The vessel CAFFA was arrested in Sweden at Ukraine's request
A court in Sweden has issued an order to arrest the vessel "CAFFA." This is the first known case in which a foreign court has granted a request from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office for international legal assistance regarding a vessel that may have been involved in the illegal export of goods from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
According to the investigation, the “CAFFA” systematically violated the procedures for entering and exiting the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine with the intent to harm the interests of the state.
To conceal these activities, a scheme involving false registration was used: in international databases, the vessel is listed as “Guinea False.”
On March 12, 2026, the Office of the Prosecutor General submitted a request for international legal assistance to the Ministry of Justice of the Kingdom of Sweden. The Ukrainian side requested that the vessel be searched, the captain and crew members be questioned, and the “CAFFA” be seized.
The competent Swedish authorities promptly began executing the request. As early as the following week after receiving it, the vessel was searched and witnesses were questioned.
Today, this process took an important procedural step forward—the court approved the arrest of the vessel.
This is a concrete result of international legal cooperation between Ukraine and our partners. Daily work, information sharing, and the collection and transmission of additional evidence have yielded results: the vessel has been arrested.
Russia continues to plunder Ukrainian resources in the temporarily occupied territories. But Ukraine systematically documents these crimes: it tracks routes, identifies vessels, records illegal entries into the occupied territory, and utilizes all mechanisms of international legal assistance.
This case sends a clear signal that no manipulation of flags, routes, or registration will help avoid accountability, stated Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.
Prior to this, the ship Asomatos delivered 26,900 tons of wheat to the port of Abu Qir, which, according to Ukraine, had been illegally exported by Russia. Kyiv has appealed to the Egyptian authorities regarding yet another instance of such grain shipments.
Russia continues to export Ukrainian grain from the temporarily occupied territories and sell it abroad. In late April, Ukraine recorded several such shipments to Egypt.
