A Russian ship under US sanctions sinks after an engine room explosion

A Russian cargo ship, the Ursa Major, sank in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an engine explosion, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

It said 14 crew members were rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena but the other two were missing.

The Ursa Major left the port in St Petersburg 12 days ago, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

The ship’s owner said it was en route to Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East carrying two port cranes weighing 380 tonnes each, although the destination could not be independently confirmed.

Before the Ursa Major sank, the Spanish sea rescue organization Salvamento Marítimo said that 14 people were found in the lifeboat and taken to Spain safely and a Russian warship then arrived in the area to manage the rescue operation.

The Ursa Major was in the same area of ​​the Med as another Russian chartered vessel, the Sparta, when it ran into trouble and the two vessels were seen transiting the English Channel last week, reportedly under surveillance.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) reported that Sparta was heading to a Russian military base on the Syrian coast in Tartous to deliver weapons to Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

A Kremlin official said Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria’s new rulers over the future of its two military bases. both at the political and military level.

Ursa Major’s owner Oboronlogistika is heavily involved in the transportation of cargo to Tartous, although the Sparta it was reported to be heading to on Tuesday was in Port Said in Egypt.

Maritime monitoring website LSEG told the BBC that the Ursa Major’s automatic ID system (AIS) showed it had been in Vladivostok since December 11, and that its last port call at Tartous was in July.

On Monday, HUR reported that Sparta was broken in Portugal, but the problem has been fixed. The Ursa Major was also known as the Sparta III, so it is not clear which ship it is referring to.

It is not known what caused the eruption of Ursa Major as it passed between Oran in Algeria and the Spanish city of Águilas.

However, a video recorded on the Ross Sea tanker between 12:00-13:00GMT on Monday, and confirmed by the BBC, showed the list of the ship badly.

It finally sank at around 01:20GMT on Tuesday.

The Ursa Major was built in 2009 and placed under sanctions after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 due to the ship’s owner’s role in delivering supplies to the Russian military.

Oboronlogistika said the cargo ship, which it described as the flagship of its fleet, was carrying 45 tons of icebreakers, as well as large cranes in the port of Vladivostok.