Norway has seized a Russian state-owned ship in the Arctic after Ukraine's energy company Naftogaz tracked it down as part of its efforts to recover $4.2 billion from Moscow. The vessel named Professor Molchanov was seized on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, after arriving at a Russian mining settlement known as Barentsburg on Norway's Svalbard archipelago.
Naftogaz, the largest oil and gas company of Ukraine, has been trying to make Russia pay since 2016, when it launched legal action over property taken from the company after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. A tribunal in The Hague ruled in 2023 that Russia must pay Naftogaz around $4.22 billion, plus interest and legal costs.
Moscow has not paid the money, so Naftogaz has started looking for Russian assets in other countries. According to the U.S. law firm representing the energy company, they had been tracking the Russian vessel for months and knew that the ship would be in Norwegian waters; therefore, it went to a Norwegian court to get it seized. The Nord-Troms and Senja District Court approved the request on August 31.
The ship is now being held in Barentsburg and cannot leave, while the Governor of Svalbard said Norwegian authorities would take care of the passengers and crew. Russia has reacted angrily, with its Foreign Ministry calling the seizure piracy, while Norway has maintained that the action is purely a legal matter.