Russian ship under US sanctions sinks after engine room blast

A Russian cargo ship, Ursa Major, has sunk in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an explosion in the engine room, Russia’s foreign ministry has confirmed.

It said 14 members of the crew had been rescued and taken to the Spanish port of Cartagena but that two others were missing.

Ursa Major left port in St Petersburg 12 days ago, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

The ship’s owner said it was on its way to Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East carrying two cranes for the port weighing 380 tonnes apiece, although the destination could not be confirmed independently.

Before Ursa Major sank, Spain’s Salvamento Marítimo maritime rescue agency said 14 people were found on a lifeboat and taken safely to Spain and a Russian warship then arrived in the area to take charge of the rescue operation.

Ursa Major was in the same area of the Med as another sanctioned Russian ship, Sparta, when it ran into trouble and the two ships had been spotted heading through the English Channel last week, reportedly under escort.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) reported that the Sparta was heading to Russia’s naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous to move military equipment out of Syria after the downfall of Bashar al-Assad.

A Kremlin official said on Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria’s new rulers on the future of its two military facilities, at both diplomatic and military level.

Ursa Major’s owner Oboronlogistika has been heavily involved in transporting cargo to Tartous, although Sparta’s reported destination on Tuesday was Port Said in Egypt.

Marine transport monitoring website LSEG told the BBC that Ursa Major’s automatic ID system (AIS) showed that its destination since 11 December had been Vladivostok, and that its last call at the port of Tartous had been in July.

On Monday, the HUR reported that the Sparta had broken down off Portugal, but the problem had been fixed. Ursa Major was originally known as Sparta III, so it was not clear which ship the Ukrainians were referring to.

However, the Sparta also got into difficulty a week ago, in rough seas off Brittany in the north-west of France. Radio France Inter reported that the Russian cargo ship initially did not respond to French communications on Tuesday 17 December, until acknowledging it had a problem.

“I’m in trouble. My engines are currently down, the tiller isn’t responding. We’re going to try to repair it in the coming minutes,” RFI reported the ship’s radio as saying.

After drifting for 61 minutes, the Sparta said it was back on course.

It is not known what caused the explosion on Ursa Major as it passed between Oran in Algeria and the Spanish town of Águilas on Monday afternoon.

However, video filmed from the tanker Ross Sea between 12:00-13:00GMT on 23 December, and verified by the BBC, showed the ship listing badly.

It eventually sank at about 01:20GMT on Tuesday.

Ursa Major was built in 2009 and placed under sanction after Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022 because of the ship owner’s role in delivering cargo to the Russian military.

Oboronlogistika said the cargo ship, which it described as the flagship of its fleet, was carrying 45-tonne hatch covers for icebreakers, as well as the large cranes for the port in Vladivostok.

Additional reporting by BBC Verify’s Josh Cheetham, Paul Brown and Daniele Palumbo