Russian spy ship searches for wreckage that may contain weapons

The Russian spy ship Yantar, which has been tracked by Nato aircraft for a week, is searching in the western Mediterranean off the Algerian coast for the wreck of the Ursa Major, sunk in December 2024, which may contain smuggled weapons, the Navalnews portal reported.

The cargo ship Ursa Major was sailing from St Petersburg towards Vladivostok via the Suez Canal. According to sources cited by the portal, it was carrying two 45-tonne key components for the construction of the Russian Type 10510 Rosiya nuclear icebreaker, which is being built at a shipyard near Vladivostok in the Far East. It is likely that on 23 December there was an explosion in the engine room and the ship sank a day later. Two crew members died at the time and 14 others were rescued by the Spanish Coast Guard.

The Marinetraffic portal noted that, as of Wednesday, the ship Jantar, which had been docked in Algiers for several days, where it is believed to have been restocking, is now operating in the same stretch of the Mediterranean where the Ursa Major sank.

The reason why the Jantar arrived at the site of the Ursa Major wreck is unknown, but the Navalnews portal suggests that it may be carrying out thorough investigations to determine the cause of the explosion.

The owner of the Ursa Major, the Russian company Oboronlogistics shortly after the sinking of the ship considered that it was due to a ‘terrorist attack’. According to Navalnews, the Yantar may also have helped destroy sensitive material, as the Ursa Major may have smuggled weapons, as it has often done in the past, and possible evidence may still be on board the ship. Yantar could also have been sent to recover 45-tonne components intended for the icebreaker, which would have helped Moscow avoid cost overruns and delays in its construction.

 

The Alliance remains vigilant across the entire Euro-Atlantic area. A French maritime patrol aircraft ATL2 monitored the Russian ship YANTAR while the vessel was sailing through the Mediterranean sea. #WeAreNATO pic.twitter.com/ccLChpuFPU

— NATO Maritime Command (@NATO_MARCOM) January 14, 2025

James Droxford, a former US Navy and Intelligence Agency officer, reported on his blog that days ago, while the Yantar was still in port in Algiers, Russian Rear Admiral Alexander Konovalov, commander of the 29th Special Purpose Submarine Brigade, was spotted and photographed on board. The Navalnews portal suggested that putting Konovalov at the head of the operation to search for the wreck of the Ursa Major means that Moscow attaches great importance to the operation.

The Yantar is a special intelligence vessel of project 22010, which is in the service of the General Directorate of Deep Sea Exploration (GUGI), a secret unit of the Russian Defence Ministry. It has two three-man submersibles on board, named Rus and Konsal, capable of diving to depths of up to 6,000 metres. The vessel is known for its oceanographic surveillance operations, but NATO services suspect it is detecting and mapping critical Western and NATO submarine infrastructure in the Baltic and North Sea.

Yantar was used in 2017 to investigate the wreckage of MiG-29K and Su-33 aircraft that crashed overboard the Russian aircraft carrier RFS Admiral Kuznetsov as it operated in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Syria, carrying out airstrikes on behalf of the Bashar al -Assad regime. According to Navalnews, the Yantar was most likely used at the time to destroy sensitive military equipment on board these aircraft to prevent them from falling into the hands of NATO forces.

Source: PortalMorski.pl