PARIS — The captain of an oil tanker that authorities in France have detained off the country's Atlantic coast and which President Emmanuel Macron has linked to Russia will go on trial in February over the crew’s alleged refusal to cooperate, a French prosecutor said Thursday.

Macron has alleged that the tanker belongs to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers of uncertain ownership that are avoiding Western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, and he didn't rule out that it could have been involved in drone flights over Denmark as it was sailing last week off the coast of the Nordic country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the tanker's detention as an act of piracy and alleged that Macron had initiated the move for domestic policy reasons.

“There is no other way

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