The U.S Treasury Department has issued blockade sanctions against the ship, which is said to be owned by a subsidiary of Russia bank Promsvyazbank, one of the Russian entities affected by Washington’s sanctions.

The bank’s CEO, Pyotr Fradkov, is the son of Mikhail Fradkov, the former head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, who also served as prime minister under Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pyotr Fradkov himself was involved in the latest round of U.S sanctions. Captain Veronique Magnin, of the French Maritime Prefecture, said the Baltic leader’s ship was bound for St. Petersburg but landed at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France between 3:00 am and 4:00 am local time.

The vessel was “strongly suspected of being linked to Russian interests targeted by the sanctions”, she said.

Promsvyazbank told Reuters in a statement that its subsidiary no longer owns the Baltic Leader, which was bought by a different entity before the sanctions were imposed.

Washington sanctioned two Russian state-owned banks – Promsvyazbank and VEB – and barred them from trading its debt in the US and European markets. The two Russian banks are considered particularly close to the Kremlin and the Russian military, with more than bn 80bn in assets. The Russian embassy in Paris said it would send a protest note to the French Foreign Ministry against the occupation.

The United States, the European Union, Britain, Japan, Canada, Taiwan and New Zealand have unveiled a series of sanctions against Russia, targeting banks, oil refineries and military exports.

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