the
new normal. And I thank you for your time today.
It's Rod Little out of the United Kingdom.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
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