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On Christmas Eve, the Ursa Major cargo ship sank in the Mediterranean Sea near Spain, which was used to evacuate Russian troops from Syria. According to a Forbes analyst David Axe, the loss of the “unique and difficult to replace” 13,000-ton cargo ship was a serious blow to Oboronlogistics and the Russian shipbuilding industry.
Ax clarifies that the Ursa Major, built in Germany, was only 15 years old, which is very young for an auxiliary vessel. The Russian Crisis Management Center noted that an “explosion” occurred in the engine room, after which the ship capsized on its starboard side and sank.
“The Ursa Major was a special object. This was the largest ship of Oboronlogistics, and also one of the few vessels in the company's registry equipped with ramps for driving cars in and out of the hold, as well as cranes for vertical loading installed on top,” Axe notes.
At the same time, Russian bloggers note that a larger universal cargo ship with the ability to horizontally and vertically load simply does not exist in the Russian Federation.
As Axe notes, according to available data, Ursa Major was transporting cranes and special hatches for nuclear icebreakers to Vladivostok, and it was the bulky cranes that could have led to the ship being overloaded and sinking.Ursa Major's mission in the Far East was to fulfill the tasks of “developing port infrastructure and the Northern Sea Route,” which have now obviously been disrupted, the article says.
The Ursa Major dry cargo ship wrecked in the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's crisis and situation analysis center, the ship sank after an explosion in the engine room. The incident occurred in international waters between Spain and Algeria. Fourteen crew members out of the 16 were rescued. Two are missing.
The Ursa Major freighter, which sank in the Mediterranean, was not overloaded, Oboronlogistika LLC, owner of the ship, told TASS.
"The Ursa Major ship was traveling from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, with a project cargo of 806 tons. It carried 2 portal cranes, net weight 686 tons, 2 crane kibbles, net weight 27 tons, 2 ship bilge covers, net weight 91 tons, one 20-foot container with spare parts for the covers weighing 2 tons and 129 empty containers. Thus, the version, voiced by a number of media about the ship’s alleged overload is false and harms the reputation of Oboronlogistika LLC," the company said.