Pirates under escort. Russian Navy against the "black" operations of foreign intelligence services
The problems that Russia has with the naval fleet, should not block us from how much we still need it. And it’s best to prove it with concrete examples.
The example of the role of the fleet in the Syrian war was not the only one, it was simply the largest. For contrast, it is worth referring to the “small” example of a single small-scale operation, in which Russia could not do without the Navy, and a failure in which would potentially be fraught with grave consequences.
It's about stories, is still full of mysteries: the seizure and release of the Arctic Sea bulk carrier.
21 July 2009, the Uglegorsk-class cargo ship, then named the Arctic Sea, left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari with a cargo of timber for Algeria. The vessel was supposed to reach the port of Bejaia 4 August. Everything went normally, as usual.
24 July in 2 hours 10 minutes in the wheelhouse broke people with weapons. They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols. Later it turned out that they had boarded an inflatable boat that had caught up with the vessel in the neutral waters of the Baltic. The attackers tied up the crew, incidentally beating all those who resisted, and one of the crew members had their teeth knocked out by a machine gun butt.
The attackers explained, expressing in English with a strong accent, that they were from the Swedish drug police. One of them even wore a badge with the word Polis (“Police” in Swedish), but it was clear that this was not the police. No police work that way.
The crew was tied up and locked in cabins.
Further events resembled a bad fighter. The invaders forced the crew to lead the ship bypassing Europe - where it was supposed to go. When the July 28 Strait in Pas-de-Calais required contact with the UK Coast Guard, the crew was forced to do so. After the passage of the Pas-de-Calais, the vessel continued to move around Europe, and its AIS terminal was disconnected in the Bay of Biscay. The ship is gone.
Later, 3 of August (according to press data “fresh” at that time, the day before, but it doesn’t matter), the owner of the Finnish company Solchart, owning the vessel, was called by Russian citizen Viktor Matveyev by someone who said that he ( ) and his 25 "soldier" seized the vessel, and if they did not receive a ransom, they would start killing crew members. It became clear that the ship was not just lost, but that it had been captured, and there were hostages on board. The amount of the ransom was 1,5 million dollars. Similar requirements were transferred to the cargo owner, a Russian company. The company appealed to the FSB.
4 August ship did not show up at port of destination.
11 August 2009, Matveev made a statement to the press, from which it followed that the vessel had a panic button broken, emergency buoys were stolen, and that he had turned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Soon the information reached the very top. The next day, 12 in August, the Kremlin’s press service announced that President Dmitry Medvedev had instructed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to take steps to search for the cargo ship. By that time, the order to begin the search for the Arctic Sea had already diverged among the performers.
So, those who were to stop the development of this drama entered the arena.
The only force capable of finding a stolen cargo ship somewhere in the oceans was the Russian Navy.
The sailors had little information. The point at which the AIS turned off was known. The speed with which the ship could go from this point was clear. It was clear how much fuel and water were on board, and how long the Arctic Sea could be at sea. Navy intelligence carefully analyzed data from the marine aviation and from naval auxiliary vessels at sea, from the power structures of foreign states. So, the Spanish Coast Guard reported that the cargo ship did not pass the Strait of Gibraltar, which means that it was not worth looking for it in the Mediterranean Sea. NATO was also looking for a ship, including from the air. Slowly, hour after hour, the search area narrowed. At a certain point, it turned out to be small enough to be combed out by a warship.
Fortunately, such a ship near the desired area was. It turned out to be the Black Sea Fleet patrol ship "Ladny".
A few days before the events described, “Ladny” calmly followed the Strait of Gibraltar with the goal of later turning north and joining the forces of the Navy, which were to participate in the “West-2009” strategic exercises. The ship was commanded by the captain of the 2 rank Alexander Schwartz. On board was a group of senior officers of the Black Sea Fleet, including deputy commander of a division of surface ships of the captain 1 rank Igor Smolyak and chief of staff of the brigade of anti-submarine ships captain 1 rank Oleg Shastov. On board the "Ladny" was a detachment of marines under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ruslan Satdinov.
The ship was not far from Gibraltar when the order came - to look for a cargo ship. According to Navy intelligence, “Ladny” should not have turned north, as it was envisaged by the march plan, but south, into the relatively unknown for Black Sea coastal areas of the central Atlantic, where none of the “Ladny” crew had been before.
And already August 14 "Ladny" already was not far from the stolen cargo ship.
