Germany is working to secure a drifting Russian oil tanker, believed to be part of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” used to fund its war in Ukraine, after it lost control in the Baltic Sea.

The Eventin tanker, carrying nearly 100,000 tons of oil thought to be from Russia, lost power near the German island of Rügen on Friday, Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME) said. By Saturday, three tugboats were still working to tow the 274-meter-long Panamanian-flagged tanker to safety.

The Eventin departed from Russia and was headed for Egypt, according to MarineTraffic, a monitoring group.

CCME said the tugboat convoy was working to tow the Eventin to Sassnitz, a port on Rügen, but that the stormy conditions were “slowing the towing process considerably.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the “decrepit” oil tanker was another example of the danger Russia poses to European security.

Since Western countries sanctioned Russia’s oil exports, the Kremlin has relied on old, sometimes Soviet-era tankers – known as its “shadow fleet” – to transport oil to buyers across the world.

“With the unscrupulous use of a fleet of rusting tankers, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin not only circumvents sanctions but also deliberately accepts the risk of halting tourism in the Baltic Sea region,” Baerbock said Friday.

The Kremlin, which has previously refused to respond to accusations that it uses a “shadow fleet,” has not yet commented on the incident.

The West has grown increasingly alarmed by Russia’s dependence on this aging fleet, which has wreaked environmental havoc in the Black Sea and implicated in damage to vital undersea cables off the Baltic coast.

In December, two Russian tankers were wrecked off the coast of occupied Crimea, spilling thousands of tons of fuel into the Black Sea. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the ships – nearly 50 years old – “shouldn’t have been in operation at all.”

Those two tankers carried around 10,000 tons of fuel between them – 10 times less than the Eventin.

Later in December, Finnish authorities seized a tanker traveling from Russia, on suspicion it had used its anchor to damage an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia.

German authorities said no oil leaks had been detected after the Eventin lost power on Friday, but warned of strong winds and waves of up to 2.5 meters (over 8 feet).

Zelensky called the tanker “an oil bomb that, fortunately, didn’t detonate.”

“Every day, Russia bombards Ukraine, and it finances its missiles, strike drones, and guided bombs, in part, with profits from its tanker fleet. Russia jeopardizes the environment solely to sustain its ability to kill people,” he said Friday.

Also on Friday, the outgoing Biden administration targeted Russia’s energy sector, including its so-called “shadow fleet,” with some of its harshest sanctions to date. Zelensky welcomed the move.

The sanctions target nearly 200 oil-carrying vessels, many thought to be part of the fleet. A senior administration official said: “We expect our actions to cost Russia upwards of billions of dollars per month.”

In December 2022, the Group of Seven (G7) nations capped the price of Russian oil at $60 per barrel. The cap was designed to be enforced by companies that provide shipping, insurance and other services for Russian oil. If a buyer agreed to pay more than the cap, the companies would withhold their services.

To dodge these sanctions, Russia has used aging, often uninsured tankers flagged in countries that do not observe the G7 sanctions.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Finnish think-tank, said 420 vessels exported Russian crude oil and oil products last month, of which 234 were “shadow tankers,” and 30% of these were at least 20 years old.

Venezuelans once again watched as Nicolás Maduro was sworn into office on Friday, donning the executive sash and declaring himself president despite irregularities and questions around his election.

He repeated his attacks against the United States and any foreign leaders who did not recognize his return to power and vowed to squash all of those who oppose him.

“I come from the people. The power I represent belongs to the people and I owe it to the people,” Maduro told allies and supporters in his inauguration speech.

For many Venezuelans, there will have been a sense of déjà vu as Maduro assumed his third six-year term in office following the contested July 28 election.

The country’s National Electoral Council, the body responsible for supervising and certifying the vote, which is stacked with some of his closest loyalists, had declared Maduro the winner without providing detailed evidence or data to support his victory.

But the opposition disputed the claim, releasing tens of thousands of voting tallies from around the country claiming that their candidate, Edmundo González, had actually won with 67% against Maduro’s 30%.

Several nations, including the United States, have since recognized González as Venezuela’s rightful president-elect and have issued new sanctions against Maduro and some of the country’s electoral authorities.

Fellow opposition leader Maria Corina Machado accused Maduro of a coup d’état in a video posted to social media after he was sworn in for the third time. She said that with his inauguration “they decided to cross the red line” and “they stomp on our constitution.”

“Today, Maduro did not put the presidential band on his chest, he put it on his ankle like a shackle that would tighten more every day,” she added.

A contested comeback

This is not the first time a Maduro victory has been called into question. In fact, every presidential vote in which he’s been a candidate, dating back to when he first took office nearly 12 years ago, has been disputed.

Maduro first became president following the death of his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chavez in March 2013. The larger-than-life populist strongman – who had enshrined himself in power for nearly 15 years as the anti-establishment leader and transformed the country under his socialist-leaning Bolivarian Revolution – had hand-picked Maduro as his successor.

Despite the endorsement, Maduro struggled in the polls and only beat his then-challenger Henrique Capriles by a razor-thin margin of 1.49%. It was considered at the time as one of the closest ballots in decades and the opposition claimed irregularities and fraud in the vote.

Capriles, who had run against Chavez six months earlier and lost by 12%, called for an audit with the National Electoral Council and appealed the results with the Supreme Court. Both bodies were stacked with Chavez and Maduro supporters and the opposition’s claims were discredited.

By the time Maduro’s second presidential election was scheduled to take place, Venezuela had fallen into a deep economic and political crisis. The once oil-rich country was suffering from hyperinflation and widespread economic woes. There were massive food shortages, rampant crime and millions of people had fled the country in fear and desperation.

