10.09.2009
The State Department declines to comment media reports that cargo ship Arctic Sea might have carried missiles for S-300 SAM system. Ian Kelly, official representative of the State Department refused speculation about the matter, as Ekho Moskvy reports.
"I have only seen the media reports, and there's nothing to add", - the official said.
We recall that Sergey Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister has previously refuted the information of
S-300 systems on board of hijacked
Arctic Sea.
"Concerning
S-300 systems on
Arctic Sea, that is absolute untruth. I can say that Russian authorities will conduct investigation on the ship in the nearest time; the flag state officials will be also invited to participate, everything is going to be transparent. Hopefully, it will be found out that all rumors are absolutely groundless", - said Lavrov.
Russia's official statements appeared after British
Sunday Times had published an article about
Arctic Sea carried weapons for Iran. As the author writes, Israeli secret service Mossad was tracking the vessel.
As it was previously said, cargo ship
Arctic Sea which sailed from Finland to Algeria with cargo of wood disappeared in Baltic Sea in few days.
Russian authorities state, that
Arctic Sea ship was hijacked on July, 24 at 10 p.m., Estonian time, when a motor boat with 8 persons on board approached the cargo vessel located in Sweden territorial waters. Pirates acting like sufferers burst into the ship and threatening the crew demanded to obey their orders.
The vessel's cargo was 6700 cubic meters of wood at the cost of about ?1,16 million.
Russian corvette
Ladny found Malta-flag cargo ship
Arctic Sea in Atlantic Ocean near Cape Verde Islands in mid-August. Russian Air Force and Navy without a shot freed the crew of hijacked ship consisted of 15 Russian citizens. Eight persons, not crew members, were placed under arrest.
Moscow Basmanny Court granted the motion of major case investigators of the RF Main Investigations Directorate, having arrested
Arctic Sea cargo vessel on August, 26.
Presumed hijackers of
Arctic Sea ship declare their affiliation with ecological organization. Meanwhile, the ship's crew gives evidence of violence from the hijackers. It is also said that numerous tattoos were seen on bodies of "ecologists", that testifies of police records of them.
The
S-300 is a midrange surface-to-air missile system (upon NATO classification, SA-10
Grumble, SA-12
Giant/
Gladiator, SA-20
Gargoyle). Full-scale production of the system (
S-300PT) was started in 1975. In 1978 the system's trials were completed. The first
S-300PT regiment started combat alert term in 1979.
The system is designed for protection of huge industrial and administrative assets, military bases and command posts from enemy's aerospace attack means. It is capable to destroy ballistic and missile targets; there is a theoretical capability to strike on ground targets. The
S-300 was the first multichannel SAM system capable to track up to 6 targets simultaneously and launch up to 12 missiles on them.
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