Two days later, "Ladny" was able to catch up with the Arctic Sea. On the night of 16 on 17 in August, 300 miles from Cape Verde, in the tropical night darkness, "Ladny" got close to the cargo ship. There was a requirement to stop the car and go to the drift. The wife of the car thief Dmitriy Savin (Savins) later claimed that her husband had called her and said that the Russians were threatening to open fire if the ship did not stop. According to Russian data, “Ladny” used only a pair of red signal flares.
And here the invaders threw out the focus - they introduced themselves as the North Korean ship Jon Jin 2. The man who spoke with “Ladny” even imitated a Korean accent. But the commander of the "Ladny" did not believe in this view, contacted the General Staff of the Navy and reported. In Moscow, with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we quickly managed to contact representatives of the DPRK and find out where the ship with this name really is. It turned out that it is in a completely different place. This information, as well as the description of the North Korean ship, was transmitted to the Ladny. Although illumination flares were launched from “Okay” to inspect the vessel that had stopped, the night did not allow to examine it in detail, but at dawn it immediately became clear that it was not “Korean” - neither the size nor the number of cranes corresponded to the description of the Korean vessel. And the letters that spelled the name on the board were uneven, were not on the same level, and there were some non-standard ones, as if they were hurriedly applied. The overtaken cargo ship itself was like one-on-one Arctic Sea.
During the morning of August 17 followed a new round of negotiations. The commander of the “Ladny” understood that a full-fledged assault on the cargo ship would not be easy - there was no helicopter on board the TFR, he could not carry it, and the Marines couldn’t send such things to him, although they were more or less well prepared. In addition, they were banal enough. Negotiations looked much more profitable option.
And the Black Sea sailors managed to conceive. After lengthy negotiations, the pirates surrendered and accepted the requirements of the commander of the “Ladny” - to go down to the whaleboat together with the crew members, without arms, to wind white rags on their heads as an identifying mark and then surrender in this form.
Drama with the seizure of the ship over. On the same day, A. Serdyukov reported to D. Medvedev that the cargo ship was released.
From the comment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 1272-25-08-2009:
Further events are described in the press - frankly, the leadership of the Russian Federation and law enforcement agencies after the brilliant release of the ship by the warship of the Black Sea Fleet did not act brilliantly, showing insufficient organizational skills. It got to the bankruptcy of the shipowner. But the main thing (the release of the ship and the seizure of the hijackers) has already been done.
And this was done by the crew of the TFR “Ladny”.
Concluding the story about the actions of the Navy in this story, let us say that the return of the Arctic Sea back to the line, its supply and transfer to the Mediterranean were also provided by ships and vessels of the Navy - SMT Iman, sea tugs and Ladny itself.
The investigation could not fully reveal who was behind the hijackers. They themselves told crazy versions that did not correlate with reality. Thus, it is obvious that the gang was used "in the dark." They knew a minimum, allowing them to carry out the seizure and hijacking of the vessel, but, apparently, they did not know what to do next. According to the Sunday Times, which interviewed members of the crew of the stolen cargo ship, the gangsters planned to leave the ship for several days from the moment of capture and prepared a lifeboat for this. According to the same crew member, when “Ladny” caught up with the Arctic Sea, the bandits were already broken and understood that this was the end. Apparently, therefore, there was no assault.
Nevertheless, the investigation was able to establish one of the organizers of the seizure. It turned out to be the former head of the Security Coordination Office of Estonia (Estonian secret service) Eerik-Nijles Cross. At the start of 2012, Cross was put on the international wanted list. However, there is a versionthat he, too, was used "in the dark."
Here, however, it is necessary to make a remark. Cross, of course, using his old connections in the structures, could provide Savina with a weapon and give all the necessary information. However, when Savin and his gang found nothing but timber on board, they had to leave. The idea of receiving a ransom as a result of a pirate seizure of a ship in Europe was supposed to alarm the "pirates". In addition, it is known that they could not even give any details for which it would be necessary to transfer the ransom.
In addition, the very idea that this Cross was so annoying to “Moscow” that it was dealt with in such an intricate (to put it mildly) way, gives away madness. Everything could have been done much more simply - even if we believed that from the point of view of experts in “secret wars” a clown (let's call things by their proper names) really could annoy someone. It is necessary to separate the facts from the interpretations yet.
What we know for sure.
