Russia seizes cruise ships

Russia unexpectedly seized two docked research vessels leased to the Arctic- and Antarctic-cruise company One Ocean Expeditions for passenger service — the Akademic Ioffe and Akademik Sergey Vavilov — in May 2019, saying the ships required maintenance. The ships, which each can carry about 100 passengers, have been in the service of One Ocean since 2012.

A company spokesman said they had no advance notice of the seizure and have been forced to cancel all scheduled 2019-2020 sailings of the vessels.