A Russian cargo ship on its way to Syria sank in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday after an explosion in its engine room. Ukrainian military intelligence claims the ship had been sent to collect Russian weapons and military gear from Syria after the fall of Moscow-supported dictator Bashar Assad.
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the ship, which was named Ursa Major, sank in the Mediterranean south of Spain after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. Fourteen members of the crew were rescued and taken to a port in Spain, while two remain unaccounted for.
The Ursa Major was the flagship vessel for a Russian shipping company called Oboronlogistika, which frequently carries cargo for the Russian Defense Ministry. Bloomberg News on Tuesday described it as “the biggest cargo ship belonging to the Russian military’s logistics fleet.”
Oboronlogistika and many of its ships, including Ursa Major, were sanctioned by the U.S. State Department in May 2022 for helping to resupply Russian troops involved in the illegal occupation of Crimea.
A press release from Oboronlogistika claimed the ship was en route to Vladivostok with two large cranes that would be used for civilian port construction, but Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (commonly known by its Ukrainian acronym GUR) claimed the Ursa Major was in fact bound for Syria, where it would collect Russian weapons and military equipment from the port of Tartus.
Tartus is Russia’s only refueling port on the Mediterranean. It was originally built in 1977 under the first Assad dictator, Hafez al-Assad, and was neglected after the fall of the Soviet Union until 2015, when Russia intervened on behalf of Hafez’s son Bashar in the Syrian civil war.
Russia signed a 49-year lease for the port with Bashar Assad’s government in 2019, a lease that appears to have become null and void after Assad was driven out of Damascus by rebels on December 8. The victorious Islamist rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have yet to make an official statement about whether Russia will required to vacate the Tartus naval base.
The Ursa Major departed from St. Petersburg, Russia, twelve days ago, according to Russian state media accounts. Official maritime records about its voyage and destination are muddled, in part because the ship is also known by another name, Sparta III, and it was traveling in the company of another Russian ship called Sparta.
On Monday, Ukrainian intelligence reported the Ursa Major broke down off the coast of Portugal, but was able to repair the damage and resume its course. While it was passing between Spain and Algeria, the ship experienced an explosion in its engine room.
Other passing vessels posted video to social media showing the Russian cargo ship listing badly to one side as it limped along on its course until it finally sank. As of late Tuesday morning, no details about the explosion have been provided by either Russian or Ukrainian officials.