Putin Outraged At Norway’s Seizure Of Russian Expedition Vessel In Arctic Waters: ‘State Terror’

The Kremlin is outraged, with President Putin on Thursday blasting Norway for “state terrorism” in the immediate wake of the Scandinavian country’s seizure of the Russian vessel Professor Molchanov as it was at the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Moscow officials are also calling it a brazen “act of piracy”.

What makes this development particularly alarming amid the backdrop of now somewhat ‘routine’ EU action against Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels is that 1) the vessel is used for commercial expedition cruises, 2) Norway was acting at the request of the Ukrainian government for ‘compensation’, and 3) the seizure happened in the Arctic region, some 500 miles north of the Norwegian mainland in international waters/port area.

Putin while speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok called out Ukraine’s Western backers as being “complicit in international terrorism” with this and other issues, also specifically President Zelensky’s recent declarations that Ukrainian drones will ‘close Russian skies’ to commercial aviation.

The Associated Press summarizes Oslo’s motives in the following:

A court in Norway ordered the seizure as part of efforts by Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz to recover a $4.22 billion arbitration award. It stems from Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and its seizure of Ukrainian energy assets, including gas fields and pipelines.

After Russia’s refusal to pay the 2023 award, Naftogaz has been petitioning national courts seeking orders to seize Russian commercial assets.

In this particular case, the ship has been held at port, and was not sailing at the time:

The first group to announce the ship’s seizure was Covington, the US law firm representing Naftogaz as it tries to secure the compensation awarded to it by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in 2023. 

Russia had refused to pay the fine plus legal fees and interest amid its ongoing war with Ukraine, and Naftogaz has since begun trying to secure the seizure and forced sale of Russian commercial assets via local courts instead. 

…Covington said it had been tracking the ship, the Professor Molchanov, for months. It said its application was approved on Monday by the Nord-Troms and Senja District Court, which ordered Svalbard’s governor to ensure the ship stayed in dock once it arrived.

Ukraine state Naftogaz’s acting CEO Sergii Fedorenko celebrated the move: “Russia cannot evade ​responsibility simply by refusing to comply with an international arbitral award,” he said.

Russia’s ambassador to Norway, Nikolai Korchunov, said Thursday: “We insist on the immediate release of the vessel and on ensuring the safety of its passengers and crew.” 

The state-owned ship arrived in Barentsburg on Tuesday with a group of Russian scientists on board, European media reports indictate.

“The seizure has had no impact on the expedition participants or the ship’s crew. No one has been arrested. We are all going about our business as usual,” Andrei Gorbunov, editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP) has stated.

This is a clear escalation at sea, given now EU countries are going after what are essentially Russian cruise and expedition ships in remote Arctic regions. It’s highly dangerous given Russia could now see itself as justified as doing the same in the case of Norwegian or other European vessels which carry passengers.