The organizer of the seizure (visible) was, apparently, the former high-ranking head of the Estonian special services Eerik Cross. Cross previously had extensive experience working with Americans, including in Iraq. He recruited performers who had no previous experience in this kind of affairs. But they easily coped with the seizure of the vessel. If someone does not understand the significance of this fact, then let him try to “drive” a ship on a motorboat on the high seas (even seeing him at the AIS terminal), secretly approach the board and climb onto it with a weapon while on the move. Note that the boat had to somehow get there, like a weapon. All of this suggests that the pirates were somewhere just a little bit, but they trained before going "on business" and organized their transfer to neutral waters with a boat and a weapon. And this requires resources that the retired Cross could not possess. Further, the episode described by the crew members with the plans of the invaders to leave the ship. From the side it looks as if the hijackers “on the move” were given a new introduction, moreover, so that it was absolutely impossible to refuse. What was the introduction and who gave it?
Further, the ship followed to the region from where it actually had only two roads - either to Africa or to the Western Hemisphere. Where did he go? Why exactly there?
Well, the end of the chase was marked by the complete loss by the bandits of the meaning of what they were doing, which determined their voluntary surrender to the Russian Navy. From the outside, this is a great reminder of the loss of communication with the organizers - the gangsters could simply be "abandoned" by those who had previously conducted them, which led to ridiculous wanderings across the Atlantic until the fuel and water were almost completely spent.
Further, the story was "let out a smoke" - to this day the version about involvement in the hijacking of the Israeli special services roams from one source to another. But it is “framed” so idiotically that it is impossible to believe in it, in the way that the press presents it. The theory that Russian rockets were allegedly sent to Iran from Finland, allegedly shoved into ballast tanks (!), Also, to put it mildly, does not shine with consistency and slimness.
We still do not really know what it was. And we will not know at least until Eerik Cross is questioned in the UK, and maybe even after.
But one thing is absolutely clear: when such informational chaos occurs around some kind of armed action, this means that there is a special service behind the action, which knows how to confuse tracks well. A secret service capable of training a gang of terrorists, supplying it with automatic weapons, taking it to the right area of the sea, disembarking a boat with weapons and ammunition, making it after the seizure of the vessel, when there is no way back, act on some other plan, and then confuse everything traces so that the ends are not found.
Capturing the vessel Arctic Sea was part of some kind of "black" operation, the full plan of which we can only guess. The operation, the organizers of which for some reason needed a dry cargo ship with a Russian crew, owned by a company controlled by a Russian citizen, for some reason, it was necessary to hijack it either to southern Africa or to the Western Hemisphere ... to do what? And one of the performers was the former head of one of the most pro-Western intelligence agencies in the world, who has experience working with Americans in Iraq.
These are facts. But Israel, searching for Iranian missiles in ballast tanks of a dry cargo ship that came out of Finland by Latvian unemployed forces, or Russia, who organized such a corps de ballet in order to kick an Estonian retiree tangled in finance and women, is just dust in the eyes.
This, by the way, does not mean that this secret service unknown to us was not Israeli, it means that the explanations of the press about Israel’s involvement are improbable - and this is not the same thing.
We do not know (do not know yet) who was behind the abduction of the cargo ship. We have no idea what would have happened if the organizers had what they had in mind, to the end. How many victims would there be? What would it be for our country? We do not know. But then we know who very convincingly put an end to the voyage of the Arctic Sea.
TFR "Ladny", a combat ship of the 1135 project, even during construction, could not be attributed to the most modern ships, although it had a good HAK and a good anti-submarine missile system for those times. But the ship could not carry the helicopter, it could strike the surface ships either with anti-aircraft missiles or with the help of 76-mm guns, that is, at close range. He could never beat off massive air strikes. Storozhevik-anti-submarine with trimmed without a helicopter functionality.
Nevertheless, the ship turned out to be quite good - seaworthy, fast and with a good range, able to hunt submarines and shallow water near the shore, and in the far sea zone, and in the ocean too, albeit with an eye to excitement. These ships have long been the "workhorses" of the Soviet Navy, and after the Russian Federation.
The task that Ladny received in August of 2009 was, to put it mildly, not his. Begin the ship's invaders to kill the hostages, the storming of the ship would be in question; there was no helicopter on Ladno from which it would be possible to crush the gangsters with machine-gun fire, as happened during the assault on the tanker Moscow University by marines. The Marines from Ladny would have to climb the ship from the boats, attacking a comparable-sized enemy, not much worse than an armed one. Then, when the cargo ship was released, the sailors, who provided the crew members with their berths, had to live in battle posts - there was no other place.
