A court in Ystad, Sweden, has authorized the transfer of the cargo ship Caffa (IMO 9143611) to Ukraine, according to reports by Ukraine’s prosecutor general and the Swedish outlet Trelleborgs Allehanda. The vessel was detained off Sweden’s coast in March.
Ukraine had sought the vessel’s arrest and transfer as part of an international legal assistance request. Ukrainian investigators say the Caffa was involved in the illegal export of products from Russian-occupied territories. The ship’s captain and almost the entire crew were Russian citizens.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said it was the first case in which a foreign court approved the arrest of a vessel linked to the export of Ukrainian goods from Russian-occupied territory at the request of Ukrainian prosecutors. Kravchenko said the Prosecutor General’s Office contacted Sweden’s Justice Ministry on March 12, asking the authorities to search the vessel, question its captain and crew, and seize the Caffa.
Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer, commenting on the ruling, linked the Caffa case to broader efforts aimed at countering Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
“It is clear that measures against the Russian shadow fleet are important for Sweden and for all countries around the Baltic Sea,” he told Trelleborgs Allehanda.
The Caffa was detained on March 6 off Sweden’s southern coast near Trelleborg. The vessel was traveling from Casablanca to St. Petersburg and was transmitting a Guinea flag through AIS, the Automatic Identification System used by ships to broadcast their identity and location. Swedish authorities, however, described the vessel as stateless, meaning it was operating under a false flag. In the Equasis shipping database, the Caffa’s flag was listed as “Guinea False.” Until June 2025, the cargo ship had sailed under the Russian flag.
After the ship was detained, the Caffa’s captain, a Russian citizen, was arrested on suspicion of using forged maritime certificates. He was released in April after arguing that he did not know the documents were fake, a claim investigators could not disprove. The Russian Embassy in Sweden previously said 10 of the Caffa’s 11 crew members were Russian citizens. In May, TV4 reported that the crew had been taken out of Sweden, while the ship remained “empty and locked” in the port of Trelleborg pending a decision on its transfer to Ukraine.
The Caffa has been designated on Ukraine’s sanctions list since November 2025. Ukrainian authorities link the vessel to the transport of grain from occupied Sevastopol in Crimea to the Syrian port of Tartus in summer 2025. Kravchenko said investigators believe a false registration scheme was used to conceal the activity.
