Barentsburg

Putin, President Putin d- uh, sort of condemned it as an act of state terrorism.

What's interesting, what's particularly interesting about this is where it's happened, in Barentsburg in Svalbard.

So Svalbard is a Norwegian sovereign archipelago set of islands in the high north, about 500 miles north of the northern edge of mainland Norway.

But under the Treaty of Svalbard signed in 1920, any nation which is a signatory to that treaty can send, or citizens of that country can settle on Svalbard and carry out commercial activity.

And Barentsburg, uh, where this ship has been impounded, is a Russian settlement.

It's been a Russian settlement since the USSR bought it in 1932, and it's also been a scene of markedly, pointedly sort of pro-Russian, pro-Kremlin demonstrations, particularly on the annual May 9th Victory Day, when we've seen the really l- less and less impressive parades in Moscow because of the shortage of tanks.

We've seen increasingly sort of militarized, still pretty small, but increasingly martial style parades, uh, from the Russian residents of Barentsburg.

And there've been warnings, uh, from think tanks which m- monitor, uh, Svalbard and the high north that these islands are a real sort of potential powder keg, uh, is the word they've used, for a potential, a potential flashpoint for a conflict between Russia, uh, and NATO, and the risk of Russia, uh, attacking or militarizing the high north.