Before the Ursa Major sank, Spain’s maritime rescue agency Salvamento Marítimo said 14 people had been found on a lifeboat and were being transported safely to Spain, and a Russian warship had arrived in the area to take over the rescue operation.
The Ursa Major was in the same area of the Mediterranean as another sanctioned Russian ship, the Sparta, when it ran into trouble, and the two ships were spotted heading through the English Channel last week, reportedly under escort.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s military intelligence service (HUR) reported that Sparta headed to the Russian naval base on the Syrian coast in Tartous to move military equipment out of Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
A Kremlin official said Monday that Russia is in contact with Syria’s new rulers about the future of its two military facilities. both at the diplomatic and military levels.
Ursa Major’s owner, Oboronlogistika, was heavily involved in transporting cargo to Tartous, although Sparta’s destination on Tuesday was Port Said in Egypt.
Maritime traffic monitoring website LSEG told the BBC that the Ursa Major’s automatic identification system (AIS) showed its destination as of December 11 as Vladivostok, although on a previous voyage in September its destination was Tartous.