But another thing was important - firstly, this ship was. He was at the right time and place, on the way from one sea to another through the open ocean. Secondly, his commander, in one way or another, solved the task in an almost perfect way - nullifying the existing “Ladny” shortcomings, which speaks of the importance of training naval officers, and that sometimes their training turns out to be more important than the equipment they have Thirdly, and this is a very important point: “Ladny”, like all the “Stormers” of the 1135 project, is a very fast ship by modern standards, it is in principle one of the fastest ships with a displacement hull in the Navy. And one of the fastest warships in the world at the moment, so far. And fourthly, this is not the smallest ship, its displacement is 3200 tons, and the contours allow you to go with great excitement. Formally, being a ship of the far sea zone, it can mainly perform tasks in the ocean.
Apologists for the "mosquito fleet", "patrol ships" and the like are worth considering. No RTOs and similar trifles could catch up with the Arctic Sea. The “patrol ship” of the 22160 project could not catch him, moreover, he simply would not have been in that place at that time, if he had existed in those years - no one would have sent this misunderstanding to strategic exercises. And plus in the form of having a helicopter on board "would not play" in these conditions. The task would not be solved. And it was quite real, and there are no guarantees that in some variations it will not happen again in this or that region of the planet. What would we do with a fully coastal fleet in 2009? What will we do with it if in the future such a seizure happens again?
Moreover, if events happened differently, the “Ladny” superiority over the ships we are building now would be even more complete - at least, stopping a large ship with a pair of 76 millimeters is much easier than a single gun, let even 100-mm.
The history of the Arctic Sea once again confirms: we need a surface fleet, and it must be a fleet capable of performing tasks in the far sea and ocean zones. And we need more ships, even if outdated, but giving us the opportunity to always have at least an old TFR in the potential crisis zone. So, it is necessary to repair and modernize the old ships to the maximum and “pull” them until it becomes possible to replace them with new ones. And these new ones must be able to act far from home.
We can take such a lesson today from the history of the capture of the Arctic Sea bulk carrier. Even out of touch with the one who organized his capture in reality.
The example of the role of the fleet in the Syrian war was not the only one, it was simply the largest. For contrast, it is worth referring to the “small” example of a single small-scale operation, in which Russia could not do without the Navy, and a failure in which would potentially be fraught with grave consequences.
It's about stories, is still full of mysteries: the seizure and release of the Arctic Sea bulk carrier.
TFR "Ladny" - the ship that "put an end" in the hijacking.
How it all began
21 July 2009, the Uglegorsk-class cargo ship, then named the Arctic Sea, left the Finnish port of Pietarsaari with a cargo of timber for Algeria. The vessel was supposed to reach the port of Bejaia 4 August. Everything went normally, as usual.
24 July in 2 hours 10 minutes in the wheelhouse broke people with weapons. They were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols. Later it turned out that they had boarded an inflatable boat that had caught up with the vessel in the neutral waters of the Baltic. The attackers tied up the crew, incidentally beating all those who resisted, and one of the crew members had their teeth knocked out by a machine gun butt.
Arctic Sea cargo ship
The attackers explained, expressing in English with a strong accent, that they were from the Swedish drug police. One of them even wore a badge with the word Polis (“Police” in Swedish), but it was clear that this was not the police. No police work that way.
The crew was tied up and locked in cabins.
Further events resembled a bad fighter. The invaders forced the crew to lead the ship bypassing Europe - where it was supposed to go. When the July 28 Strait in Pas-de-Calais required contact with the UK Coast Guard, the crew was forced to do so. After the passage of the Pas-de-Calais, the vessel continued to move around Europe, and its AIS terminal was disconnected in the Bay of Biscay. The ship is gone.
Later, 3 of August (according to press data “fresh” at that time, the day before, but it doesn’t matter), the owner of the Finnish company Solchart, owning the vessel, was called by Russian citizen Viktor Matveyev by someone who said that he ( ) and his 25 "soldier" seized the vessel, and if they did not receive a ransom, they would start killing crew members. It became clear that the ship was not just lost, but that it had been captured, and there were hostages on board. The amount of the ransom was 1,5 million dollars. Similar requirements were transferred to the cargo owner, a Russian company. The company appealed to the FSB.
4 August ship did not show up at port of destination.
11 August 2009, Matveev made a statement to the press, from which it followed that the vessel had a panic button broken, emergency buoys were stolen, and that he had turned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Soon the information reached the very top. The next day, 12 in August, the Kremlin’s press service announced that President Dmitry Medvedev had instructed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to take steps to search for the cargo ship. By that time, the order to begin the search for the Arctic Sea had already diverged among the performers.
So, those who were to stop the development of this drama entered the arena.
From solo voyage to fighting “pirates”
The only force capable of finding a stolen cargo ship somewhere in the oceans was the Russian Navy.
