The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has called this Tuesday the chargé d'affaires of Norway in Moscow, Bjorn Svenungsen, in response to the “continuous” seizures of Russian goods and real estate carried out by Norwegian authorities at the order of Ukraine.
On this occasion, Moscow has formally protested the embargo of the Russian research vessel ‘Profesor Molchanov’, held in the port of Barentsburg, in the Svalbar archipelago, since the beginning of September at the instigation of the Ukrainian company Naftogaz, in the oil and gas sector.
Russian authorities have warned Svenungsen that the prolonged immobilization of the ship under “the harsh climatic conditions of the Arctic” not only poses a danger to the vessel itself, but may also entail “serious environmental consequences”.
They have also emphasized that this vessel “was the only means of transport that allowed the direct transfer of Russian employees and vital supplies to the archipelago” of Svalbard, after Norway unilaterally chose to cut air traffic between Russia and that territory.
Russia has further noted that, within the framework of this policy of seizures applied by Norway, in recent weeks a Norwegian court has ordered the confiscation of five Russian properties in Oslo, violating, according to Moscow, several international agreements, including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.