On behalf of a Norwegian court of justice, the Russian vessel Professor Molchanov has been seized by authorities on Svalbard and has to remain in the harbour of Barentsburg on Svalbard. It marks a small success for the Ukrainian state-owned company Naftogaz, that requested the seizure to force Russia to compensate for property loss after Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula and the Naftogaz properties there in 2014. Naftogaz started the case in 2016.
The seizure of this particular vessel is peculiar, as it has been used for Russian propaganda and profiling of Russia in the Svalbard area. The Arctic islands are part of Norway, but historically Russia has relatively free access to parts of it based on very old agreements between the two nations. The Professor Molchanov has, for example, transported youngsters in military uniforms to Svalbard to mark the Russian national day of 9 May, while Svalbard is officially a demilitarised zone according to the historic Norwegian-Russian agreement of 9 February 1920.
Barentsburg is a Russian enclave on Svalbard, mainly to serve the mine there. With 300 inhabitants it is the biggest settlement on Svalbard after the islands capital of Longyearbyen. | © 2026 Marcel Burger, nordicreporter.com. Featured photo of Svalbard by Gary B. Embridge (CC)