The sailors had little information. The point at which the AIS turned off was known. The speed with which the ship could go from this point was clear. It was clear how much fuel and water were on board, and how long the Arctic Sea could be at sea. Navy intelligence carefully analyzed data from the marine aviation and from naval auxiliary vessels at sea, from the power structures of foreign states. So, the Spanish Coast Guard reported that the cargo ship did not pass the Strait of Gibraltar, which means that it was not worth looking for it in the Mediterranean Sea. NATO was also looking for a ship, including from the air. Slowly, hour after hour, the search area narrowed. At a certain point, it turned out to be small enough to be combed out by a warship.
Fortunately, such a ship near the desired area was. It turned out to be the Black Sea Fleet patrol ship "Ladny".
A few days before the events described, “Ladny” calmly followed the Strait of Gibraltar with the goal of later turning north and joining the forces of the Navy, which were to participate in the “West-2009” strategic exercises. The ship was commanded by the captain of the 2 rank Alexander Schwartz. On board was a group of senior officers of the Black Sea Fleet, including deputy commander of a division of surface ships of the captain 1 rank Igor Smolyak and chief of staff of the brigade of anti-submarine ships captain 1 rank Oleg Shastov. On board the "Ladny" was a detachment of marines under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ruslan Satdinov.
The ship was not far from Gibraltar when the order came - to look for a cargo ship. According to Navy intelligence, “Ladny” should not have turned north, as it was envisaged by the march plan, but south, into the relatively unknown for Black Sea coastal areas of the central Atlantic, where none of the “Ladny” crew had been before.
And already August 14 "Ladny" already was not far from the stolen cargo ship.
Two days later, "Ladny" was able to catch up with the Arctic Sea. On the night of 16 on 17 in August, 300 miles from Cape Verde, in the tropical night darkness, "Ladny" got close to the cargo ship. There was a requirement to stop the car and go to the drift. The wife of the car thief Dmitriy Savin (Savins) later claimed that her husband had called her and said that the Russians were threatening to open fire if the ship did not stop. According to Russian data, “Ladny” used only a pair of red signal flares.
And here the invaders threw out the focus - they introduced themselves as the North Korean ship Jon Jin 2. The man who spoke with “Ladny” even imitated a Korean accent. But the commander of the "Ladny" did not believe in this view, contacted the General Staff of the Navy and reported. In Moscow, with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we quickly managed to contact representatives of the DPRK and find out where the ship with this name really is. It turned out that it is in a completely different place. This information, as well as the description of the North Korean ship, was transmitted to the Ladny. Although illumination flares were launched from “Okay” to inspect the vessel that had stopped, the night did not allow to examine it in detail, but at dawn it immediately became clear that it was not “Korean” - neither the size nor the number of cranes corresponded to the description of the Korean vessel. And the letters that spelled the name on the board were uneven, were not on the same level, and there were some non-standard ones, as if they were hurriedly applied. The overtaken cargo ship itself was like one-on-one Arctic Sea.
Jon Jin 2. The invaders of the Arctic Sea tried to pretend to be this vessel.
During the morning of August 17 followed a new round of negotiations. The commander of the “Ladny” understood that a full-fledged assault on the cargo ship would not be easy - there was no helicopter on board the TFR, he could not carry it, and the Marines couldn’t send such things to him, although they were more or less well prepared. In addition, they were banal enough. Negotiations looked much more profitable option.
And the Black Sea sailors managed to conceive. After lengthy negotiations, the pirates surrendered and accepted the requirements of the commander of the “Ladny” - to go down to the whaleboat together with the crew members, without arms, to wind white rags on their heads as an identifying mark and then surrender in this form.
Drama with the seizure of the ship over. On the same day, A. Serdyukov reported to D. Medvedev that the cargo ship was released.
From the comment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 1272-25-08-2009:
On August 18, the Russian embassy in Cape Verde requested permission for the guard ship Ladny to enter the territorial waters of the Republic of Cape Verde in the region of Fr. Sal, and on the same day permission was obtained. 19 August around 12: 00 hours local time, the ship arrived and stood in the roads at about. Sal.
In order to transport 11 crew members and 8 detainees from board the patrol ship to Moscow for further investigative actions at the airport on. Sal 17 August and on the night of 18 on 19 August two military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force Il-76 arrived. On board was an investigative team and a division of the Russian military.
Official permission was received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cape Verde, and by 19: 00 19 of August all eight detainees and eleven crew members were sent aboard a military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force. On the same day in 21: 00 and in 22: 00 local time, the military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force flew to Moscow, where they arrived in the morning of August 20.
