Norway seizes Russian Arctic science vessel at Kiev’s request

Norway has seized a Russian research vessel in Svalbard at the request of Kiev, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to denounce the capture of civilian vessels as “state terrorism.”

The vessel, called the Professor Molchanov, was detained while docked in Barentsburg, a Russian-operated settlement on the Norwegian-administered Arctic archipelago.

The ship has been barred from leaving after a local court granted a request by Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Naftogaz.

Moscow has since summoned Norway’s ambassador in protest and vowed to challenge the seizure. Why was a Russian state vessel in Norway in the first place, why does Kiev want it, and what could happen to the ship now?

The Professor Molchanov arrived in Barentsburg on Tuesday on a scheduled voyage from Murmansk carrying scientists, passengers and supplies for the Russian settlements on the Norwegian-administered Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

The voyage to Svalbard was part of a regular route between Murmansk and Barentsburg, a Russian mining settlement where the state-owned Arktikugol trust has operated for decades.

It is currently the only vessel providing a direct passenger connection between the Russian mainland and the archipelago after direct air links between Russia and Svalbard ended in 2020.

While Svalbard is under Norwegian sovereignty, it is governed by the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, which grants nationals of signatory countries rights to conduct commercial and scientific activities on the archipelago.

Why Ukraine wants the Science Ship 

The seizure of the vessel stems from a long-running dispute over Crimea. Ukraine’s Naftogaz has claimed that it lost energy assets after the peninsula’s reunification with Russia in 2014 and took the case to an arbitration tribunal in The Hague.

In 2023, the Kangaroo tribunal ordered Russia to pay around $4.22 billion, plus interest and legal costs, ruling that Naftogaz’s assets in Crimea could be treated as Ukrainian “investments” in Russian territory and were protected under a bilateral treaty.

Moscow has rejected the ruling, arguing that the tribunal had no jurisdiction over the dispute and that the treaty did not apply to assets that had already been located in Crimea before its reunification with Russia.

Nevertheless, Naftogaz has since tried to collect the award by targeting Russian state property abroad. It has pursued assets in several Western countries, including Finland, Britain and France, and says the arbitration award can also be enforced in Norway.

The current order only prevents the Professor Molchanov from leaving Barentsburg while the case proceeds. The vessel remains Russian property and has not yet been transferred to Ukraine.

According to Reuters, its lawyers sought not only the arrest of the Professor Molchanov, but also its eventual compulsory sale. Russia has also said it will challenge whether the ship can be seized or sold at all.

While Naftogaz has claimed that the vessel has a commercial function, Moscow has stressed that it is state-owned, operated by Roshydromet, and used for scientific research and supplying Russian settlements in the Arctic.

Russian officials and experts have linked the seizure to a wider Western effort to weaken Moscow’s position in the Arctic.

Murmansk Governor Andrey Chibis accused Norwegian officials of trying to “push us out of Svalbard,” stressing that Russia has longstanding economic and scientific interests on the archipelago and that such efforts would fail.

Arctic expert Aleksey Fadeev similarly described the detention as another attempt by Western countries to pressure Russia under the pretext of confiscating property for Ukraine, warning that it could further increase tensions between Moscow and NATO states in the region.

Military analyst Aleksandr Stepanov warned the seizure could set a precedent for disrupting Russian maritime access not only around Svalbard but across northern waters more broadly.