To the people downvoting the above comment: Houthis declaring US and UK ships open to attack as retaliation to the drone strikes in Yemen, then also extending this to the ships operated by the latest coalition against blocking the Red Sea sea traffic against Israeli profits is a would have been a no-brainer when you consider attacks on allies of belligerent countries are viable when it comes to Russian-Ukrainian war or any non-western supported war.
Houthis have been waging these attacks against with the aim of pressuring the allies of Israel, the decades long genocide committing apartheid, rogue and terrorist state, away from supporting its latest and most intense war crimes. They have been accomplishing this pretty well, and this is just an economic pressure akin to embargoes the western hemisphere applies to whoever they don’t like at that moment. There will be literal and figurative friendly fires, attacks on bystanders, and unintended consequences to some extent, of course, but as per the wikipedia compilation, mostly the countries, companies and ships that keep trading with Israel despite their extensive war crimes are affected from the Houthi attacks, while the rest are pretty much operating unhindered.
Britain and the U.S. are still trading with Israel and now they hit a Russian ship. How does this help Gaza at all?
British and US ships being harbored by the Greek host of the operation is a direct counter action to the Houthi efforts to pressure Israel to permanent ceasefire via pressuring its allies with economic repercussions.
As for the sole ship pointed in this article, it is not a Russian ship per the article. It is a Marshall Islands owned ship, under Liberian flag, operating by and for the profit of a Greek company, carrying Russian oil to China.
The only negative effect this has for the Houthi/Iran side is that their allies’ commerce has also been disrupted. It is not even a negative effect if you count the pressure this applies on their allies Russia and China to separate their commerce from Greek companies.
Politics is nuanced, this pressure can also backfire, but I seriously doubt either Russia or China would lessen ties over a changeable middleman. On the other hand, Greek companies will feel more pressure from the loss of cut from the Asian trade pie more, and will pressure their government to lessen their involvement in backing Israel in this matter.