On the night of August 20, Cape Verde also abandoned the guard ship “Ladny”, which was heading towards the Atlantic Ocean drifting in the 250 miles southwest of Cape Verde, the Arctic Sea. On board of the latter are four crew members to carry the watch and several soldiers from the patrol ship "Ladny" in order to escort.
In order to transport 11 crew members and 8 detainees from board the patrol ship to Moscow for further investigative actions at the airport on. Sal 17 August and on the night of 18 on 19 August two military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force Il-76 arrived. On board was an investigative team and a division of the Russian military.
Official permission was received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cape Verde, and by 19: 00 19 of August all eight detainees and eleven crew members were sent aboard a military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force. On the same day in 21: 00 and in 22: 00 local time, the military transport aircraft of the Russian Air Force flew to Moscow, where they arrived in the morning of August 20.
On the night of August 20, Cape Verde also abandoned the guard ship “Ladny”, which was heading towards the Atlantic Ocean drifting in the 250 miles southwest of Cape Verde, the Arctic Sea. On board of the latter are four crew members to carry the watch and several soldiers from the patrol ship "Ladny" in order to escort.
Further events are described in the press - frankly, the leadership of the Russian Federation and law enforcement agencies after the brilliant release of the ship by the warship of the Black Sea Fleet did not act brilliantly, showing insufficient organizational skills. It got to the bankruptcy of the shipowner. But the main thing (the release of the ship and the seizure of the hijackers) has already been done.
And this was done by the crew of the TFR “Ladny”.
Already in Cape Verde. Marine with "Ladny" escorts pirate
Concluding the story about the actions of the Navy in this story, let us say that the return of the Arctic Sea back to the line, its supply and transfer to the Mediterranean were also provided by ships and vessels of the Navy - SMT Iman, sea tugs and Ladny itself.
Black ops in the Baltic, or A little about what it was
The investigation could not fully reveal who was behind the hijackers. They themselves told crazy versions that did not correlate with reality. Thus, it is obvious that the gang was used "in the dark." They knew a minimum, allowing them to carry out the seizure and hijacking of the vessel, but, apparently, they did not know what to do next. According to the Sunday Times, which interviewed members of the crew of the stolen cargo ship, the gangsters planned to leave the ship for several days from the moment of capture and prepared a lifeboat for this. According to the same crew member, when “Ladny” caught up with the Arctic Sea, the bandits were already broken and understood that this was the end. Apparently, therefore, there was no assault.
Nevertheless, the investigation was able to establish one of the organizers of the seizure. It turned out to be the former head of the Security Coordination Office of Estonia (Estonian secret service) Eerik-Nijles Cross. At the start of 2012, Cross was put on the international wanted list. However, there is a versionthat he, too, was used "in the dark."
And then the pirates began to confess. And one of them, a citizen of Latvia Dmitry Savin, who later received seven years for piracy, issued the name of the customer of the seizure of a dry cargo vessel - the former chief of the Security Coordination Bureau Eric-Niels Cross.
Crosses framed on request from Moscow
Cross and Savin owned small shares in the shipping company Pakri Tankers - approximately 5%. Of course, they had revenues, but they did not seem to cover the costs. And once, Cross allegedly told Savin that they could make good money together. The scenario is as follows: Cross reports a cargo ship carrying expensive weapons, and Savin is preparing a crew to seize the ship and deliver the weapon to the intended buyer. It is here that the figure of the former chief of Capo Alex Dressen reappears in history. The fact is that none other than Dressin, and informed his former colleague Cross about the Iranian C-300 on board the cargo ship. According to Dressen, he had a buyer. It was a matter of little - to seize the vessel and take him to the place of the future transaction.
On this very spot, Cross also turned from an Estonian intelligence officer who had so bored Moscow into an international pirate. Of course, Dressen knew perfectly well that there are no and cannot be any C-300 aboard the Arctic Sea. He also knew that Cross would never doubt the information provided by such a high-ranking person. And Cross willingly swallowed the bait, for nothing that prepared his famous British and American intelligence. To the great joy of Russian intelligence.
Of course, Estonian authorities are aware of the role of Dressin in the dirty story with the pirate-cross Cross, now, after the failure of the former chief of KaPo. For this reason, Tallinn conducted its trial of Cross, and Estonian prosecutor Lovely Lepp and MP Marco Mihkelson took the side of the former intelligence chief. In the end, Cross was found not guilty, which, however, had no effect on Russian claims and the abolition of his international search. Cross substitute? To a certain extent, yes. But after all, Cross, and no one else, was behind the pirate seizure of the Arctic Sea, having been tempted by easy money.
