The ghost ships in the English Channel and the question of what to do about them

There's obviously huge frustration in the policy-maker circles in Brussels and London that Russia is continuing to sell its oil," says Tom Keatinge, founding director of the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) in London. Keatinge runs a maritime sanctions task force at Rusi, bringing together representatives from industry and government. Some participants, he sees, are keen to see more forthright action. "We have people… who like jumping out of helicopters on ropes," he says. "And that community has thus far been kept firmly in its box." He adds: "Put bluntly, no one's had the balls to look at what is often a 50-50 call and say 'We'll send the boys in'." But the constraints are considerable. "You've got a bunch of consequences that you need to be ready to deal with," Keatinge says. "The first is you've got an absolutely enormous vessel. What the hell do you do with that?"