Swedish court rules to hand over Russian cargo ship Caffa to Ukraine – media
A Swedish court has ruled to transfer the Russian dry cargo ship Caffa, which was transporting grain from Ukrainian territories currently occupied by Russia, to Ukraine, Reuters has reported.
"A Swedish court has ruled that the seizure of a cargo vessel in the Baltic Sea was lawful and that the ship can be handed over to Ukraine, where it is suspected of illegally transporting grain from Russian-occupied territory," the agency said on Friday.
"Swedish police and the coast guard seized the vessel, the Caffa, off southern Sweden in March, alleging it was sailing under a false flag and violated maritime and ship safety laws due to a lack of seaworthiness," the agency said.
A lawyer for the ship's owner, Caffa Shipping Limited, has challenged the detention and is seeking the vessel's release, Reuters reports. "The court has confirmed that the seizure of the CAFFA, etc., was legally founded and that the vessel may be surrendered to Ukraine," public prosecutor Hakan Larsson said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
However, as the prosecutor noted, the court's decision must still take legal effect before the vessel can be transferred to Ukraine in any form, and he added that Caffa's owners have three weeks to file an appeal. A lawyer for Caffa Shipping has not yet responded to a request from Reuters for additional comments.
According to Swedish police, at the time of the detention, most of the 11 crew members of the Caffa were Russian. According to the ship-tracking portal MarineTraffic, the vessel is a 96-meter general cargo ship.
On June 4, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko stated that a court in Sweden had ordered the arrest of the Caffa, which may have been involved in the illegal export of Ukrainian goods from temporarily occupied territories. According to him, this is the first time a foreign court has issued such a ruling at the request of the Ukrainian prosecutor's office.
According to the investigation, the vessel systematically violated entry and exit procedures for the occupied regions of Ukraine by using a scheme involving false registration-in international databases, the Caffa was listed under the flag of Guinea.
In early March, the vessel was detained by the Swedish Coast Guard. Law enforcement officials confirmed that the Caffa was sailing under a false flag and was listed in Ukrainian registries as a vessel transporting stolen property.
The ship's captain was initially taken into custody but was later released due to a lack of direct evidence of his involvement in document forgery. In April, Swedish authorities decided to confiscate the dry cargo ship.
The Main Intelligence Agency of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense previously reported that the Caffa was involved in the theft of grain from occupied territories. Specifically, in July 2025, the vessel loaded grain at the port of Sevastopol and unloaded it in Tartus, Syria. On November 25, 2025, Ukraine imposed sanctions against this vessel.