Arctic Sea crew taken to Cape Verde awaiting flight to Russia
RF Ambassador Alexander Karpushin said earlier on local radio that all the necessary steps were taken for the transportation of the Arctic Sea crew from the ship to airport. "It may happen any moment," the diplomat added.
Representatives of the Cape Verde authorities confirmed that a plane was waiting for the Russians at the Sal international airport to airlift them to their home country.
On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told the supreme commander-in-chief, President Dmitry Medvedev that the Ladny submarine chaser freed the Arctic Sea freighter without a single shot fired, According to the minister, eight attackers who had seized the ship were arrested in the operation. "Eight people - not the crewmembers staying on it - were arrested," Serdyukov said. They are citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Russia.
The Arctic Sea (formerly the Okhotskoye) freighter was to arrive in the Algerian port Bejaia with a cargo of timber from Finland on August 4. Radio communication with the vessel had been disrupted on July 28, after which information appeared that it survived an armed attack. The vessel belongs to Arctic Sea Ltd registered in Malta with Valetta as its homeport. Its operator is the Finnish company Solchart with Russian management and technical support service in Arkhangelsk that manages also another one and a half dozen of ships. The whole crew of the motor ship - 15 people - was also hired in Arkhangelsk from local sailors.
The Arctic Sea freighter the mysterious disappearance of which made it one of the main headlines of the world press, was spotted on Monday, August 17 at 01:00, Moscow time 300 miles off Cape Verde.
The missing Arctic Sea dry cargo ship has been found off the Cape Verde Islands, its crew are alive and have been transferred to another ship, Anatoly Serdyukov said earlier in the day. "The crew have been transferred to another ship. They are being interrogated now in order to find out what happened," the minister said.
NATO helped Russia with "verify accurate information" on the whereabouts of the missing Arctic Sea dry cargo ship, Russian permanent representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said on Monday. He noted that false information was intentionally fed to mass media during the operation in order to keep Russian plans secret. The search for the missing Arctic sea dry cargo ship will go down in history, he said. The operation "will be included in the books both in terms of operational activities and information coverage," Rogozin said.
The Russian Prosecutor's Investigative Committee (SKP) said on August 18 that it opened criminal proceedings over the fact of abduction of the Arctic Sea vessel's crew; Kazinform cites Itar-Tass. See www.itar-tass.com for full version.