Many opposition leaders, including Capriles, were banned from running for political office with some arrested or forced into exile due to trumped-up accusations and charges.

Maduro was reelected to his second term in May 2018, in what the opposition and many foreign leaders called a sham election due to the low voter turnout and an opposition boycott following the bans against its candidates. Only 46% of the country’s population participated in the vote, the National Electoral Council said at the time, and Maduro was sworn into office in January 2019.

Massive protests broke out in the streets of the capital Caracas and throughout the country, questioning his legitimacy and calling for him to step down. This was not the first time the country had seen protests, but they were heavily repressed by the Maduro-supporting National Guard, police forces and militia groups and led to several deaths, injuries and arrests.

Global leaders shun Maduro return

As Maduro takes office for the third time, he finds himself more isolated than ever.

His inauguration lacked the usual pomp and pageantry that normally surrounds the event. Cuba and Nicaragua were the only two countries with their presidents in attendance. Meanwhile, the ceremony itself was markedly lowkey in comparison to previous events, held in a small room of the National Assembly rather than the building’s main hall.

Protesters also returned to the streets of Venezuela and the country’s growing diaspora staged marches in Ecuador, Spain and Mexico, among other locations.

Biden administration officials met earlier this week in Washington DC with González, who was recognized by the US as Venezuela’s rightful president-elect.

González, who has been living in exile after being accused of terrorism by the Maduro government, had vowed to return to the country to challenge the inauguration but said the “conditions for his entry” were not met. He posted a video message to his social media accounts from the Dominican Republic, in which he also accused Maduro of staging a coup.

“Maduro has violated the Constitution, and the sovereign will of Venezuelans expressed on July 28,” González said. “He carried out a coup d’état and crowned himself a dictator.”

US President-elect Donald Trump issued a harsh warning against Maduro following reports that Machado had been briefly kidnapped following a protest. The Maduro government denied any involvement.

Shortly after the inauguration, the US announced a $25 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Maduro and his closest officials, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. Washington also announced an 18-month extension of Temporary Protected Status for eligible Venezuelan nationals, which could benefit some 600,000 people living in the US.

Nearly 8 million Venezuelans have left the country over the last decade, the second largest displacement in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The strongman leader may have succeeded in reclaiming Venezuela’s highest office but with so many – both at home and abroad – still questioning if he stole the election, he could find himself struggling for allies on the world stage.

Caroline Darian, the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot who sustained years of horrific sexual abuse by her then-husband and other men, has described how she’s certain her father drugged her and strongly suspects she was raped too.

In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC, Darian, aged 46, described the mental “burden” of being the daughter of both victim and perpetrator, as she expressed her strong desire for her father to die in prison.

A horrifying, monthslong mass rape and drugging trial that shook France to its core concluded last month, with 51 guilty verdicts. Dominique Pelicot and 49 others were found guilty of the rape or sexual assault of his former wife, while one of those on trial was convicted of the attempted and aggravated rape of his own wife, rather than Gisèle, having copied Pelicot’s methods.

The trial – which has pushed the country to examine a culture struggling with pervasive misogyny and systemic sexual assault – has galvanized women to demand changes in the way it approaches gender-based violence.

Darian described receiving a fateful phone call from her mother, one evening in November 2020, in which Gisèle informed her that her father, now 72, had been drugging Gisèle for around 10 years in order to facilitate her rape by different men.

“At that moment, I lost what was a normal life,” Darian told the broadcaster.

Darian spoke of how she strongly suspects that she was also a victim of sexual abuse orchestrated by her father. Days after the phone call, Darian herself was called by police and shown images found on Dominique’s laptop of herself lying unconscious on a bed wearing only a T-shirt and underwear – images she didn’t immediately recognize herself in.

She told the BBC she knows her father drugged her, and surmises she was raped too. “But I don’t have any evidence,” she laments.

“And that’s the case for how many victims? They are not believed because there’s no evidence. They’re not listened to, not supported.”

In court, Dominique maintained he had not abused his daughter. Earlier that day, Darian screamed at him: “I’ll never see you again! You’ll die alone like a dog!,” according to media reports.

Now, she describes her father as “one of the worst sexual predators of the last 20 or 30 years” and has written a book detailing her family’s trauma, titled “I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again.”

She described the reality she is faced with as a “terrible burden” and can now only view Dominique as the “sexual criminal he is.”

The book also explores the concept of “chemical submission” – the use of drugs to facilitate criminal action against a person, including sexual abuse. It was the method Dominique used to orchestrate his wife’s abuse, offering her unconscious body to strangers online.

In December, Dominique received the maximum sentence of 20 years for aggravated rape. Forty-eight other men on trial were found guilty of aggravated rape, with two guilty of sexual assault.

Evidence shows how Dominique recruited the men to rape his then-wife on the now-defunct Coco.fr “dating site” for years, using the chatroom called “without her knowledge,” where he would exchange pictures of an unconscious Gisèle before moving to Skype and text messages to arrange the meeting with his accomplices.

Gisèle testified that she was completely unaware of her husband’s actions. Over time, the frequent sedation and sexual abuse began to take a physical toll. Her husband accompanied her on several doctor’s visits during which she complained about memory loss and pelvic pain, according to court documents.

It was only after Dominique was arrested in a local supermarket in September 2020 for filming up the skirts of female customers, for which he was convicted, that his web of crimes came to light. Pelicot received an eight-month suspended prison sentence for this offense.

Whilst investigating the upskirting, police officers confiscated his hard drive, laptop and phones and found hundreds of images and videos of Gisèle being raped, opening one of the worst sex offense cases in modern French history.