Amid a sweeping Venezuelan oil blockade, a “ghost tanker” carrying 700,000 barrels of crude to China had been hunted across oceans and seized without a shot fired. Pete Hegseth boasted that Aquila II “ran, and we followed” and warned defiant ships they would “run out of fuel.” At the same time, in Moscow, Sergey Lavrov had accused Washington of openly seeking to “dominate the energy sector,” crush competitors and tighten control over global supply routes.