‘Ursa Major.’
Portuguese air force photo
A unique and difficult-to-replace sealift ship operated by the Kremlin’s military logistics company sank in the Mediterranean Sea near Spain on Christmas Eve. The loss of the 13,000-ton M/V Ursa Major is a major blow to Oboronlogistika and the battered Russian shipbuilding industry.
The German-built Ursa Major was just 15 years old, young for an auxiliary vessel, when she suffered what the Russian Crisis Management Center described as a “blast” in her engine room. The ship was spotted listing to starboard before ultimately sinking. Nearby ships rescued all but two of her 16 crew.
Ursa Major was a special asset. She was Oboronlogistika’s biggest ship, and also one of the few vessels on the company registry with roll-on/roll-off ramps for vehicles to drive directly into and out of her hold as well as top-mounted cranes for vertical loading. “There simply isn’t a larger universal RO/RO-LO/LO-class cargo ship (capable of horizontal and vertical loading),” one Russian blogger moaned in a missive translated by Estonian analyst WarTranslated.
Ursa Major once supported Russia’s Syria garrison, which is now imperiled as a new regime takes over in the war-torn country. But she reportedly was on other duty when she sank. The RO/RO ship sailed from Saint Petersburg in mid-December bound for Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast. She passed through the English Channel on Dec. 16 alongside fellow Russian auxiliary Sparta and the Russian navy corvette RFS Soobrazitelnyy.
A Royal Navy Type 23 frigate shadowed the Russians on the passage. Later, a Portuguese air force Lockheed Martin P-3 patrol plane checked in.
Visible on Ursa Major’s deck at the time: a pair of heavy cranes. The cranes and a pair of special hatches for nuclear-powered icebreakers were reportedly Ursa Major’s main cargo as she sailed south through the Med toward the Suez Canal, following the southerly route to Vladivostok rather than the Northern Sea Route in order to avoid winter ice. The unwieldy cranes may have made Ursa Major top-heavy, potentially contributing to her loss.
“Along with the ship, the cranes destined for the Vladivostok terminal and luxury hatches for icebreakers went to the bottom,” the blogger complained. “Ursa Major’s task in the Far East was to fulfill state objectives related to ‘developing port infrastructure and the Northern Sea Route,’ which are now, quite evidently, disrupted.”