Norway seizes Russian-leased research ship in Arctic Svalbard

Norwegian police last month boarded and seized the Professor Molchanov, an ice-strengthened ship leased by the Russian Geographical Society, at the Russian-run mining town of Barentsburg on Svalbard, about 800 miles from the North Pole. The seizure followed a 12-year legal campaign and is part of a wider global push against Russian assets, including $300 billion of frozen central-bank reserves.