Medvedev: Europe must be punished…

Europe should be punished by all available means since it refused to help Russian sailors after a Russian cargo ship sank in the Mediterranean Sea, said Deputy President of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

He wrote on his account on the Telegram channel that Europe must be punished by all available means: political, economic and all kinds of hybrid.

Medvedev said that it was revealed today that the crew of the Norwegian ship “Oslo Carrier 3” refused to rescue Russian sailors after the Russian cargo ship “Veliki Medved” sank in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Europe represents the main stronghold of Russophobia in the world and is to blame for the collapse of the Istanbul negotiations (for Ukraine),” Medvedev said, RIA Novosti reported.

Previously, the company “Oboronlogistika”, which is the owner of the Russian ship, told the RIA Novosti agency that the crew of the Norwegian ship “Oslo Carrier 3” refused for an unknown reason to rescue the Russian sailors from the cargo ship “Veliki Medved” after it sank in Mediterranean Sea.

The company announced that the rescue boat with Russian sailors headed towards the nearby Norwegian ship, when the crew of that ship refused to receive the crew members of the “Big Bear”, referring to a certain prohibition.

The company “Oboronlogistika” characterized such behavior of the crew of the Norwegian ship as a gross violation of the tenth article of the International Convention on Salvage from 1989.
A cargo ship sank on Monday in the Mediterranean Sea, and “Oboronlogistika” states that the cause of the incident was a terrorist attack.

“Veliki Medved” is a cargo ship built in 2009, and it sailed under the Russian flag from Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok, where it was supposed to arrive on January 22. The ship sank about 107 kilometers from the Spanish coast and about 72 kilometers from the Algerian coast, 14 crew members were rescued, and two are missing.

The “Big Bear” sank in international waters between Spain and Algeria, after an explosion in the engine plant, Spanish media reported.

According to the newspaper “Espanjol”, several ships that were in the same area participated in the rescue operation, and later a Spanish rescue ship and a patrol boat of the Spanish Navy joined the search.