Summary
The Russian cargo ship Ursa Major sank in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria after an engine room explosion.
Fourteen crew members were rescued, but two remain missing.
The ship, sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 for transporting cargo to Russia’s military, was reportedly en route to Vladivostok carrying two cranes and other equipment. Its exact destination remains unconfirmed.
The incident occurred near the Sparta, another sanctioned Russian ship linked to transporting military equipment from Syria. The cause of the explosion on Ursa Major is still unknown.
A scooter exploded in Moscow last week, and now a cargo ship carrying military equipment exploded this week? Huh.
At this point, I haven’t seen any experts thinking of the GUR as a cause, they just reported about it since they keenly monitor everything Russian.
People write that it was transporting cranes. On the deck, I see large structures which match the description. We can’t see into the cargo hold, though.
GUR’s report was about “Sparta” developing fuel pump problems. Since “Ursa Major” has the alias “Sparta 3”, I think Ukraininans may have mixed up numbers in their report and it could have been “Ursa Major” which developed fuel pump problems.
If the above premise holds true (no guarantee)… next I would guess that during repairs, an accident ignited a detonating mix of fuel vapours and the engine room became a potato cannon. Or maybe a fuel tank in the engine room blew apart. RIP for anyone in that compartment, probably a crack in the hull and maybe some loose cargo as a bonus.
A more sinister scenario would be “cranes on the deck and ammo in the hold”. But ammo is a gift the typically keeps on giving - if the first items blows up, subsequent items enter a chain reaction. This was not the case.
A far-fetched scenario would be an Ukrainian bomb planted in St. Petersburg or Kaliningrad (the ship was heading to Syria according to TWZ. So I doubt it. If Ukrainians could plant bombs anywhere in Russia, they would probably prefer to blow up something more interesting (like maybe an air defense system being returned from Syria by plane, or maybe the Kerch bridge, or some railway connecting Russia to North Korea, or something to that tune - since that would get them immediate benefits).
A very thoughtful reply, and I’ll bet you’re probably correct. The thing that gave me pause, though, was that explosions on cargo ships usually occur because of explosive cargo. The engines use bunker fuel, a heavy oil which is almost tar-like. It doesn’t vaporize at ambient temperatures. The engine room fires that I have heard of don’t tend to cause a ship to sink. I’m no expert, though, and I suppose there are other things aboard that could cause explosions, like batteries for emergency power?
Indeed, that is something which I overlooked - I didn’t even check what type of fuel the ship was using.
At this point, Russians claim (but skepticism would be warranted until someone has a recording) that not one but three explosions occurred in the engine room. Now, if that claim is true, then I would start thinking along the lines of “bombs planted in St. Petersburg”.