PUTIN'S SPY TANKERS

VLADIMIR Putin has been accused of planting FSB security agency spies on the supertankers of a Glasgow company shipping natural gas from Siberia into Europe.

- BY JOHN FERGUSON

Ukrainian campaigners have warned Seapeak Maritime could be helping fund Russia's brutal invasion and have called for the firm to be shut down.

US-based billionaire investor Michael Dorrell is behind the controversial company, the Sunday Mail can reveal.

Putin's operatives are claimed to have used intimidation to remove western senior crew members from tankers transporting supercooled LNG gas from Sabetta in the Arctic Circle.

They are then reported to have been replaced with Russians suspected of being spies for the FSB.

The LNG trade is crucial in bringing billions into the Kremlin to pay for the war in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Svitlana Romanko, executive director of Ukrainian campaign group Razom We Stand, said: "Why UK leaders continue to allow Seapeak to collaborate with Russia, helping bankroll our pain, is beyond me.

"The UK should immediately ban Seapeak and all other UK-based firms from collaborating with Russia. Scandalous revelations related to the shipping of Russian fossil fuels appear to have no end.

"Meanwhile, those of us in Ukraine continue to suffer daily from ongoing horrific Russian military attacks, funded largely by Russia's fossil fuel exports."

Seapeak operates seven oil tankers which export Russian LNG from Siberia to Europe.

The trade is legal due to sanctions loopholes but has been criticised for giving Putin desperately needed funds. And claims have emerged that FSB agents have been systematically working to push out Western crews from tankers operating at the Yamal LNG project in Siberia.