162
submitted 18 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Summary

The Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an engine room explosion.

Fourteen crew members were rescued, but two remain missing.

The ship, sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 for transporting cargo to Russia's military, was reportedly en route to Vladivostok carrying two cranes and other equipment. Its exact destination remains unconfirmed.

The incident occurred near the Sparta, another sanctioned Russian ship linked to transporting military equipment from Syria. The cause of the explosion on Ursa Major is still unknown.

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[-] sepi@piefed.social 21 points 12 hours ago

Everything from russia is shit, except piss

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 29 points 16 hours ago

These "shadow fleet" ships seems way to dangerous to have in the Mediterranean or in the Black sea or the Baltic sea...

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago
[-] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

(The shine is from all the dumped crude oil)

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

looks like that ocean is about to get alot more freedom. 🇺🇲

[-] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 6 points 12 hours ago

A scooter exploded in Moscow last week, and now a cargo ship carrying military equipment exploded this week? Huh.

[-] perestroika@lemm.ee 4 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

At this point, I haven't seen any experts thinking of the GUR as a cause, they just reported about it since they keenly monitor everything Russian.

People write that it was transporting cranes. On the deck, I see large structures which match the description. We can't see into the cargo hold, though.

GUR's report was about "Sparta" developing fuel pump problems. Since "Ursa Major" has the alias "Sparta 3", I think Ukraininans may have mixed up numbers in their report and it could have been "Ursa Major" which developed fuel pump problems.

If the above premise holds true (no guarantee)... next I would guess that during repairs, an accident ignited a detonating mix of fuel vapours and the engine room became a potato cannon. Or maybe a fuel tank in the engine room blew apart. RIP for anyone in that compartment, probably a crack in the hull and maybe some loose cargo as a bonus.

A more sinister scenario would be "cranes on the deck and ammo in the hold". But ammo is a gift the typically keeps on giving - if the first items blows up, subsequent items enter a chain reaction. This was not the case.

A far-fetched scenario would be an Ukrainian bomb planted in St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad (the ship was heading to Syria according to TWZ. So I doubt it. If Ukrainians could plant bombs anywhere in Russia, they would probably prefer to blow up something more interesting (like maybe an air defense system being returned from Syria by plane, or maybe the Kerch bridge, or some railway connecting Russia to North Korea, or something to that tune - since that would get them immediate benefits).

[-] rockSlayer@lemmy.world 14 points 16 hours ago

I'm happy the ship never made it, but I hope they find the missing crew. They're civilians after all.

this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
162 points (97.6% liked)

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