Akademik Aleksandr Karpinsky

The vessel of Project 12883M was built in 1984 in Nikolaev, Ukrainian SSR. In 2014 the ship was refit in Tallinn, Estonia.^[1]

Stationed in the Baltic Sea the Akademik Alexander Karpinsky is as noted on the 1959 Antarctic Treaty's seasonal shipping database, registered to sail to West Antarctica's Amundsen and East Antarctica's Ross seas for "marine geological-geophysical studies".^[2] A 1998 amendment to the 55-nation Antarctic Treaty, to which Russia signed, prohibits all mineral explorations and extractions in the region.^[3] Akademik Alexandr Kapinsky has been in the Southern Ocean on an annual term, and has produced most of these investigations via Cape Town since.^[2] Russia is doing mineral exploration under the guise of scientific research, which is permissible under the Antarctic treaty.

In 2020, Rosgeo reported that Akademik Alexandr Karpinsky had completed a comprehensive sub-surface geological survey, mapping oil and gas bearing prospects on the Antarctic ice shelves. The study was part of the 65th Russian Antarctic expedition (RAE). At the time, the exploration covered the southeastern part of the Riiser-Larsen Sea off the coast of Queen Maud Land, which is claimed by Norway.^[4]

According to the United States Department of State, the Adademik Alexandr Karpinsky was sanctioned in February 2024 to mark two years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and the death of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison. Its sister vessel, the RV Professor Logachev has also been sanctioned.^[2] US citizens and companies are banned from conducting commercial transactions with the vessel's owners Rosgeo and the vessel is prevented from calling at US ports.^{[citation needed]}