Russia 090813 Basic Political Developments

Navy Intensifies Search for Lost Ship

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/380636.htm
13 August 2009By Anna Malpas / The Moscow Times

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Navy on Wednesday to step up a search for a cargo ship with a Russian crew that disappeared last month off the coast of France in a possible pirate attack.

Medvedev told Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to take all necessary measures to find and, if necessary, liberate the Arctic Sea, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Naval ships are searching for the Arctic Sea, and the ministry is using all search methods at its disposal, including satellites, a Defense Ministry spokesman told Interfax.

Two nuclear submarines will join the search, Channel One television reported.

“Under the orders of President Dmitry Medvedev, all Russian Navy ships in the Atlantic have been sent to join the search for the Arctic Sea,” Navy commander Vladimir Vysotsky said, Itar-Tass reported.

The 4,000-ton cargo ship with a 15-member Russian crew disappeared in mysterious circumstances en route to Algeria from Finland. British coast guards spoke to someone on the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier on July 28 as it was apparently entering the Straits of Dover between England and France, the BBC reported.

The Malta Maritime Authority, which has been trying to trace the Arctic Sea, said Wednesday that the vessel had not approached the Straits of Gibraltar, which indicated that it was headed out into the Atlantic Ocean, Reuters reported.

Arctic Sea’s transponder last signaled its position when the ship was off the coast of northern France on July 30. It was only on Aug. 3 that Interpol contacted the British coast guards to say the ship had been hijacked, the BBC reported.

After the ship disappeared, Swedish media reported that it had been attacked in the Baltic Sea on July 24. Men who called themselves Swedish police officers boarded the ship, tied up the crew and carried out a search, before leaving the ship, the reports said.

Relatives of the Russian sailors appealed to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an open letter published in Russian newspapers on Wednesday, asking him to intensify the search.

“We, the wives and relatives of the sailors of the missing vessel Arctic Sea, ask for a full-scale search and rescue operation to begin with the use of all the necessary Russian special forces,” the letter said. “We also ask for an official request to search for the ship to be made to the Western European countries close to whose shores the ship disappeared. What’s important to us is for our relatives to return home safe and unharmed.”

The brief, unsigned letter was first published Tuesday on SovFracht Maritime Bulletin, a web site whose editor Mikhail Voitenko is a well-known investigator of piracy.

The relatives of the crew members are also demanding a criminal investigation into the disappearance, said Sergei Portenko, the deputy chairman of the northern branch of the Russian Sailors’ Trade Union.

The demand has been sent to the Russian leadership and to law enforcement agencies, as well as to the ship’s operating company and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, Portenko told Interfax.

The tabloid Tvoi Den published a list of the 15 crew members on Tuesday, but the men haven’t officially been identified.

The ship was built in 1991 and was originally named Okhotskoye. It flies the Maltese flag and is operated by Solchart Arkhangelsk Ltd., Interfax reported.

The ship was carrying $1.8 million worth of sawn wood belonging to Finnish paper company Stora Enso, SovFracht Maritime Bulletin reported Monday.

Operator of Missing Ship Says Vessel Likely Hijacked

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=8316692
August 13, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The operator of a merchant cargo ship that has disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean said on Thursday it believed the vessel has been hijacked.

The Maltese-registered, Finnish-chartered vessel disappeared while sailing from Finland to the Algerian port of Bejaia, where it was due to have docked on August 4 with a $1.3-million load of timber.

"My view is that it is most likely that the vessel has been hijacked," said Viktor Matveyev, director of the Finnish company, Solchart, which operates the vessel.

On Wednesday Russian warships were ordered to join the hunt for the Arctic Sea, a 4,000-tonne bulk carrier with a 15-strong Russian crew that went missing shortly after passing through the Dover Strait between France and Britain late last month.

Relatives of the crew declined to comment when contacted by Reuters on Thursday.

The vessel's movements were last recorded on the AisLive ship tracking system off the coast of northern France on July 30, although it has also been spotted off Portugal.

The Malta Maritime Authority said it received reports it was boarded by men posing as police in Swedish waters on July 24.

The vessel was boarded by "eight to twelve persons allegedly masked and wearing uniforms bearing the word 'police' and armed with guns and pistols," the Maltese authority said on Wednesday.

Crew members were assaulted, tied, gagged and blindfolded and some were seriously hurt, it said. They were also questioned about drug trafficking by those posing as police.

Swedish authorities have told Maltese officials that no Swedish law enforcement agencies were involved.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney and Guy Faulconbridge)

Russian border guards hold exercises in Pacific Ocean

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14228891&PageNum=0

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, August 13 (Itar-Tass) - Russian border guards have staged an exercise involving the use of the Federal Security Service planes in the Pacific Ocean off the Kamchatka coast.

The Askold Pynko patrol ship, the Oryol border escort-vessel, the AN-72 helicopter of the Russian Federal Security Service, a Ka-72 deck-based aviation helicopter and a Mi-8 helicopter took part in the drill.

The border troops trained to chase ships that intrude Russian territorial waters, use aviation to stop it and to dismount FSB commando units onboard of the detained vessel with the help of helicopters. They also drilled how to search and save ships in distress. Representatives of the German federal police watched the exercises.