The cargo ship Caffa, detained by Swedish authorities in March in the Baltic Sea on suspicion of being part of Russia's "shadow fleet," will be handed over to Ukraine, ruled the district court of the Swedish city of Ystad, reported TV4 on Thursday, June 4. The judge agreed with the prosecution's argument that the arrest imposed by Swedish authorities on the vessel following a request from Ukraine is justified and that the conditions for transferring the vessel to Ukraine have been met. The main condition is that the crime for which the transfer of the vessel is requested must be punishable under Swedish law, writes the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
"The District Court reached the same conclusion as we did, and I find it satisfactory," commented the court's decision in Istade by Prosecutor Håkan Larsson. The Attorney General of Ukraine, Ruslan Kravchenko, in his Telegram channel, called this decision the first instance where a foreign court, at the request of the Ukrainian side, 'approved the seizure of a vessel connected to the export of Ukrainian products' from occupied territories. Ukrainian authorities believe that the vessel Caffa was transporting grain from occupied Sevastopol to the Syrian port of Tartus in the summer of 2025. According to Kravchenko, a scheme involving fake registration was used to cover up this activity.
A request for the extradition of Caffa was sent to the Swedish authorities on March 12. The Office of the Attorney General of Ukraine requested to conduct a search on the vessel, interrogate its captain and crew, as well as to impose an arrest on Caffa. According to Håkan Larsson, the final decision regarding the transfer of the vessel to Ukraine will be made by the end of June. 'The opposing side has three weeks to appeal before the decision takes legal effect,' said the prosecutor.
Since early March, Caffa has been under arrest in the port of Trelleborg.
The bulk carrier Caffa was detained on March 6 off the southern coast of Sweden, near Trelleborg. It was traveling from Casablanca to Saint Petersburg and reported via AIS (Automatic Identification System) that it was sailing under the flag of Guinea, but Swedish authorities labeled it as a stateless vessel, meaning it was sailing under a false flag. Until June 2025, the bulk carrier was sailing under the Russian flag.
Law enforcement detained the crew of the vessel. Its captain, a Russian citizen, was arrested on suspicion of document forgery. He was released in April: the man claimed he was unaware of the forgery, and the investigation could not disprove this. According to the Russian Embassy in Stockholm, 10 out of 11 crew members are also Russian citizens. They left Sweden in mid-May.