Crosses framed on request from Moscow
Cross and Savin owned small shares in the shipping company Pakri Tankers - approximately 5%. Of course, they had revenues, but they did not seem to cover the costs. And once, Cross allegedly told Savin that they could make good money together. The scenario is as follows: Cross reports a cargo ship carrying expensive weapons, and Savin is preparing a crew to seize the ship and deliver the weapon to the intended buyer. It is here that the figure of the former chief of Capo Alex Dressen reappears in history. The fact is that none other than Dressin, and informed his former colleague Cross about the Iranian C-300 on board the cargo ship. According to Dressen, he had a buyer. It was a matter of little - to seize the vessel and take him to the place of the future transaction.
On this very spot, Cross also turned from an Estonian intelligence officer who had so bored Moscow into an international pirate. Of course, Dressen knew perfectly well that there are no and cannot be any C-300 aboard the Arctic Sea. He also knew that Cross would never doubt the information provided by such a high-ranking person. And Cross willingly swallowed the bait, for nothing that prepared his famous British and American intelligence. To the great joy of Russian intelligence.
Of course, Estonian authorities are aware of the role of Dressin in the dirty story with the pirate-cross Cross, now, after the failure of the former chief of KaPo. For this reason, Tallinn conducted its trial of Cross, and Estonian prosecutor Lovely Lepp and MP Marco Mihkelson took the side of the former intelligence chief. In the end, Cross was found not guilty, which, however, had no effect on Russian claims and the abolition of his international search. Cross substitute? To a certain extent, yes. But after all, Cross, and no one else, was behind the pirate seizure of the Arctic Sea, having been tempted by easy money.
Here, however, it is necessary to make a remark. Cross, of course, using his old connections in the structures, could provide Savina with a weapon and give all the necessary information. However, when Savin and his gang found nothing but timber on board, they had to leave. The idea of receiving a ransom as a result of a pirate seizure of a ship in Europe was supposed to alarm the "pirates". In addition, it is known that they could not even give any details for which it would be necessary to transfer the ransom.
In addition, the very idea that this Cross was so annoying to “Moscow” that it was dealt with in such an intricate (to put it mildly) way, gives away madness. Everything could have been done much more simply - even if we believed that from the point of view of experts in “secret wars” a clown (let's call things by their proper names) really could annoy someone. It is necessary to separate the facts from the interpretations yet.
Allegedly, the central role of Cross raises doubts. Although he is definitely involved
What we know for sure.
The organizer of the seizure (visible) was, apparently, the former high-ranking head of the Estonian special services Eerik Cross. Cross previously had extensive experience working with Americans, including in Iraq. He recruited performers who had no previous experience in this kind of affairs. But they easily coped with the seizure of the vessel. If someone does not understand the significance of this fact, then let him try to “drive” a ship on a motorboat on the high seas (even seeing him at the AIS terminal), secretly approach the board and climb onto it with a weapon while on the move. Note that the boat had to somehow get there, like a weapon. All of this suggests that the pirates were somewhere just a little bit, but they trained before going "on business" and organized their transfer to neutral waters with a boat and a weapon. And this requires resources that the retired Cross could not possess. Further, the episode described by the crew members with the plans of the invaders to leave the ship. From the side it looks as if the hijackers “on the move” were given a new introduction, moreover, so that it was absolutely impossible to refuse. What was the introduction and who gave it?
Further, the ship followed to the region from where it actually had only two roads - either to Africa or to the Western Hemisphere. Where did he go? Why exactly there?
Well, the end of the chase was marked by the complete loss by the bandits of the meaning of what they were doing, which determined their voluntary surrender to the Russian Navy. From the outside, this is a great reminder of the loss of communication with the organizers - the gangsters could simply be "abandoned" by those who had previously conducted them, which led to ridiculous wanderings across the Atlantic until the fuel and water were almost completely spent.
Further, the story was "let out a smoke" - to this day the version about involvement in the hijacking of the Israeli special services roams from one source to another. But it is “framed” so idiotically that it is impossible to believe in it, in the way that the press presents it. The theory that Russian rockets were allegedly sent to Iran from Finland, allegedly shoved into ballast tanks (!), Also, to put it mildly, does not shine with consistency and slimness.
We still do not really know what it was. And we will not know at least until Eerik Cross is questioned in the UK, and maybe even after.
But one thing is absolutely clear: when such informational chaos occurs around some kind of armed action, this means that there is a special service behind the action, which knows how to confuse tracks well. A secret service capable of training a gang of terrorists, supplying it with automatic weapons, taking it to the right area of the sea, disembarking a boat with weapons and ammunition, making it after the seizure of the vessel, when there is no way back, act on some other plan, and then confuse everything traces so that the ends are not found.
