Sweden has detained a dry cargo ship belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet at Ukraine’s request
1 May 14:18
Swedish authorities have seized the dry cargo ship Caffa, which had previously been detained en route to Russia, at the request of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, according to Sveriges Radio, as reported by "Komersant Ukrainian".
On April 29, the Kingdom’s State Prosecutor, Håkan Larsson, announced these measures. According to him, the decision was made to determine whether the vessel could be transferred to another country for investigation. However, Larsson did not specify whose requests led to the arrest.
The dry cargo ship Caffa, sailing from Casablanca (Morocco) to St. Petersburg under the Guinean flag, was detained on March 6 in the Baltic Sea off the southern coast of Sweden. The vessel is on Ukraine’s sanctions list on charges of illegally transporting grain from occupied territories. Among other things, it was involved in the shipment of wheat from Sevastopol to Syria in July 2025.
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The Caffa is believed to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet. Sweden emphasized that the dry cargo ship was sailing under a false flag. It also identified technical malfunctions on the vessel and imposed a ban on its operation until they are rectified. The dry cargo ship sailed under the Russian flag from at least 2017 until June 2025, The Insider previously reported.
Ten of the 11 crew members of the Caffa are Russian citizens, including the captain. The captain had been in custody since March 10 on suspicion of using forged documents, including a certificate of the ship’s registration in Guinea, but was released on April 22—Swedish authorities found no evidence that he was aware of these schemes.
Meanwhile, the Russians remain on the ship, Russian Ambassador to Sweden Sergey Belyaev reported on April 30. According to him, the diplomatic mission is “closely monitoring” the situation. He confirmed that the Swedish Transport Agency had raised “a number of concerns regarding the technical condition of the vessel” and also noted that the ship was unloaded at the time of its detention.
Sweden has been actively combating the Russian shadow fleet since the spring of 2026. In March, coast guard officers boarded not only the Caffa but also the tanker Sea Owl 1, which was also sailing under a false flag. In early April, they boarded the Flora 1, suspecting it was the source of an oil spill. On April 12, the bulk carrier Hui Yuan was detained while en route from the Russian port of Ust-Luga to Las Palmas (Spain). The reason was the dumping of coal waste from the deck into the sea.
After that, ships from Russia’s shadow fleet began to avoid their usual route off the coast of Sweden. From April 7 to 24, 13 of the 22 sanctioned tankers sailed south of the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea instead of taking the shorter northern passage along the kingdom’s coast, according to Bloomberg’s calculations.
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