The Russian navy is searching for a cargo ship feared to have fallen victim to pirates.
President Dmitry Medvedev was reported to have ordered vessels from the country's fleet, plus two nuclear submarines to intensify efforts to locate the Arctic Seaand its 15-strong Russian crew.
Experts and marine authorities continue to be baffled by the fact that the Maltese-flagged ship “disappeared” after its last recorded sighting off northern France on July 30th.
The 3,988 tonne vessel, carrying about £1 million-worth of sawn timber from Finland to Algeria, made radio contact with Dover Coastguard as it was about to enter the Strait of Dover on July 28th.
The ship should have arrived in Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4th.
According to reports, Swedish authorities were told by the Finnish shipping line operating the vessel that on July 24th it was boarded by up to 10 armed men purporting to be anti-drugs police as it sailed through the Baltic Sea.
Some 12 hours later the intruders apparently left the ship on a high-speed inflatable boat and allowed the vessel to continue on its passage but with its communications equipment damaged.
Then, on August 3rd, Dover Coastguard was informed by Interpol that the crew had been hijacked in the Baltic Sea and was asked to be alert as it passed through the Channel.
But the Arctic Sea had already completed its voyage through the Strait of Dover. It was last recorded on the AISLive ship tracking system off the coast of Brest, northern France, just before 1.30am on July 30th.
Mark Clark, of the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency, said Dover Coastguard was unsuspecting of anything untoward as a supposed crew member radioed before the ship journeyed through the Channel.
He said: “It’s bizarre. There is no coastguard I know who can remember anything like this happening. Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?”
PA