a “terrorist attack”

The sinking of the Russian cargo ship Ursa Major in the Mediterranean is due to a “terrorist attack”, the company that owns the ship, which reports to the Russian Ministry of Defense, said on Wednesday, without supporting its comments.

The Oboronloguistika company said in a statement, cited by Russian state agencies, that it “believes that a targeted terrorist attack was carried out on December 23, 2024 against the ship Ursa Major”, without indicating who may have carried it out. perpetrated, nor why. “Three consecutive explosions” took place in the ship before water entered it, she added.

Two sailors are still missing, while fourteen were rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena. According to Spanish sea rescue services, Ursa Major “issued an alert call” during the night from Monday to Tuesday, about 105 km from the coast of the Spanish city of Almeria, against a backdrop of “bad weather conditions.” »

The cargo ship is the largest vessel of the Oboronloguistika company, which reports to the Russian Defense Ministry and also provides civilian transportation and logistics services.

The Ursa Major and its owner company were placed under American sanctions in May 2022, after the start of the Russian assault in Ukraine, according to a press release from the State Department.

Questions remain regarding the destination of this massive ship, and the reason for its journey. According to Oboronloguistika, Ursa Major was transporting harbor cranes and hatch covers for icebreakers to Vladivostok. Containers had also been placed on its lower deck as “dead weight” in order to “ensure the stability of the boat,” the company said in a press release.

Spanish sea rescue officials, citing survivors' accounts, said the boat was carrying empty containers in the hold and two cranes on deck. The cargo ship left the city of Saint Petersburg (northwest Russia) on December 11 and was scheduled to arrive in Vladivostok on January 22, according to the MarineTraffic.com website.

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) nevertheless claimed on Monday, before the ship's sinking, that a Russian cargo ship called Sparta had encountered a technical problem off the coast of Portugal.

Ursa Major was formerly called Sparta III, according to the Oboronloguistika website. The Ukrainian information, however, has not been confirmed, and it could be two different ships, because Oboronloguistika also has another boat named Sparta.

The Sparta cargo ship mentioned by Ukrainian intelligence was heading to Syria in order to evacuate “weapons and equipment”, according to the GUR. Moscow has two military bases in Syria, the naval base of Tartous and the military airfield of Hmeimim. These infrastructures are key because they allow Russia to carry out operations in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean basin and as far as Africa.

The flight of Bashar al-Assad, overthrown in December and taking refuge in Moscow, dealt a heavy blow to Russia's ambitions, especially as it also illustrates the weakening of its regional ally, Iran.The fate of Russian bases in Syria have since remained unresolved.

The Kremlin's diplomatic adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Monday that Moscow was in contact with the new Syrian authorities, “especially at the military level. » “A lot of things are not yet clear,” he told journalists.

Ukrainian military intelligence affirmed that Russia had “started transporting some of its weapons and equipment from the port of Tartous to Libya by sea”.