Russian Duma Deputy Threatens EU with War in the Baltic Sea Over Tanker Inspections

A member of the Russian State Duma has suggested equipping Russian tankers with machine guns and sending European patrol boats to the bottom of the sea. The threat was published on the Telegram channel "Politics of the Country." Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, stated that any attack on Russian tankers in the Baltic Sea should be considered an attack on Russian territory. Zhuravlev claimed that even the combined navies of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania could not compete with Russia. He suggested that two large-caliber machine guns on any tanker would be enough to sink the entire naval patrol.