Capturing the vessel Arctic Sea was part of some kind of "black" operation, the full plan of which we can only guess. The operation, the organizers of which for some reason needed a dry cargo ship with a Russian crew, owned by a company controlled by a Russian citizen, for some reason, it was necessary to hijack it either to southern Africa or to the Western Hemisphere ... to do what? And one of the performers was the former head of one of the most pro-Western intelligence agencies in the world, who has experience working with Americans in Iraq.
These are facts. But Israel, searching for Iranian missiles in ballast tanks of a dry cargo ship that came out of Finland by Latvian unemployed forces, or Russia, who organized such a corps de ballet in order to kick an Estonian retiree tangled in finance and women, is just dust in the eyes.
This, by the way, does not mean that this secret service unknown to us was not Israeli, it means that the explanations of the press about Israel’s involvement are improbable - and this is not the same thing.
We do not know (do not know yet) who was behind the abduction of the cargo ship. We have no idea what would have happened if the organizers had what they had in mind, to the end. How many victims would there be? What would it be for our country? We do not know. But then we know who very convincingly put an end to the voyage of the Arctic Sea.
About Ladno and the Navy as a whole
TFR "Ladny", a combat ship of the 1135 project, even during construction, could not be attributed to the most modern ships, although it had a good HAK and a good anti-submarine missile system for those times. But the ship could not carry the helicopter, it could strike the surface ships either with anti-aircraft missiles or with the help of 76-mm guns, that is, at close range. He could never beat off massive air strikes. Storozhevik-anti-submarine with trimmed without a helicopter functionality.
Nevertheless, the ship turned out to be quite good - seaworthy, fast and with a good range, able to hunt submarines and shallow water near the shore, and in the far sea zone, and in the ocean too, albeit with an eye to excitement. These ships have long been the "workhorses" of the Soviet Navy, and after the Russian Federation.
The task that Ladny received in August of 2009 was, to put it mildly, not his. Begin the ship's invaders to kill the hostages, the storming of the ship would be in question; there was no helicopter on Ladno from which it would be possible to crush the gangsters with machine-gun fire, as happened during the assault on the tanker Moscow University by marines. The Marines from Ladny would have to climb the ship from the boats, attacking a comparable-sized enemy, not much worse than an armed one. Then, when the cargo ship was released, the sailors, who provided the crew members with their berths, had to live in battle posts - there was no other place.
But another thing was important - firstly, this ship was. He was at the right time and place, on the way from one sea to another through the open ocean. Secondly, his commander, in one way or another, solved the task in an almost perfect way - nullifying the existing “Ladny” shortcomings, which speaks of the importance of training naval officers, and that sometimes their training turns out to be more important than the equipment they have Thirdly, and this is a very important point: “Ladny”, like all the “Stormers” of the 1135 project, is a very fast ship by modern standards, it is in principle one of the fastest ships with a displacement hull in the Navy. And one of the fastest warships in the world at the moment, so far. And fourthly, this is not the smallest ship, its displacement is 3200 tons, and the contours allow you to go with great excitement. Formally, being a ship of the far sea zone, it can mainly perform tasks in the ocean.
Apologists for the "mosquito fleet", "patrol ships" and the like are worth considering. No RTOs and similar trifles could catch up with the Arctic Sea. The “patrol ship” of the 22160 project could not catch him, moreover, he simply would not have been in that place at that time, if he had existed in those years - no one would have sent this misunderstanding to strategic exercises. And plus in the form of having a helicopter on board "would not play" in these conditions. The task would not be solved. And it was quite real, and there are no guarantees that in some variations it will not happen again in this or that region of the planet. What would we do with a fully coastal fleet in 2009? What will we do with it if in the future such a seizure happens again?
Moreover, if events happened differently, the “Ladny” superiority over the ships we are building now would be even more complete - at least, stopping a large ship with a pair of 76 millimeters is much easier than a single gun, let even 100-mm.
The history of the Arctic Sea once again confirms: we need a surface fleet, and it must be a fleet capable of performing tasks in the far sea and ocean zones. And we need more ships, even if outdated, but giving us the opportunity to always have at least an old TFR in the potential crisis zone. So, it is necessary to repair and modernize the old ships to the maximum and “pull” them until it becomes possible to replace them with new ones. And these new ones must be able to act far from home.
We can take such a lesson today from the history of the capture of the Arctic Sea bulk carrier. Even out of touch with the one who organized his capture in reality.
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