Former Soviet managed to seize one on American ship (7)
I believe the answer is:
russian
'former soviet' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'managed to seize one on american ship' is the wordplay.
'managed' becomes 'ran' (I've seen this before).
'to seize' indicates putting letters inside.
'one' becomes 'i' (roman numeral).
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'american ship' becomes 'uss' (United States Ship, prefix used in US ship names).
'i' after 'uss' is 'ussi'.
'ran' placed around 'ussi' is 'RUSSIAN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for russian that I've seen before include "Slavic language" , "nationality" , "St Petersburg native" , "Slav" , "Native of the world's largest country" .)